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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 10/21/2005 : 20:58:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by markie
To me this is an analogy to evolution: original life was endowed with change potential, not over a lifetime but over millions of generations of environmental flux. There is the expected variation due to random features, but there is also the strong directional component, where one change leads to a certain other change, all *seemingly* fortuitously, especially as it is spread out over so much time.
What's "seemingly fortuitious" about all the species which became extinct? Or the crudely evolved traits we're forced to endure, like a spinal column best suited for four-legged animals? Take off your rose-colored glasses and look at the facts already. Reality doesn't conform to your beliefs.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2005 : 21:17:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by markie
To me this is an analogy to evolution: original life was endowed with change potential, not over a lifetime but over millions of generations of environmental flux. There is the expected variation due to random features, but there is also the strong directional component, where one change leads to a certain other change, all *seemingly* fortuitously, especially as it is spread out over so much time.
Not even. Both you and Mab are incorrect about the "random" aspect of evolutionary change. You are correct in that some parts of a genome are more likely to be mutated than others, but that's due to the different levels of sheer survivability within the different sections of DNA. Mutate a section "responsible" for the formation of the brain stem or heart, and a viable human is unlikely to result.
This should be obvious. The likelihood of a mutation being carried by future generations depends upon its effects upon the survivability of the organism. That's natural selection in its most-basic form: mutations which reduce the probability of reproductive success of the offspring to zero will not be passed on.
And selection is only "random" in the sense that it's probabilistic. A mutation with a 10% increase in reproductive success in a given environment will probably become more widespread in a population than a competing mutation which only confers a 1% increase in reproductive success. Even seemingly random environmental occurences (like cave-ins, volcanic eruptions, etc.) actually demonstrate genomic "failures" to have a population wide-spread enough to avoid extinction due to a single event.
Beyond all that, the idea that some sort of directed change is built into DNA is debunked by the very fact that DNA exists currently in so many different species, and the most-successful "direction" appears to be going nowhere at all (bacterial biomass outweighs all other species on Earth combined). Some species of the "lowly" fern have 600+ pairs of chromosomes, while we humans have just 23 pairs (and all other apes have 24 pairs).
And beyond that, we know DNA to be apt to change, otherwise evolution wouldn't occur at all. However, its propensity for change is due to its chemical structure being fragile enough to be susceptible to mutations at a non-lethal (mostly) level, but not so resistant to modification as to make evolution impossible. While this might stir some "Privileged Planet" sort of feelings ("isn't it odd that DNA just happens to have just the right level of mutatibility?"), it's an explanation that relies on completely materialistic axioms, and so fails to be evidence of "supermaterial" anything.quote:
Which has interesting implications for using our 'complexity' to the ends of practising 'artificial selection', since 'natural selection' is hardly a factor anymore in our species. But that would be for another thread :)
So humans can somehow avoid a mutation which causes the fetus to not develop a brain? Sorry, markie, but natural selection is alive and well within the human species. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2005 : 23:46:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by markie:
For instance a localized segment of DNA from say, a human epithelial cell may differ from one time to the next, depending on the subject's health, etc. (This is a recent finding of the last two years I believe.)
I'd be very keen to read the articles where this was written. I haven't heard anything about this. Have you got any references?
quote:
Originally posted by markie:
Who knows if changes like this might actually be conferred to the germ cells, in limited ways.
Lamarkism like this is only pure speculation, of course.
quote:
Originally posted by markie:
To me this is an analogy to evolution: original life was endowed with change potential, not over a lifetime but over millions of generations of environmental flux. There is the expected variation due to random features, but there is also the strong directional component, where one change leads to a certain other change, all *seemingly* fortuitously, especially as it is spread out over so much time.
To most others, this is a very bad analogy.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Some species of the "lowly" fern have 600+ pairs of chromosomes, while we humans have just 23 pairs (and all other apes have 24 pairs).
Around 2400 even, I seem to remember. Ferns "often" undergo polyploidy, where chromosome numbers double (300, 600, 1200, 2400).
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METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 03:47:58 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by markie
Which has interesting implications for using our 'complexity' to the ends of practising 'artificial selection', since 'natural selection' is hardly a factor anymore in our species. But that would be for another thread :)
What makes you say that? Evolution works on geological scales, big changes rarely happens in a few generations.
Though I must say that right now, social and cultural evolution seems most dominant. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 04:03:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Not even. Both you and Mab are incorrect about the "random" aspect of evolutionary change.
My lack of sleep must have made me express myself unclearly.
My point was that mutations, as they happen (transcription errors), are random.
Changes in the environment ultimately depends on random events. The environment as it acts on each individual of any species is very specific though, and favours only a few of the mutations.
Evolutinary progress is therefore a mechanistic process, not directed by anything supernatural.
(edit: spelling) |
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| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 10/22/2005 12:32:40 |
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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 07:37:39 [Permalink]
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Hawks, I'll see if I can find it. It had to do with cancer research if I recall, how the DNA changes as cancer cells are compared to normal ones. At first they thought it was anomalous, but other labs had reported the same thing: segments of DNA in even healthy cells can get trimmed or lengthened by duplication, triplication, etc.
HH, I don't deny at all that the process has its imperfections at this level of reality, but it's a car that works.
Dave, you are repeating what I learned a long time ago in school. And you're sounding as if I deny that selection and even evolutionary regression and extinction should even take place, or that things like chromosome numbers somehow disprove my model. My model predicts that some levels of evolutionary differentiation in species are reached which has about exhausted potentials for further signicant change beyond constrained variations - just like skin cells aren't going to branch out to something radically different. Yet especially in the early days of life there were what would be the evolutionary equivalent of 'stem cell' organisms, those organisms which retained some capacity to branch in various directions, depending on environmental flux.
And yes of course natural selection is still a factor in our species in extreme cases of defect. I'm saying that the human herd may not be as genetically healthy as it once was.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 12:46:23 [Permalink]
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Makie, your theology seems to be a wild mix of several different school of thoughts.
Are you saying that evolution only occurs as adaptations within the confines of the Biblical "kinds" of animals and plants?
I acknowledge that you think consciousness cannot have materilaistic causes only. But at long as your belief goes unevidenced, I can with good conscience apply Occam's Razor, and discard you belief as nonsense. |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 14:07:21 [Permalink]
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| I wonder: do animals and plants have souls? If not, why not? Do bacteria? Have they developed a resistence to supermaterial viruses or are their substrate not good enough? I wonder... |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 14:55:25 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by markie
Dave, you are repeating what I learned a long time ago in school.
Then you went to a decent school.quote:
And you're sounding as if I deny that selection and even evolutionary regression and extinction should even take place...
No, you seemed to be saying that those thing were "programmed in" at the beginning.quote:
...or that things like chromosome numbers somehow disprove my model.
Well, a model of intelligently-programmed evolution would seem to be incompatible with what we see.quote:
My model predicts that some levels of evolutionary differentiation in species are reached which has about exhausted potentials for further signicant change beyond constrained variations - just like skin cells aren't going to branch out to something radically different.
Evolution predicts that skin cells aren't going to branch out to something radically different, too. What, then, differentiates your model from standard evolutionary theory?quote:
Yet especially in the early days of life there were what would be the evolutionary equivalent of 'stem cell' organisms, those organisms which retained some capacity to branch in various directions, depending on environmental flux.
You're still discussing standard evolutionary theory. The difference is, you seem to think the ability to evolve in various ways is somehow inherent within the genetic code, whereas evolutionary theory assigns that function to the combination of current genetic code, mutations and selection.quote:
And yes of course natural selection is still a factor in our species in extreme cases of defect.
No, it's still a factor at every level. That we have big brains with which we can better cope is a result of natural selection.quote:
I'm saying that the human herd may not be as genetically healthy as it once was.
Define "genetically healthy." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 15:31:48 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:
Originally posted by markie
I'm saying that the human herd may not be as genetically healthy as it once was.
Define "genetically healthy."
Perhaps he meant that Adam and Eve had perfect genes, and ever since the UV-and-cosmic-ray-protecting water canopy rained down on Noah, mutations have caused a constant deteriorating of the genome..? |
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Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2005 : 05:12:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Are you saying that evolution only occurs as adaptations within the confines of the Biblical "kinds" of animals and plants?
Hehe, no not at all. Evolution from a single cell produced all the phyla etc we see today imo. However, given that, I doubt that (say) hummingbirds will evolve into something significantly different than they are today, that's all. (Yet birds did evolve from an early dino-reptile type.)
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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2005 : 05:28:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
I wonder: do animals and plants have souls? If not, why not? Do bacteria? Have they developed a resistence to supermaterial viruses or are their substrate not good enough? I wonder...
Alas they do not have souls. Enjoy your pet while you can. They have no capacity for God - seeking and the eternal quest. The evolving soul is the result of a co-dynamic between higher human mind activity and the indwelling divine spirit gift in the mind of man.
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2005 : 05:56:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by markie
Alas they do not have souls. Enjoy your pet while you can. They have no capacity for God - seeking and the eternal quest. The evolving soul is the result of a co-dynamic between higher human mind activity and the indwelling divine spirit gift in the mind of man.
Funny you mention that -- my pet rock insists the opposite is true. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2005 : 05:58:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.Well, a model of intelligently-programmed evolution would seem to be incompatible with what we see.
That is your opinion. I see a program which is capable of much lattitude, and even compromising of the program itself in some ways.
quote:
Evolution predicts that skin cells aren't going to branch out to something radically different, too. What, then, differentiates your model from standard evolutionary theory?
Well I suppose that evolutionary theory would say that in time birds or humans could become almost anything. That is, it says that natural selection and mutation alone can produce just about any living thing in time. I say no, it depends on the existing DNA programming base.
quote:
And yes of course natural selection is still a factor in our species in extreme cases of defect.quote:
No, it's still a factor at every level. That we have big brains with which we can better cope is a result of natural selection.
Yeah, but my point is that in our level of society, those natural selection factors which previously played a part are hardly playing a part anymore.
quote:
I'm saying that the human herd may not be as genetically healthy as it once was.quote:
Define "genetically healthy."
Among other things, proliferation of human traits which may be called sub average. Such is fatal to a well functioning democracy.
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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2005 : 06:01:41 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Randy Funny you mention that -- my pet rock insists the opposite is true.
Ah a child of the 60s - 70s, like myself. :) |
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