Evolution.
- Thread starter Patrick R.
- Start date
WeAreTheLastMen
Metacom
everyone believes in evolution.
way to go, we get another threat of pointless bashing of religion from people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
way to go, we get another threat of pointless bashing of religion from people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
BlackMetalWhiteGuy
Manly Man!
I believe in evolution and Im a uneducated DMF
I can tell just by comparing ancient drawings to later ones.......
at one time we looked like stick people.........
we have surely evolved
I can tell just by comparing ancient drawings to later ones.......
at one time we looked like stick people.........
we have surely evolved
Evolution has nothing to do with religion, it may change how you view yourself and animals, but anti-religion isn't a part of evolutionary theory.
Without searching on the interwebz can any of you actually explain evolution? Chances are your understanding of it is about as advanced as John McCain's understanding of the sunni and shia. So you say you believe that we have evolved, how and why does this matter? Unless you are planning a career in biology, what does it help you in? Apart from saying you are smarter than those who deny it. This of course does not mean we are not to teach its basics in school, for then how would anyone in the first place even be introduced to it?
Btw i strongly lean towards belief in evolution, you just have to see the intermediary fossils for the past millions of years and it seems to all fall in place.
Btw i strongly lean towards belief in evolution, you just have to see the intermediary fossils for the past millions of years and it seems to all fall in place.
The Poona of Peshwa
Blood Glutton
More animals are born than can reach adulthood and reproduce. Animals that possess beneficial qualities are more likely do so and pass along their traits. Over the course of millions of years, and given geographical isolation, traits pile up and new species emerge. Simple, no? True, modern biology has come far with genetics and such, but that basic kernel of Darwinian theory still lies at the core.
I think that the best way to introduce evolutionary theory is through anecdotes about the adventures of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin and Russell used the backdrop of 19th century geology which came to the startling revelation that the earth is older than 7000 years old, and malthusian reasoning about the limits of exponential growth to come to their conclusion. They both had some amazing adventures in South America working in the field as well.
Philosophically I think that evolution is important because it gives us an insight into ourselves that we couldn't otherwise possess. Why are we the way we are? Evolution provides insight into politics, sex, family dynamics, it can even explain why sugar tastes good!
I think that the best way to introduce evolutionary theory is through anecdotes about the adventures of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin and Russell used the backdrop of 19th century geology which came to the startling revelation that the earth is older than 7000 years old, and malthusian reasoning about the limits of exponential growth to come to their conclusion. They both had some amazing adventures in South America working in the field as well.
Philosophically I think that evolution is important because it gives us an insight into ourselves that we couldn't otherwise possess. Why are we the way we are? Evolution provides insight into politics, sex, family dynamics, it can even explain why sugar tastes good!
BlackMetalWhiteGuy
Manly Man!
The Poona of Peshwa
Blood Glutton
You bring up chance, well I should start off with mathematical probability and along with evolutionary theory. Cytochrome c is a protein that all aerobic organisms have, it is located in the mitochondria. This protein plays a role in the electron transport chain, where is transports one electron. There is a seemingly endless number of codes that could
Code:
for this protein, but yet humans and chimpanzees have an identical cytochrome c protein sequence.
What are the chances of this happening, if humans and chimpanzees didn't share common ancestry? Not a very good chance!Have you ever forgot your password to something? Every tried to guess it back? Not a very good chance when there is an endless variety of words, numbers, etc. The exact mathematics of this situation has already been taken care of by a physicist named Hubert P. Yockey in his monumental work "[U]Information Theory and Molecular Biology[/U]" [1992].
So you have to be a biologist, in order to understand or even care about evolution? Was Charles Darwin a biologist? No, he applied critical analysis of the various species around him. He concluded that they evolved and share universal common ancestry. Using Darwinian thinking, the genetic code was cracked by researches such as the very popular Francis Crick. The genetic code details codons, a triplet nucleotide sequence that codes for an amino acid. The genetic code is redundant, two different codons will formulate the same amino acid. The researchers applied Darwinian thinking, and assumed that the genetic code was universal in all known organisms. And they also predicated that there would be minor variations of this standard genetic code. If you understand genetics, you will know they were vindicated.
In contrast to Sir Issac Newton and Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for evolution, which is heritable variation and natural selection. Even though he had no knowledge of Mendelian genetics, the "blending" theory was still popular then. But nonetheless, he proposed a hereditary mechanism. Since that time, Mendelian genetics has been added to Charles Darwin's theory and there are more mechanisms to take into consideration such as genetic drift, whereby traits appear in generations by chance, rather then selection.
Should I continue?There is something I dont understand about evolution. You have what it supposed to be the remains of the dinosaurs era, which is crocs, some whales, not sure what else. Then you have the animal families which have basic functions and level of mentality that are pretty much the same amoungst its varieties, with climate and environment adaptations. Then you have humans and apes.... yet we stick out like a sore thumb by comparision. Have they determined how that happened ? Here we are apparently evolved from apes into this highly intellegent, capable and world dominating species. Yet these other apes never evolved beyond being basic furry animals living in the same environment they have always been in. What was it that set us apart to evolve so far beyond the evolution all these other species of mammals ?
panzerfaust666
German Asshole
As far as my knowledge goes in regards to Evolution, it is failry limited.I also ask, evolution as in "coming from apes" etc? I know enough to say that THAT theory is bullshit, mainly because we have 23 chromosones(46) and apes etc have 24( 48)
I'm not concerned so much about the technical end, I'd just like to know the basic theory that set us so far apart, I imagine there are many and yet unfounded
Seditious
GodSlayer
Seditious
GodSlayer
yet seems irrelevent when birds, bears (to a degree), kangaroos and apes are also bipedal.
now take birds, they can also fly... talk about having it made and set for world domination (which in a sense they have) but still after all these thousands of years, just simple basic brain function
Something is extremely odd about humans by comparision to the rest of the animal kingdom
BlackMetalWhiteGuy
Manly Man!
Crocs are not left over from the dinosaur era, as they were around before dinosaurs were. Whales are also not left over from it, because they didn't evolve until much later. What you're think of are birds, which are direct descendants of an undetermined bipedal, predatory dinosaur.
Humans and apes don't really stand out that much if you're at all familiar with primate evolution. Humans share a common ancestor with chimps, and they are genetically almost identical to us with the exception of one missing set of chromosomes, which I am very curious about. Humans however are much less hairy and have more sub-dermal fat, indicating that our ancestors most likely spent a great deal of their evolutionary history in and around water. Additionally, our babies are incredibly buoyant at birth and instinctively hold their breath under water. Our babies are also born prematurely by comparison to other apes, because our hips are not compatible with the passing of such large infants as other species are.
Humans, chimps and bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are all categorized as great apes, and the most closely related to humans other great apes are, the less arboreal they are. Great apes are not very much different from lesser apes (Gibbons) in terms of physical appearance. However, great apes' lips and noses are separate, allowing them greater variation in facial mobility and expression. Additionally Gibbons are almost completely arboreal, but they are brachiators, meaning they swing by their hands, which is also how humans usually do it.
Similarly, their are only minor differences between lesser apes and old world monkeys. For example, Gibbons are smarter, with flatter faces (more like ours) and they lack tails.
Old world monkeys are smarter than new world monkeys, semi-terrestrial, and have shorter tails.
New world monkeys out-competed lemurs in Africa, before they were eventually out-competed by old world monkeys. Consequently, new world monkeys are only found South America (hence their name), because old world monkeys evolved after it split from Africa, and lemurs only live in Madagascar, because monkeys evolved in Africa after Madagascar split away.
Lemurs all have very long tails, no facial mobility what-so-ever and are similar in appearance to other prosimians (early primates). Lower prosimians are completely arboreal and have large, forward facing eyes, which adapts them to a nocturnal, predatory life style, and thumbs that function independently of their other fingers. Their thumbs and forward facing eyes differentiate them from arboreal rodents, although their arboreal, quadrupedal locomotive style remains pretty much the same.
None of those are truly bipedal, because their legs are still set perpendicularly or near-perpendicularly against their spinal columns.
The type of intelligence that humans associate with is primarily an adaptation to large group size. The type of environmental manipulative intelligence that we're most proud of was originally an adaptation that allowed certain monkeys to manipulate other members of their social society. Obviously, monkeys that can trick other monkeys will be more reproductively successful than those who can't, and once this characteristic is passed on through a few generations, intelligence suddenly becomes a dominant factor of natural selection, and the only advantage one smart monkey can have against another smart monkey (all other factors being equal) is to be the smarter one. Compound this over innumerable generations and you go from monkeys manipulating each other to apes manipulating nearly every aspect of their environment.
Not any more!
Not really, because they haven't been exposed to technological selection pressure for very long and what they have experienced has developed much more quickly than most of them can reproduce, let alone reproduce while selecting for multiple random mutations.
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