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 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Is a system that relies on everything being 100% random a necessary element to our understanding of the world?

If not then why include it?

There is no better statement to show a lack of understanding evolution than one such as this. While there is some chance involved, this argument completely ignores the role natural selection, and selection is the exact opposite of chance.

The initial genetic mutation that might cause a change is a random chance.

The genetic mutation being beneficial in the specific environment where it occurs is a random chance.

The mutations are random, the specimen in which they occur is random, the environment in which they occur is random, and if all the random changes combine to give that particular specimen an edge over other specimens of the same species in the area then natural selection will happen and that specimen will pass on the random changes that occur because they are beneficial.

Even abiogensis (again, completely separate from the framework of evolution) is not random; atoms and molecules arrange themselves not by random but according to their chemical properties.

And chemical properties change depending on the environment. Atoms and molecules behave differently if they exist in different conditions.

The exact same atoms and molecules that existed and combined during abiogensis would react differently if they were in a different environment (different heat, different radiation, different atoms and molecules surrounding them). They will always do the exact same thing in the exact same circumstance, but it was by chance that these exact circumstances existed to begin with.

Which is the genesis of my original premise, taking abiogensis as an example:

We know that the conditions for it to happen were complex and had to be just right. One can believe that they just happened to be that way by pure coincidence. Or one can believe that the conditions were willed to happen that way. Neither are an endpoint and you can still continue to experiment and try to learn exactly how abiogensis happened and what lead to the conditions that allowed for it to happen.

Dakka OTers have zero chance of convincing each other on politics or guns or TV shows, but obviously we'll make a lot of progress bringing the other side to our point of view on something as trivial as evolution or religion.

I don't hold out hope of us converting each other on things like this, but if we can have a civil discourse I don't see the problem.

Genetic mutation is not entirely random. There are some parts of the DNA more prone to mutation than others and some types of mutation which are mpre likely to occur... this is why we see the same kinds of genetic diseases springing up all over the world in people who are only very distantly related.

As to chemical properties - yes, they can be very different as conditions change. I havr used this to my advantage when I was creating nanoparticles - by adjusting the pH of the solution i could control how many bonds my coating material exposed, so therefore ensure that I could add on different functional groups to the nanoparticle coating.

However, the point being that in nature you do need a series of the right conditions and events to lead to the creation of us... but so many of those 'right conditions' seemingly existed when the first complex molecules were forming that we did in fact come to be. If they were not we would not be having this conversation... or we would be having it in a very different way if conditions were such that life formed from different building blocks...

Why does it have to be converting others to our point of view? If any post I make helps someone understand something they didn't before or take consider another point of view then they were not wasted words. It also can be both enjoyable and illuminating to talk to another person who differing views to you.

Not to mention if we were trying to convert people it wouldn't be each other. In a debate you are rarely trying to change the point of view of the other person, you are trying to change the view of the mostly undecided or unsure onlookers first and foremost.

 Fafnir wrote:

 DEUS VULT wrote:

This is a point that is commonly confused. In common parlance theory is used in a fashion roughly comparable to what science would consider a hypothesis. Basically, a guess. A theory in a scientific context is a concept/idea that has been repeatedly and independently confirmed through testing and observation. Its the highest level of being proved, so to speak. So, in science, evolution is very much a theory.

Well, I know the bit about scientific theory being different from more common colloquial ideas, but my point of confusion was at that of the theory of sexual selection/natural selection, and evolution. As in, is there a separation between them?

I see what you are saying. I think Fafnir may have misread your post as saying the standard "well its just a theory" defence when that wasnt what you were saying at all. Correct me if I am wrong but what I think you were saying was that is there a difference between evolution/change in species taking place and the theory of evolution.

My answer would be this

We know species change over time, this is a fact. The theory of evolution via natural selection is what explains the method by which this takes place.

The basic idea behind evolution is extrodinarily simple, and mostly quite observable.

1) While most of an organisms genome is passed from parent to offspring, there can be some mutations in the offsprings genome. This is directly observable, you can check a parent organisms genome and compare it to an offspring, and spontaneous mutations can be seen.

2) Sometimes these mutations are beneficial, and help an organism compete better and breed more. Eventually, as creatures live and die in ordinary life, the creatures with the more adapted genes have a better chance to become the majority, because they could compete better. This is pretty self evident.

3) As more of these mutations build up, adapting a species more to it's current environment and circumstance, it slowly diverges from being classified as the same species, and becomes a new one. This is also pretty self evident, as those mutations that were beneficial don't just go away, they all build up in the population and slowly change a species to the point that its DNA is so far different from where it started with that it couldn't properly breed with it (making fertile offspring), should it have encountered it's progenitor species again (which is the most common way to classify a different species).

There are a lot more parts about how the mutations happen, what forces drive the adaptation and diversion of species ect, but that's the basics. Very very easy.

The problems people have with Evolution generally isn't those steps, which can be explained pretty easily to people and observed pretty easily, but from the conclusions that can be drawn from it when looking at our own history, because while the steps are simple, the preconception that man was formed as is by god is a strong one, and challenging that can mean challenging a persons fundamental beliefs about the origins of man (not the origins of life, per se, as Evolution actually has nothing to say on the matter directly).

In all fairness the media does not help with peoples understanding of evolution at all.

How many times have you heard the headline

This animal evolved to survive in this environment.

Which is very much a misrepresentation which seems to imply the animal had control over the changes that caused it to better survive in their environment which is ot the case.

Antibiotics can easily result in strains of bacteria being resistant to that antibiotic. That is one of two certain things: either it's a concrete example of evolution, or a concrete example of God being a donkey cave. I prefer the foremost example, because nothing about it disproves a supreme being/s existence.

But I will easily swallow any example of people refusing to believe things that have proof, as long as there are people that don't believe dinosaurs existed at all, or that they died as a result of being left off the Ark. There will always be people who alter how they interpret what they see to invalidate the possibility of them being incorrect.

I absolutely believe in Evolution, I just refuse to believe that I have a concrete grip as to whether or not Evolution is a check and balance put there by a supreme intelligence, as there is no way to prove either. Either it exists because otherwise advanced life could never exist (it would be constantly be getting reset by things it can't overcome), or a supreme being put it there so they don't have to babysit us, SIMs-style. But the second theory does not invalidate the former.

 carlos13th wrote:
In all fairness the media does not help with peoples understanding of evolution at all.

How many times have you heard the headline

This animal evolved to survive in this environment.

Which is very much a misrepresentation which seems to imply the animal had control over the changes that caused it to better survive in their environment which is ot the case.

In English many verbs can be used as transitive or intransitive and do not change their form accordingly.

So what is 33% of the population convincing themselves?

The evidence is all around you. I can't imagine what you could possibly not agree with.

 Captain Fantastic wrote:
So what is 33% of the population convincing themselves?

The evidence is all around you. I can't imagine what you could possibly not agree with.

I believe that god created stuff, science was just a result of his work, like mould, but not in a bad way. I like my hybrid science/god religion. makes me seem like not an idiot to either side of the argument

I am not a big believer myself, but I seriously can't see how people who strongly believe in a God of some sort cannot wrap their head around science when their describe how awesome their deity is. It's essentially a carrot dangled in front of us to better ourselves. I mean, how many parents out there are happy to see when their children figure things out for themselves?

It's the old, "science, suitably advanced, is indistinguishable from magic" theory.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
In all fairness the media does not help with peoples understanding of evolution at all.

How many times have you heard the headline

This animal evolved to survive in this environment.

Which is very much a misrepresentation which seems to imply the animal had control over the changes that caused it to better survive in their environment which is ot the case.

In English many verbs can be used as transitive or intransitive and do not change their form accordingly.

I realise it may not be entirely incorrect. But it does seem to taint peoples view of how evolution works.

 carlos13th wrote:

We know species change over time, this is a fact. The theory of evolution via natural selection is what explains the method by which this takes place.

That's what I was saying from the beginning, although the wording may have been poor.

I thought thats what you meant.

 Maddermax wrote:
Unfortunately, there are quite a few literalists out there who think everything happened *exactly* as mentioned in the bible, and there can be no thought about interpretation or leeway at all. How they square this with the different versions and translations of the bible, who knows,...

Oh, that one's easy to answer: You just assume that any version of the bible that differs from the one you use is wrong.

 insaniak wrote:

 Maddermax wrote:
Unfortunately, there are quite a few literalists out there who think everything happened *exactly* as mentioned in the bible, and there can be no thought about interpretation or leeway at all. How they square this with the different versions and translations of the bible, who knows,...

Oh, that one's easy to answer: You just assume that any version of the bible that differs from the one you use is wrong.

I've read the King James Version before it was "new"...

 d-usa wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Is a system that relies on everything being 100% random a necessary element to our understanding of the world?

If not then why include it?

There is no better statement to show a lack of understanding evolution than one such as this. While there is some chance involved, this argument completely ignores the role natural selection, and selection is the exact opposite of chance.

The initial genetic mutation that might cause a change is a random chance.

The genetic mutation being beneficial in the specific environment where it occurs is a random chance.

The mutations are random, the specimen in which they occur is random, the environment in which they occur is random, and if all the random changes combine to give that particular specimen an edge over other specimens of the same species in the area then natural selection will happen and that specimen will pass on the random changes that occur because they are beneficial.

Even abiogensis (again, completely separate from the framework of evolution) is not random; atoms and molecules arrange themselves not by random but according to their chemical properties.

And chemical properties change depending on the environment. Atoms and molecules behave differently if they exist in different conditions.

The exact same atoms and molecules that existed and combined during abiogensis would react differently if they were in a different environment (different heat, different radiation, different atoms and molecules surrounding them). They will always do the exact same thing in the exact same circumstance, but it was by chance that these exact circumstances existed to begin with.

Which is the genesis of my original premise, taking abiogensis as an example:

We know that the conditions for it to happen were complex and had to be just right. One can believe that they just happened to be that way by pure coincidence. Or one can believe that the conditions were willed to happen that way. Neither are an endpoint and you can still continue to experiment and try to learn exactly how abiogensis happened and what lead to the conditions that allowed for it to happen.

Again, you have missed the point: mutations are random, evolution is not. While chance plays a role, the entire process is not "100% chance" as you have characterized it.

Your "no it's not" makes a convincing argument...

 d-usa wrote:
Your "no it's not" makes a convincing argument...

You should read the entire argument, which explains very clearly why evolution is not "100% randomness" as you claimed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
One can believe that they just happened to be that way by pure coincidence. Or one can believe that the conditions were willed to happen that way. Neither are an endpoint and you can still continue to experiment and try to learn exactly how abiogensis happened and what lead to the conditions that allowed for it to happen.

But the point is "conditions were willed to happen that way" adds an extra factor (the entity doing the willing) for no reason beyond a desire to find a place to put the god you already insist on believing in for other reasons. And that's just bad science.

I did, I wrote a rebuttal, and his answer is "no it's not".

 d-usa wrote:
I did, I wrote a rebuttal, and his answer is "no it's not".

Because your rebuttal is like posting a long essay on why the sky isn't blue, or why 1+1=4. Someone could go back and pick apart every single thing you got wrong, but really all there is to say is "no".

 d-usa wrote:
Your "no it's not" makes a convincing argument...

Failing to understanding what "it is not 100% chance" means doesn't support your case.

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S35/06/74S40/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=predictable-evolution-trumps-randomness-of-mutations
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13698-evolution-myths-evolution-is-random.html#.UsTO6PRDt8E
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

If you guys wanna be lazy then so be it.

I came, I talked, I discussed, I shared my views.

If all you got is "I've got no time to actually talk about anything, enjoy your emotional God-crutch" then I'll just check out as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Your "no it's not" makes a convincing argument...

Failing to understanding what "it is not 100% chance" means doesn't support your case.

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S35/06/74S40/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=predictable-evolution-trumps-randomness-of-mutations
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13698-evolution-myths-evolution-is-random.html#.UsTO6PRDt8E
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

And look, isn't that much better than just dismissing things?

It's good to talk and share. Thanks, I'll read.

 d-usa wrote:
If you guys wanna be lazy then so be it.

I came, I talked, I discussed, I shared my views.

If all you got is "I've got no time to actually talk about anything, enjoy your emotional God-crutch" then I'll just check out as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Your "no it's not" makes a convincing argument...

Failing to understanding what "it is not 100% chance" means doesn't support your case.

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S35/06/74S40/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=predictable-evolution-trumps-randomness-of-mutations
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13698-evolution-myths-evolution-is-random.html#.UsTO6PRDt8E
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

And look, isn't that much better than just dismissing things?

It's good to talk and share. Thanks, I'll read.

SPOILER ALERT: All of those links explain what I already did. Mutations can be random, evolution is not. Hence, evolution is not "100% chance."

Your belief that it is all random chance is being dismissed because it's wrong. Don't blame me for your unwillingness to fully understand what you are arguing against.

I myself do not know anyone who does not believe in evolution.

I think however that an important reason that many people do not believe in evolution is the fact that it is not a proven truth.
Evolution is at the moment the most plausible theory, but scientists are far from unanimous on it.The theory(ies) may be the most plausible, but it still has a lot of flaws and things that are yet unexplainable.
The nature of science is that theories, even generally accepted and established ones, are subject to change, and sometimes have to be entirely rejected when a radical new discovery is made.
For all we know, people a 100 years in the future will be laughing at us for being stupid enough to believe in a silly thing called 'evolution'

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
If you guys wanna be lazy then so be it.

I came, I talked, I discussed, I shared my views.

If all you got is "I've got no time to actually talk about anything, enjoy your emotional God-crutch" then I'll just check out as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Your "no it's not" makes a convincing argument...

Failing to understanding what "it is not 100% chance" means doesn't support your case.

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S35/06/74S40/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=predictable-evolution-trumps-randomness-of-mutations
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13698-evolution-myths-evolution-is-random.html#.UsTO6PRDt8E
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

And look, isn't that much better than just dismissing things?

It's good to talk and share. Thanks, I'll read.

SPOILER ALERT: All of those links explain what I already did. Mutations can be random, evolution is not. Hence, evolution is not "100% chance."

Believe it or not, but those multiple articles did a lot better job explaining things than your one paragraph oversimplified summary of them.

Your belief that it is all random chance is being dismissed because it's wrong. Don't blame me for your unwillingness to fully understand what you are arguing against.

Well, I for one am glad that our non-random environment that resulted in our planet allowed this to happen.

But I do truly find it interesting that it appears that there are circumstances where it appears that there is a driving force behind evolution. I do like it a lot better when actual knowledge is shared. There is no point in being elitist jerks about this.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I myself do not know anyone who does not believe in evolution.

I think however that an important reason that many people do not believe in evolution is the fact that it is not a proven truth.
Evolution is at the moment the most plausible theory, but scientists are far from unanimous on it.The theory(ies) may be the most plausible, but it still has a lot of flaws and things that are yet unexplainable.
The nature of science is that theories, even generally accepted and established ones, are subject to change, and sometimes have to be entirely rejected when a radical new discovery is made.
For all we know, people a 100 years in the future will be laughing at us for being stupid enough to believe in a silly thing called 'evolution'

Scientist are unanimous on the theory of evolution by means of natural selection; it is the foundation of modern biology. Yes, there are certain things within the theory that can change (orthogenesis for example) but the underlying basis of the theory has remained intact for over 150 years, only our knowledge of how it works has grown. While it is possible that the theory of evolution could be upended at any time by a radical new theory, it just isn't likely.

There are no competing theories to the cause of biological diversity outside of "a wizard did it."

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I myself do not know anyone who does not believe in evolution.

I think however that an important reason that many people do not believe in evolution is the fact that it is not a proven truth.
Evolution is at the moment the most plausible theory, but scientists are far from unanimous on it.The theory(ies) may be the most plausible, but it still has a lot of flaws and things that are yet unexplainable.
The nature of science is that theories, even generally accepted and established ones, are subject to change, and sometimes have to be entirely rejected when a radical new discovery is made.
For all we know, people a 100 years in the future will be laughing at us for being stupid enough to believe in a silly thing called 'evolution'

Scientists are pretty unanimous on the theory of evolution particularly biologists. Does every scientist in the world believe it? No but you could say the same about any subject on the planet.


Here is an excerpt from Kizmiller v Dover Area school district on if Intelgent design is a scicence.

"Before discussing Defendants’ claims about evolution, we initially note that an overwhelming number of scientists, as reflected by every scientific association that has spoken on the matter, have rejected the ID proponents’ challenge to evolution. Moreover, Plaintiffs’ expert in biology, Dr. Miller, a widely-recognized biology professor at Brown University who has written university-level and highschool biology textbooks used prominently throughout the nation, provided unrebutted testimony that evolution, including common descent and natural selection, is “overwhelmingly accepted” by the scientific community and that every major scientific association agrees. (1:94-100 (Miller)). As the court in Selman explained, “evolution is more than a theory of origin in the context of science. To the contrary, evolution is the dominant scientific theory of origin accepted by the majority of scientists.” Selman, 390 F. Supp. 2d at 1309 (emphasis in original). Despite the scientific community’s overwhelming support for evolution, Defendants and ID proponents insist that evolution is unsupported by empirical evidence. Plaintiffs’ science experts, Drs. Miller and Padian, clearly explained how ID proponents generally and Pandas specifically, distort and misrepresent scientific knowledge in making their anti-evolution argument. In analyzing such distortion, we turn again to Pandas, the book to which students are expressly referred in the disclaimer. Defendants hold out Pandas as representative of ID and Plaintiffs’ experts agree in that regard. (16:83 (Padian); 1:107-08 (Miller)). A series of arguments against evolutionary theory found in Pandas involve paleontology, which studies the life of the past and the fossil record. Plaintiffs’ expert Professor Padian was the only testifying expert witness with any expertise in paleontology.15 His testimony therefore remains unrebutted. Dr. Padian’s demonstrative slides, prepared on the basis of peer-reviewing scientific literature, illustrate how Pandas systematically distorts and misrepresents established, important evolutionary principles."

The theory of gravity has a lot of parts that are not yet explainable too people don't fight against the theory of gravity only because it does not clash with their world view. If it wasn't for religion there would be hardly anyone making silly arguments like irreducible complexity to challenge evolution. May the theory of evolution change in the future sure as we learn more about the world are theory may change, so may any other scientific theory we have including ones that help create medicine that saves lives. But at this point in time it is the very best theory we have and is supported by a mountain of evidence. Even if the amount of evidence for it was still quite small it would still have more to support it than just saying God did it.

where is the option for us being alien created genetically engineered pig monkeys?

or for us being descendant from hybrids between chimps and pigs who got it on?

also, did you know that ligers are REAL?!

now you know, enjoy.



"Generally speaking, inter species hybrids—like mules, ligers (lion-tiger hybrids), or zedonks (zebra-donkey hybrids)—are less fertile than the parents that produced them. However, as McCarthy has documented in his years of research into hybrids, many crosses produce hybrids that can produce offspring themselves"

When I asked McCarthy if he could give a date estimate for the hybridization event, he said that there are a couple broad possibilities: (1) It might be that hybridization between pigs and apes produced the earliest hominids millions of years ago and that subsequent mating within this hybrid swarm eventually led to the various hominid types and to modern humans; (2) separate crosses between pigs and apes could have produced separate hominids (and there's even a creepy possibility that hybridization might even still be occurring in regions where Sus and Pan still seem to come into contact, like Southern Sudan)."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html#jCp"


also, while evolution is generally accepted by scientists, how evolution works and how the process worked for humans in particular, is very much a mystery/subject of debate and study.


"extensive research into the broader issues, and shortcomings, of our currently incomplete theory of evolution. As the increasing apparent, magnificent, speed with which morphological change can occur continues to present itself for us to comprehend, the standard theory of random mutation followed by slow environmental selection, seems to stall. In my own opinion, female choice undoubtedly provides much of the functional "speed-up" we observe, but other mechanisms of mutation, or pathways for acquired characteristics to be fed back to the gonads (through retroviral transfer?), now need to be considered anew. The role of hybridization in driving morphological change, as McCarthy has observed time and time again, particularly in his studies of avian species (Oxford University Press, 2006), may be the most powerful mechanism of all.