Any religious people watch the Wonders of Life last night?

[Jason2]

Nice of you to ignore the majority of the post RDM. In regards to your above post, the start of life is an absolutely critical question. For if life did not spontaneously arise has scientists claim, then there can be no evolution.

 

[V-Spec]

I meant his reply regarding to my answer regarding it. ie. Could he clarify what he meant by second law of dynamics

It's a rapid descent into the plug hole, when they start talking about the laws of thermodynamics and other such things, to try and back up a creationist argument

There have been countless kedge threads in SC and no doubt in here, where it just goes round and round, it's as funny as it's frustrating lol

 

[ringo747]

I know very little about evolution but since I just stumbled across this thread then maybe some kind soul can explain.

In the evolutionary process is there some kind of intelligence involved? For example, in order for eyes to evolve surely the concept of light/colour must have been "known about".

If a given species could only see in black/white, how does it "know" that there is such a thing as colour and therefore how does evolution explain the transition from colour capable eyes instead of black/white?

 

[DisrupTor75]

@ Jason2

Rather than give a long winded attempt at an explanation here ill post this vid, one small part of a series that should go some way to answering a lot of your questions.


Check out the full series here

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL126AFB53A6F002CC

 

[V-Spec]

I know very little about evolution but since I just stumbled across this thread then maybe some kind soul can explain.

In the evolutionary process is there some kind of intelligence involved? For example, in order for eyes to evolve surely the concept of light/colour must have been "known about".

There is no 'intelligence' at all, however; Dawkins explains the evolution of eyes in the blind watchmaker; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGFR-kFi0c8

If a given species could only see in black/white, how does it "know" that there is such a thing as colour and therefore how does evolution explain the transition from colour capable eyes instead of black/white?

It's an excellent question.

The ability to see colours depends on the 'spectral range' of the sensitivity of the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye, the genes that hold the information on how to build light sensitive cells are called 'opsin genes'

It turns out that 99% of all mammals only see two colours, and are known as dichromats, only a tiny subset of the great apes (including humans) have evolved the ability to see three colours (trichromats)

It's thought that the mechanism that induced this, was a duplication in the the opsin genes, which created more light sensitive cells, followed by a point mutation of the gene which meant the additional cells were sensitive to a greater range of colours.

This means that a monkey in the jungle, surrounded by green foliage would suddenly be able to see bright yellow bananas where it wouldn't have before, giving it an enormous survival advantage. If it's a male who reproduces and that gene gets passed into offspring, there's a chance that they too will see in three colours, it goes on and on until they become very successful.

So what was a chance occurrence of totally random mutation, was 'selected' naturally upon expression, resulting in an improvement, which ultimately goes on and on.

 

[DampDog]

Don't think the forum allows hot links. But here are a couple of links that explain the fundamentals of evolution.

h88tp://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IHowitworks.shtml

h88p://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

 

[zenf]

For those who believe in evolution, what's the purpose of life? To reproduce? That would mean that those don't want to or can't reproduce are living a purposeless existence. They might as well be put to death.

If you can't see any good reason for living other than passing God's test and going to heaven, I honestly feel sorry for you.

 

[estebanrey]

Fossil Gaps:

My next point brings me to transitional fossils. Why is it we cannot find no transitional fossils that can be categorized into one specific life form? When archeologists dig up fossils they just find completed life forms.

Of course all fossils were complete lifeforms and all lifeforms are be definition 'trassional forms'.

This is what you keep failing to understand. Macro-evolution takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years and extremely gradual. You will not find a fossil that has the head of a cat and the body of a fish because that is NOT how evolution works and something you are struggling to get into your head. As I said earlier, you are falling for the croco-duck fallacy.

This is why you don't understand it because you have a fundamental ignorance of what evolution states. You think that every animal is 'fully evolved' and then randomly one day one gives birth to a distinctly different animal that is half the creature it came from and half a new creature. That is not how evolution works.

You are a transitional form, as am I, as is my cat and every other living thing on the planet. The changes over time may well slow down, we may not evolve as much aesthetically in the next 30,000 years as we did in the last but we will evolve in some way, be it the way we react to disease, our intellectual capacity or some other non-tangible property.

But given enough time (and I'm talking millions of years) we may even evolve into a new species (by which I mean if you could get a modern human and go forward 5 million years, you may not be able to breed with the 'humans' that exist in that time.

 

[ringo747]

There is no 'intelligence' at all, however; Dawkins explains the evolution of eyes in the blind watchmaker; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGFR-kFi0c8



It's an excellent question.

The ability to see colours depends on the 'spectral range' of the sensitivity of the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye, the genes that hold the information on how to build light sensitive cells are called 'opsin genes'

It turns out that 99% of all mammals only see two colours, and are known as dichromats, only a tiny subset of the great apes (including humans) have evolved the ability to see three colours (trichromats)

It's thought that the mechanism that induced this, was a duplication in the the opsin genes, which created more light sensitive cells, followed by a point mutation of the gene which meant the additional cells were sensitive to a greater range of colours.

This means that a monkey in the jungle, surrounded by green foliage would suddenly be able to see bright yellow bananas where it wouldn't have before, giving it an enormous survival advantage. If it's a male who reproduces and that gene gets passed into offspring, there's a chance that they too will see in three colours, it goes on and on until they become very successful.

So what was a chance occurrence of totally random mutation, was 'selected' naturally upon expression, resulting in an improvement, which ultimately goes on and on.

I suppose this just pushes the question back. Why would some patches of skin have light sensative pigment to begin with? Did a little mucus just happen to appear?

It seems that the explanation "knows" that light exists and therefore must strive towards an eye-like mechanism. Why would the "deepen the pit" exercise even take place? If light isn't known about or understood then why would this even happen.

You talk about a monkey 'suddenly' being able to see bananas. I thought this would have taken millions of years? If this took milllions of years then the first monkeys to develop the extra light receptors would have died before the idea even got off the ground!

Edit: The opsin genes must have existed before the process you described obviously. Why would these even exist?

 

[Urgannagru]

Ok, lets dispute evolution:

I want to know how nature can create information. No one has ever seen nature create new information. It only ever follows patterns. If new information can be written, then why are universes laws still the same? How come they have not changed? If they did life would not exist on this planet. I have said many times on this board that random mutation cannot create new information. Mutations only ever lead to the deletion or substitution of information. Take the fruit flies for example. Many experiments have been done on them and yet these mutations only ever lead to dead or deformed fruit flies. No matter how many mutations they went through they still remained fruit flies!?

What is your definition of new information? As far as I'm concerned a change in the genetic code is new information, if the colour of creature change for an example red to green the instructions for it to be green weren't there before. I'm not sure what you're getting at when you reference why if theres a change in information in genetics why don't the laws of the universe change. Again I'm going to have to assume you mean that you're referring to the conservation of information in the universe, by which the total amount of information in the universe can't change. Thats not an issue, information in this sense means matter and energy, all life takes in energy from another source whether it its light from the sun, or chemical from undersea vents or other eating other life forms.
The fruit flies I'll have to read up on more from a quick nosey I've found reference one one experiment that created two healty populations from one that preferred to mate with there own kind. This indicates the start of speaciation but is inconclusive, I don't know if there has been one carried out over a longer term. Either way resulted far from just "dead and deformed fruit flies".

Fossil Gaps:

My next point brings me to transitional fossils. Why is it we cannot find no transitional fossils that can be categorized into one specific life form? When archeologists dig up fossils they just find completed life forms. These could simply be animals that have gone extinct, and not ancestors of man. Darwin said:



Anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh said, life "appear[ed] in the fossil record asAthena did from the head of Zeus—full grown and raring to go."

"The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be," writes David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History), "We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn’t changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin’s time … so Darwin's problem has not been alleviated."

"Fossils have … failed to yield the host of transitional form demanded by evolutionary theory," according the Australian molecular biologist Michael Denton, and "absence of transitional forms is dramatically obvious."?

Again I need to do more research into each of these quotes, but for so much support in the mainstream of fossil record evidence these view must be in the minority but I don't have numbers to support this.
Also are you aware of A. How rare it is for fossils to be formed? B. The huge area that they can be dispersed over that we have to search. Stands to reason its going to be incomplete. Again we have good indications, primate evolution and the evolution of the horse being a text book example.

The start of life:

Evolution is built on a fallacy. Evolutionists claim life arose spontaneously. Just a lucky accident. They also admit the possibility of life just arising has an extremely low probability, yet given enough time it can happen. To give a picture of this, they use the coin analogy. To get five "heads" in a row is unlikely but possible. If I flipped the coin long enough, I would eventually get five in a row. If I flipped it for years nonstop, I might get 50 or even 100 in a row. But this is only because getting heads is an inherent possibility. What are the chances of me flipping a coin, and then seeing it sprout arms and legs, and go sit in a corner and read a magazine? No chance.?

Theres been a lot of time and the universe is a very big place, for these chances to occur. I need to sort out some grub, so I'll give it some thought and try come back with a better reply

And finally, isn't it surprising that no other life has yet been found in the known observable universe, even though we've found planets capable of supporting life? Take mars for example, it had all the right properties to support life and yet, despite nasa's best attempts, no evidence of life can be found. Why is that? Why just our planet?

We've only just got the technology to see planets out side our solar system, so we may yet, who knows.

 

[wannabedamned]

For if life did not spontaneously arise has scientists claim, then there can be no evolution.

Why not?

As for your claims that we havent found life elsewhere, in the universe.

well

1. Whos to say the life we will find will be perceived as life to us? We have rules on what is deemed to be "living" here on earth, but they are earth bound rules. It is entirely plausible that whatever life exists out there could break those rules.

2. Do you know how we view planets in the universe? Its not like we use 20\20 vision to take a peak around the planets. There could be anything out there.

 

[estebanrey]

It seems that the explanation "knows" that light exists and therefore must strive towards an eye-like mechanism. Why would the "deepen the pit" exercise even take place? If light isn't known about or understood then why would this even happen.

No.

Evolution is not a 'thinking' being, it doesn't 'know' light exists then makes a conscious effort to change living things over time until it built the eyes we have now.

It's more like trail and error in the sense that the first living things that developed even the tiniest of light sensitivity had the advantage and therefore survived longer and reproduced more. This keeps happening over millions of years, with the animals with better sensitivity to light surviving and reproducing more until we are left with animals with the best eyesight.

Nor, whilst I'm on the subject, is it right to assume human eyes are at the height of perfection and 'fully evolved', we are just on the same timeline as the first living things with light sensitivity but much further down the chain. An eagle for example has far better eyesight than us, compared to them our vision is less 'evolved' (or more accurately 'advanced').

You talk about a monkey 'suddenly' being able to see bananas. I thought this would have taken millions of years? If this took milllions of years then the first monkeys to develop the extra light receptors would have died before the idea even got off the ground!

He shouldn't have used the word 'suddenly' and I don't think he meant it in that context.

I don't get what you mean in the second sentence.

 

[Redmint]

I thought it had been mentioned, but there *are* transitional fossils, in fact quite a number have been discovered now. Feel free to have a read about the Archaeopteryx if you like, there's even an entire book about it.

 

[wannabedamned]

They were put there by God to test your faith though. And you all failed!!! Except Jason2, Who will most definitely be going to heaven. Because you know, he believes and stuff.

 

[d_brennen]

Ok, lets dispute evolution:

I want to know how nature can create information. No one has ever seen nature create new information. It only ever follows patterns. If new information can be written, then why are universes laws still the same? How come they have not changed? If they did life would not exist on this planet. I have said many times on this board that random mutation cannot create new information. Mutations only ever lead to the deletion or substitution of information. Take the fruit flies for example. Many experiments have been done on them and yet these mutations only ever lead to dead or deformed fruit flies. No matter how many mutations they went through they still remained fruit flies!

How many millennia was this study conducted over?

Fossil Gaps:

My next point brings me to transitional fossils. Why is it we cannot find no transitional fossils that can be categorized into one specific life form? When archeologists dig up fossils they just find completed life forms. These could simply be animals that have gone extinct, and not ancestors of man. Darwin said:

Everything living is trasitional. What could you possibly expect to see in a snapshot like a fossel?

Anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh said, life "appear[ed] in the fossil record asAthena did from the head of Zeus—full grown and raring to go."

Great. This is why science is peer reviewed

"The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be," writes David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History), "We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn’t changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin’s time … so Darwin's problem has not been alleviated."

"Fossils have … failed to yield the host of transitional form demanded by evolutionary theory," according the Australian molecular biologist Michael Denton, and "absence of transitional forms is dramatically obvious."

You know, there's gaps in a story that's only a couple of thousand years old. Life has been kicking for billions of years and the Earth isn't the static snow globe Christianity paints it

The start of life:

Evolution is built on a fallacy. Evolutionists claim life arose spontaneously. Just a lucky accident. They also admit the possibility of life just arising has an extremely low probability, yet given enough time it can happen. To give a picture of this, they use the coin analogy. To get five "heads" in a row is unlikely but possible. If I flipped the coin long enough, I would eventually get five in a row. If I flipped it for years nonstop, I might get 50 or even 100 in a row. But this is only because getting heads is an inherent possibility. What are the chances of me flipping a coin, and then seeing it sprout arms and legs, and go sit in a corner and read a magazine? No chance.

Who's to say life isn't a natural consequence of physics? That life on Earth isn't all that special at all and it actually occurs pretty much everywhere?

And finally, isn't it surprising that no other life has yet been found in the known observable universe, even though we've found planets capable of supporting life? Take mars for example, it had all the right properties to support life and yet, despite nasa's best attempts, no evidence of life can be found. Why is that? Why just our planet?

Simply LOL. Do you know how far away the nearest planet to Earth is? Let alone the next star system, out of trillions, we haven't even scratched the surface

 

[Tibbz2]

For those who believe in evolution, what's the purpose of life? To reproduce? That would mean that those don't want to or can't reproduce are living a purposeless existence. They might as well be put to death.

I would rather that than be a slave of some imaginary man.

 

[Urgannagru]

I suppose this just pushes the question back. Why would some patches of skin have light sensative pigment to begin with? Did a little mucus just happen to appear?

It seems that the explanation "knows" that light exists and therefore must strive towards an eye-like mechanism. Why would the "deepen the pit" exercise even take place? If light isn't known about or understood then why would this even happen.

You talk about a monkey 'suddenly' being able to see bananas. I thought this would have taken millions of years? If this took milllions of years then the first monkeys to develop the extra light receptors would have died before the idea even got off the ground!

Edit: The opsin genes must have existed before the process you described obviously. Why would these even exist?

For the patch of skin, again its a random mutation for it to initially form, but it would have been selected for as it would detect the shadow of a predator or prey increasing it's chances of survival. Same again with the pits and having it become a localised area, this allows it to able to more accurately locate the other lifeform.

I'm not sure if the paragraph is meant as a joke, why would the initial monkey with the mutation need to still be alive? The monkeys didn't need to perfectly see the bananas in one generation they just needed a better chance of seeing the bananas than the monkeys with out the mutation.

I can't give you a definate answer but an educated guess is it originally had another function before it mutated.

 

[ringo747]

For the patch of skin, again its a random mutation for it to initially form, but it would have been selected for as it would detect the shadow of a predator or prey increasing it's chances of survival. Same again with the pits and having it become a localised area, this allows it to able to more accurately locate the other lifeform.

I'm not sure if the paragraph is meant as a joke, why would the initial monkey with the mutation need to still be alive? The monkeys didn't need to perfectly see the bananas in one generation they just needed a better chance of seeing the bananas than the monkeys with out the mutation.

I can't give you a definate answer but an educated guess is it originally had another function before it mutated.

Sounds like it was all just by accident and a big fluke. There would be no reason for colour vision surely. If the only aim is survival then why would it even matter?

These things that had other functions before they mutated... did those functions stop or would something else evolve to perform the role?

There are other interesting questions like the complexity of systems like blood clotting. I fail to understand how this mechanism could evolve. Until the process was completely constructed then blood wouldn't clot properly and so the creature would die.

 

[Scrutinize]

nm

 

[aardvark]

wow, thats a bold statement!

i saw what you did. well done.