Any religious people watch the Wonders of Life last night?

[Jason2]

Theory = fact.

According to atheists anyway.

 

[ringo747]

If the prey fish evolved sufficient intelligence to realise that the mysterious light in the darkness is actually an angler fish trying to eat it - the angler fish would be in trouble and would also have to adapt, this is the sort of constant arms race that's occurring in all living things, all the time.

So this evolved intelligence... does the fish then know that it must adapt or die? It seems that intelligence/understanding cannot be removed from this process.

 

[d_brennen]

If we take more advanced creatures then... the millions of years of mutation is surely knocked flat on its face by the cambrian explosion discoveries?

Why? Say you have millions of different species that share the same habitat I.E. food source, all these creatures are quite simple (relative to say a primate) there will be intense competition. Competition weeds out the poor design. Simple creatures generally breed very quickly and in huge numbers. The "odds" of successful mutation is high.

 

[d_brennen]

Theory = fact.

According to atheists anyway.

Inconsistent and poorly translated drivel = fact.

According to theists anyway.

 

[ringo747]

Why? Say you have millions of different species that share the same habitat I.E. food source, all these creatures are quite simple (relative to say a primate) there will be intense competition. Competition weeds out the poor design. Simple creatures generally breed very quickly and in huge numbers. The "odds" of successful mutation is high.

Do you know what the cambrian explosion fossil record actually shows?

 

[V-Spec]

So this evolved intelligence... does the fish then know that it must adapt or die? It seems that intelligence/understanding cannot be removed from this process.

Because it's possible that a certain genetic mutation would arise in the fish, which would simply alter it's instinct to make it uninterested in mysterious bright lights in the dark.

If this happened it wouldn't become the prey of the angler fish and would cause problems for it.

It's not 'evolved intelligence' as such, more evolved instinct

 

[ringo747]

Because it's possible that a certain genetic mutation would arise in the fish, which would simply alter it's instinct to make it uninterested in mysterious bright lights in the dark.

If this happened it wouldn't become the prey of the angler fish and would cause problems for it.

It's not 'evolved intelligence' as such, more evolved instinct

If our fish gets eaten then the changes in evolved instinct must get lost then. Is that correct?

 

[Robosapien]

For the love of God! It's not taught as fact. It is called the THEORY OF EVOLUTION.

YOUR INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THEORY MEANS IS ANOTHER MATTER

Although you fail to distinguish between 'taught' as fact, as opposed to 'is widely accepted to be' (or not as the case may be) a fact.

 

[V-Spec]

If our fish gets eaten then the changes in evolved instinct must get lost then. Is that correct?

Well yes, unless the fish reproduced first - in which case it's possible the mutated gene that alters the instinct slightly would be passed on and wouldn't be lost.

The point is, such a hypothetical mutation would mean it's less likely the fish would become prey, and would have a survival advantage.

 

[D.P.]

Theory = fact.

According to atheists anyway.

No, a Scientific Theory does not mean the same thing as a plain theory is layman's terms, the closest word in common terms toa Scientific theory is the word fact.

The equation:
1 + 1 = 2
is a fact, not a theory in common English. A Scientific Theory is developed form a collection of these underling facts.

 

[Urgannagru]

The second law says that disorder, or entropy, always increases or stays the same over time.

Robosapien covered it, in saying you've missed out a key part of it, that this is occurring in a closed system.

I'm going to try go back to basics and explain it a bit more thoroughly as its been years since I've had to think in terms of entropy (so if I mess up feel free to correct me).

An analogy for how entropy works is imagine you've got a sat of red balls and a set of blue balls. There are more ways you can have them arranged mixed up, than you can as them arranged so they are grouped with there own colour. There for if the ball were to be moved at random they are more likely to end up in an unordered state. This would be a closed system as no energy is coming from an external source.
Now if I was to physically seperate the balls into the groups I've put energy into the system from an external source, so it is no longer a closed system

To put this in perspective with life, earth on its own is a closed system. However it recieves energy from the sun making it an open system, the energy is what allows this order to "appear". This is the reson we eat food, the energy we get allows reactions to take place that entropy wouldn't otherwise allow.

The other example of order appearing to form against this rule in nature is the snow flake. The hydrogen bonds in water cause the water molecules to aline in a certain way giving it a crystaline structure, when water is liquid there is enough heat energy to over come these bonds into a less ordered structure.

 

[D.P.]

If our fish gets eaten then the changes in evolved instinct must get lost then. Is that correct?

yes, exactly. And a prey fish that is more likely to survive to a reproductive age and generate offspring due to an advantageous genetic mutation that helps them avoid predators means the species will over time evolve different behaviors and physiologies.

The prey will also evolve and generate complex races of adaptions which are readily observed within the animal kingdom and fossil records going back hundreds of millions of years.

 

[Jason2]

How can the second law of thermodynamics affect everything but evolution of life? The effects of this unchangeable law can been seen everywhere. Everything decays and wastes away. Even the universe is subject to it. The universe will eventually be cold and dark and completely impossible of supporting life. If even the universe can't immune itself from this law what makes you think the evolution of life can? In the long run, complex, ordered arrangements actually tend to become simpler and more disorderly with time. There is an irreversible downward trend ultimately at work throughout the universe.

Now RDM says the suns energy makes the difference. But does it really? If the suns energy is what makes evolution possible, then why are all living things still subject to death? Why don't things come back to life? When something dies the sun simply speeds the process of disorganization up.

In conclusion, evolution is false and goes against the second law of thermodynamics.

 

[Robosapien]

So this evolved intelligence... does the fish then know that it must adapt or die? It seems that intelligence/understanding cannot be removed from this process.

Flight or fight?

Do you get anxious/nervous/frightened, despite also 'knowing' that such feelings are likely to be of no use in a particular situation?


Emotions and cerebral processes are simply biological mechanisms, give rise to our perception of reality and obviously prove to be useful tools to adapt and survive. Falling in love, your sense of identity, your decision making process. Just because we experience the illusion of these things, doesn't mean they are unique to us or ubiquitous to all life. Intelligence, consciousness, awareness - these are just convenient labels to loosely define what we experience/observe in others but can't define properly. There's likely to be a great variation in the experience of what it means to be alive across all living things. In fact the definition of life itself is a little loose. For instance, I was taught in school that life needed to do 7 basic things to be defined as such, yet there are organisms which don't do all of them - grey areas.

 

[m4rk84]

How can the second law of thermodynamics affect everything but evolution of life?

Your completely missing the point, the second law of thermodynamics DOES effect life.

 

[Robosapien]

How can the second law of thermodynamics affect everything but evolution of life? The effects of this unchangeable law can been seen everywhere. Everything decays and wastes away. Even the universe is subject to it. The universe will eventually be cold and dark and completely impossible of supporting life. If even the universe can't immune itself from this law what makes you think the evolution of life can? In the long run, complex, ordered arrangements actually tend to become simpler and more disorderly with time. There is an irreversible downward trend ultimately at work throughout the universe.

Now RDM says the suns energy makes the difference. But does it really? If the suns energy is what makes evolution possible, then why are all living things still subject to death? Why don't things come back to life? When something dies the sun simply speeds the process of disorganization up.

In conclusion, evolution is false and goes against the second law of thermodynamics.

Not true. Take the molecules in solids, liquids and gases for example. Which ones appear more ordered to you?
Yet I can put in the energy needed to freeze a substance (at a cost to the surrounding environment).

 

[estebanrey]

The origins of life did not have numerous attempts. Neither did the beginning of the universe. You also keep forgetting that mutations do not add information.

And you keep forgetting that abiogenesis and cosmology have nothing to do with evolution.

...It only ever leads to a loss or substitution of information. If new information can be added then why have fruit flies never shown it? They either die or become deformed.

Nine times out of ten mutation leads to a loss, and not gain, of information.

Evolution myths: Mutations can only destroy information

Biologists are uncovering thousands of examples of how mutations lead to new traits and even new species. This claim not only flies in the face of the evidence, it is also a logical impossibility

Most people lose the ability to digest milk by their teens. A few thousand years ago, however, after the domestication of cattle, several groups of people in Europe and Africa independently acquired mutations that allow them to continue digesting milk into adulthood. Genetic studies show there has been very strong selection for these mutations, so they were clearly very beneficial.

Most biologists would see this as a gain in information: a change in environment (the availability of cow's milk as food) is reflected by a genetic mutation that lets people exploit that change (gaining the ability to digest milk as an adult). Creationists, however, dismiss this as a malfunction, as the loss of the ability to switch off the production of the milk-digesting enzyme after childhood.

Rather than get bogged down trying to define what information is, let's just look at a few other discoveries made by biologists in recent years. For instance, it has been shown a simple change in gene activity in sea squirts can turn their one-chambered heart into a working two-chambered one. Surely this counts as increasing information?

TRIMming the genome

Some monkeys have a mutation in a protein called TRIM5 that results in a piece of another, defunct protein being tacked onto TRIM5. The result is a hybrid protein called TRIM5-CypA, which can protect cells from infection with retroviruses such as HIV. Here, a single mutation has resulted in a new protein with a new and potentially vital function. New protein, new function, new information.

Although such an event might seem highly unlikely, it turns out that the TRIM5-CypA protein has evolved independently in two separate groups of monkeys. In general, though, the evolution of a new gene usually involves far more than one mutation. The most common way for a new gene to evolve is for an existing gene to be duplicated. Once there are two or more copies, each can evolve in separate directions.

The duplication of genes or even entire genomes is turning out to be ubiquitous. Without a duplication of the entire genome in the ancestor of modern-day brewer's yeast, for instance, there would be no wine or beer. It is becoming clear that every one of us has extra copies of some genes, a phenomenon called copy number variation.

The evolution of more complex body plans appears to have been at least partly a result of repeated duplications of the Hox genes that play a fundamental role in embryonic development. Biologists are slowly working out how successive mutations turned a pair of protoHox genes in the simple ancestors of jellyfish and anemones into the 39 Hox genes of more complex mammals.

Newly minted

Can mutation really lead to the evolution of new species?

Yes. Several species of abalone shellfish have evolved due to mutations in the protein "key" on the surface of sperm that binds to a "lock" on the surface of eggs. This might appear impossible, but it turns out that some eggs are prepared to be penetrated by deviant sperm. The same thing can happen in fruit flies, and likely in many other groups too. In yeasts, the mutations that led to some new species forming have not only been identified, they have even been reversed.

The list of examples could go on and on, but consider this. Most mutations can be reversed by subsequent mutations - a DNA base can be turned from an A to a G and then back to an A again, for instance. In fact, reverse mutation or "reversion" is common. For any mutation that results in a loss of information, logically, the reverse mutation must result in its gain. So the claim that mutations destroy information but cannot create it not only defies the evidence, it also defies logic.

Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article...s-mutations-can-only-destroy-information.html

 

[aardvark]

According to evolutionists, living organisms rearrange themselves to become more complex. The second law of thermodynamics says this is impossible. The second law of thermodynamics is proven to be correct.

so you don't understand evolution or thermodynamics....

 

[Urgannagru]

It does affect life,what we're driving at is that you stated and seem to understand the law incorrectly.

As we've repeatedly explains the 2nd law of thermodynamics when explained in terms of entropy (rather than how it was originally described in terms of heat) is "entropy increases over time in a closed system" while you have stated it as "entropy, always increases or stays the same over time". If this was the case life let alone evolution would not be possible and we would not be here discussing this point

 

[Jason2]

It does affect life,what we're driving at is that you stated and seem to understand the law incorrectly.

As we've repeatedly explains the 2nd law of thermodynamics when explained in terms of entropy (rather than how it was originally described in terms of heat) is "entropy increases over time in a closed system" while you have stated it as "entropy, always increases or stays the same over time". If this was the case life let alone evolution would not be possible and we would not be here discussing this point

That's because you believe the universe came from nothing, by nothing. I believe in God, and he alone created all things!