The Origin of Species - 150 years (OT)

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Mighty Hiker

Social climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 16, 2008 - 02:06am PT

"Dating methods assume constant decay rates."

Which doesn't seem a particularly positive way to think about about our love lives.

Another probably vain thread highjack attempt. I suppose I could just delete the first post, to get some peace and quiet. I would also spare myself the embarrassment of seeing a 600+ post thread with which I am haplessly associated, where nothing much new has been said for 500+ posts.

Though I did like Jody's pretty diagram a few posts back.

Edit: I looked, and there very much still is an edit button on the first post. In fact, I think that stays permanently - it's just that all the subsequent posts to a thread can't be edited or removed after seven (10?) days. I noticed that on another thread that popped up recently - it was from a while ago, but still had the edit button on the first post. Assuming, that is, that the button actually works - no reason it shouldn't.

monolith

Trad climber

Berkeley

Jul 16, 2008 - 02:48am PT

Random chance? I don't think so.

That's the 'I can't understand it, therefore my God did it' argument.

Even the judge in the Dover case understood how complex systems can evolve when explained.

Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Jul 16, 2008 - 04:13am PT

There are three types of people;

Those that see something that complicated and 'Know' there must a guiding hand.

Those that see something that complicated and know that there can't have been a guiding hand.

those that know that there are more than three ways to look at this.

Blight

Social climber

Jul 16, 2008 - 04:25am PT

"That's the 'I can't understand it, therefore my God did it' argument."

Actually it's not. Of course Jody said no such thing. You're conflating two completely separate questions:

"Can complex systems evolve spontaneously?"

and

"Did God create complex systems?"

The reason you're combining them is clear - to avoid having to answer the very real critcism that Jody is levelling at your beliefs.

He says, reasonably, that probability, selection and mutation as we understand them are highly unlikely to produce the illustrated system because it's so interdependent.

That's a fair comment.

In response, instead of showing that probability, selection and mutation genuinely could have produced the system, you shriek, "YOU JUST BELIEVE GOD DID IT YOU'RE WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!!!"

So tell me, who doesn't understand the question: someone who's just posted a complete diagram of the system as currently understood and levelled a very real criticism at it?

Or someone whose only answer is to sneer incoherently about their prejudice concerning belief in God - which isn't even relevant to the critcism - and to completely avoid answering the argument presented?

Blight

Social climber

Jul 16, 2008 - 04:35am PT

"Those thst see something that complicated and 'Know' there must a guiding hamd.

Those that see something that complicated and know that there can't have been a guiding hand.

those that know that there are more than three ways to look at this."

That's very true!

I'm very interested in this current rehash of atheism and its crude links to science. Of course it's not new - as I mentioned before, it's really just old-fashioned positivism dusted off and repackaged.

There have been many iterations of this version of atheism before, all of which have inevitably collapsed. What's really fascinating is that despite being a rerun, each time the atheists make grandiose claims that it's "the way forward" and that religion is "dying out" (to be replaced, presumably, by science and atheism), apparently unaware that it's all been said before.

The elements are often interchangeable: in one iteration of atheism science is used to "prove" that some races are inferior (thus justifying their mistreatment), in another it is used to "prove" that they are deluded and of low intelligence (thus also justifying their mistreatment). But the key themes remain the same: science used as tool to "prove" the superiority of atheists and proclaimed to be the new saviour of humanity, replacing the old one.

As John Gray said, atheism is just a late christian cult, notable only for its intellectual crudity.

Tobyslim

Trad climber

Scandinavia

Jul 16, 2008 - 05:48am PT

I have been reading this thread and have enjoyed it even though the discussion have not really been coherent at all times. However, as a biologist I would like to point out a few things:
On the origin of species was published 1859. The 150 year anniversary was of the paper published by Darwin together with Alfred Russel Wallace where they outlined the theory of evolution through natural selection. His work was founded on the theory of the economist Malthus that a population would grow exponentially when the resources grew lineary, leading to starvation. Even prior to Darwins release a concept of species evolving from each other had been around for some time as a way of explaining the observations of fossils and the organisms that naturalists brought studied all over the world. Often in the form of a tree of creation with Man on top and the "lesser" animals below. This view is sometimes still referred to, people think that there are less and more evolved organisms.

I also would like to point out that what a "species" is can be hard to define even in biological terms. One criteria is usually that they do not form fertile offspring, but many "species" that are commonly thought to be separate can still interbreed. Lions and Tigers for example, but they dont in the wild since they are on different continents. The fact that "species" are not always clearly distinct but are separated by natural barriers (such as being on different islands) is expected from evolutionary theory. Only after some time changes will occur so that two isolated populations become distinct from each other.

Mutations are said to be very rare. This is not the case in sequences that are not under "selective pressure", in other words sequences that no not affect the function of the organism are frequently changed.

The fact that biochemical processes in mammalian cells (or any cell for that matter) are complicated is often a result of that they are made up from what was available. creating unnecessary complicated processes. A designer could often have made it simpler.

These are just a few pointers. Evolution is a scientific theory and does not tell people how to live their lives, but as science it is very solid. Otherwise it would be challenged in peer reviewed scientific journals. Just Imagine how famous you could become...

When it comes to the philosophical implications of evolution. God could create the world in any way he wanted if he exists, he seem to have chosen a way that is after a lot of studies very hard to differ from natural mechanisms. He seems to be a bit shy.

Blight

Social climber

Jul 16, 2008 - 06:47am PT

"God could create the world in any way he wanted if he exists, he seem to have chosen a way that is after a lot of studies very hard to differ from natural mechanisms."

Is it surprising that science has only detected "natural" mechanisms?

I had a similar experience last night: I was hungry and you know what, I really fancied some chocolate. So I went to the cupboard and fetched my metal detector and you know I searched all over the house and didn't find a single bit of chocolate. So know I know that chocolate doesn't exist.

Tobyslim

Trad climber

Scandinavia

Jul 16, 2008 - 07:08am PT

In your analogy you search for chocolate but in the case for explaining the biological diversity it is rather that we have all these pieces of a puzzle and try to fit them together. evolution is (so far) the best way to organize the pieces so that they fit. And the cool thing is that when we find new pieces they also fit in the puzzle. Can we prove that this is the right way to fit the pieces. Not until we have found all pieces (which we will never do). But its a very good way to fit the pieces.

Blight

Social climber

Jul 16, 2008 - 08:07am PT

That wasn't the analogy - again as expected you've not only failed to answer the question, you've failed to read it and to understand it - in fact all you've done in the absence of understanding is to trot out another dull little soundbite which you picked up someplace and serves you in place of having any ideas of your own.

The analogy was to your complaint that the way God, if he exists, has created the world looks to science very like it's naturally occurring.

So what? Show that science is the right tool for find a god and you'll have a useful conclusion. Until then there're every possibility that you're looking for chocolate using a metal detector.

Tobyslim

Trad climber

Scandinavia

Jul 16, 2008 - 09:19am PT

I seem to have misunderstood you. I was trying to explain the natural world in general and the biodiversity specifically, not looking for god. If I wanted to do that science would be the wrong tool as science deals with understanding the things we see around us in a plausible way.

WBraun

climber

Jul 16, 2008 - 10:31am PT

Nop

The real goal of science is to come to the platform of understanding God.

Blight has it perfectly.

It's modern science that has become defective and lost sight of the "real" goal to the answer of everything.

summum bonum

Instead it's theory after theory and nothing but mental speculations which mislead everyone.

graniteclimber

Trad climber

Nowhere

Jul 16, 2008 - 10:36am PT

Tobyslim, Blight is a troll.

WBraun

climber

Jul 16, 2008 - 10:41am PT

NO HE IS NOT A TROLL

Graniteclimber you are just a gross mental speculator.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 16, 2008 - 11:09am PT

Blight writes: Is it surprising that science has only detected "natural" mechanisms?

not surprising at all, since that is the domain of science, measuring what is physical. All science seeks to do is to explain physical reality. Those things which exist apart from physical reality, which cannot be measured, quantified, and explained in some logical manner are quite beyond the reach of science.

I thought that I've said that before on other threads...

Blight, it is really you here that have a dusty old view of the division of the world between "natural" and "supernatural," perhaps the most popular recent past movement being in Victorian times. I don't really have any issue with you belief in the spiritual. Ultimately, it comes down to what thoughts and feelings you want to believe as representative of an external reality.

Thoughts have a reality all their own, thoughts exist, but thoughts may not represent an external reality, nor do they have to in order to affect how we perceive and interact with the world. If we "know" that there are supernatural events which defy all our ability to measure physically, but are "perceived" by us then we cannot determine if they actually exist, or if they are just artifacts of the way our brains work.

This does not in anyway "demote" these perceptions (at least in my thinking), and it does take the subject of those perceptions out of the realm of science and empirical verification. They exist as a subjective consensus among many people, perhaps all people (to generalize wildly), but while the idea exists and is agreed upon, that idea may have no physical presence outside of thought.

Once again, this is not a trivial thing, as thought motivates action. But thought requires a thing which thinks, and that which thinks may be physical, and be understood even when what it thinks might be beyond the physical.

There is a duality there which is open to scientific investigation, and confronts your example above.

WBraun

climber

Jul 16, 2008 - 12:18pm PT

And above that duality is the real answer.

I guarantee it .....

UncleDoug

Social climber

N. lake Tahoe

Jul 16, 2008 - 12:20pm PT

jody and blight,

do a either of you have kids?
do they look exactly like you, or your spouse?
do you look exactly like either of your parents?

if so you are observing evolution in action.