Can you give me an observable evidence that Evolution is true?

[Nietzsche]

'perfect' was a label Nietzsche and I agreed on for e.g. Horseshoe crabs- a design that is good enough to effectively halt evolution in that species.
and hence the drift, variety ceases. Just one of the complications to the process, that this 'dead end' must be avoided for improvement to continue.

It isn't a dead end. Evolution is about survival. If you're doing well then you've already got what you need, and unless something changes the mutations will not be passed down as often. Again, smaller populations only evolve more quickly because the mutations are passed down without being 'buffered' by breeding populations of the Baseline-Organism.

Think of a large population of animals as a filter of sorts. Given how small most mutations are, there is an extremely good chance that any changes would simply never make it to the larger population because there are plenty of Baselines around. And the changes that are made would be further watered down through breeding with the far larger group of baselines.

Now you cut down the population size and you've removed the filter. Now when the mutations are passed down, there are less and less Baselines to filter through, so they become more and more apparent as the Mutants become the new Baselines.

6th, there's no objective evidence for how a magician correctly identifies your card, that doesn't make chance the best explanation

...

Speaking as a magician, yes there is.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Are you talking about the asteroid being the improbable event?

This is why I mentioned that there already was a general trend of animals getting smarter, with or without the asteroid.

So through enough time, something with our level of intelligence would have eventually emerged. Maybe it would have taken longer, but none-the-less, still happen. If humans went extinct today, it's likely that eventually something else with our intelligence would come along. We know for sure that animals would get smarter anyway.

>150 million years wasn't enough for dinosaurs.. or even one single species of any kind.. how much longer did they need?
Yet humans developed sentience practically instantaneously in geological timescales


Dinosaurs ruled by excelling at physical dominance, and without their surgical removal, there is no marketplace for intelligence. Small clever animals would simply be snacks.Of course It's impossible to rule out that something could have developed intelligence, but there was plenty time for that possibility to manifest and it never did.

so obviously the conditions, the asteroid were key to that development- and even under those conditions.. just one species developed our utterly unique capacity.

We are the only being we know of that is even aware that we are on a planet, far less be able to investigate the origins of the universe, count the number of stars, unravel the secrets of life itself... and this in a so far silent galaxy. If it is arrogant to consider this utterly unique capacity special, what is it to insist that we are not special? an inferiority complex? I say just look at the objective reality of it- reality being arrogant or self deprecating according to our amateur physiological labels is secondary and entirely subjective

 

[Sapiens]

as above, you may want to take it up with Dawkins
"It's as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history"

That's just another or your quote mines, as has been pointed out.

 

[Sapiens]

I quoted the substance, the observation. It's difficult to find evidence for aliens also, this doesn't make them more plausible

No, you did not quote the substance, that's exactly the point, you quoted, out of context, to create an appearance that an opposing expert from the other side agrees with you. How foolish.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It isn't a dead end. Evolution is about survival. If you're doing well then you've already got what you need, and unless something changes the mutations will not be passed down as often. Again, smaller populations only evolve more quickly because the mutations are passed down without being 'buffered' by breeding populations of the Baseline-Organism.

Think of a large population of animals as a filter of sorts. Given how small most mutations are, there is an extremely good chance that any changes would simply never make it to the larger population because there are plenty of Baselines around. And the changes that are made would be further watered down through breeding with the far larger group of baselines.

Now you cut down the population size and you've removed the filter. Now when the mutations are passed down, there are less and less Baselines to filter through, so they become more and more apparent as the Mutants become the new Baselines.


..

I think we agreed on this already, it's a dead end with regards to the process of evolution, Horseshoe crabs stopped evolving because they were too 'perfect' hence for humans to have progressed beyond, this dead end had to be avoided at every stage. another hurdle for chance alone, the odds against us evolving through chance quickly compound into astronomical numbers

Speaking as a magician, yes there is.

we're both speaking as the audience in this reality though.
similarly it's not impossible the correct card was randomly selected, but there is a better explanation involving creative intelligence -without knowing how the trick was done

 

[Guy Threepwood]

No, you did not quote the substance, that's exactly the point, you quoted, out of context, to create an appearance that an opposing expert from the other side agrees with you. How foolish.

He's not the only one to describe the sudden appearance of complex life in the Cambrian- as an explosion. Perhaps we are all foolish, but if you have a differing opinion , a reason would be a little more interesting than an insult..

 

[Sapiens]

>150 million years wasn't enough for dinosaurs.. or even one single species of any kind.. how much longer did they need?
Yet humans developed sentience practically instantaneously in geological timescales


Dinosaurs ruled by excelling at physical dominance, and without their surgical removal, there is no marketplace for intelligence. Small clever animals would simply be snacks.Of course It's impossible to rule out that something could have developed intelligence, but there was plenty time for that possibility to manifest and it never did.

so obviously the conditions, the asteroid were key to that development- and even under those conditions.. just one species developed our utterly unique capacity.

We are the only being we know of that is even aware that we are on a planet, far less be able to investigate the origins of the universe, count the number of stars, unravel the secrets of life itself... and this in a so far silent galaxy. If it is arrogant to consider this utterly unique capacity special, what is it to insist that we are not special? an inferiority complex? I say just look at the objective reality of it- reality being arrogant or self deprecating according to our amateur physiological labels is secondary and entirely subjective

"What ifs" are a dangerous undertaking in any field, but there is speculation, amongst competent paleontologists that the raptor line within the dinosaur clade was on the path that primates later took. They had the basic gear, manipulative hands with bipedal locomotion, stereoscopic vision, an increasingly large brain case, etc. The asteroid strike ended that, just as a similar strike today would likely end the current mammalian experiment with "intelligence" even though we appear to be somewhat farther along the path.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

'perfect' was a label Nietzsche and I agreed on for e.g. Horseshoe crabs- a design that is good enough to effectively halt evolution in that species.
and hence the drift, variety ceases. Just one of the complications to the process, that this 'dead end' must be avoided for improvement to continue.

As said already, if the species is so perfect that it doesn't need to evolved, then the dead end doesn't really need to be avoided.

But you're actually right. The success of a given group of organisms often ends up being their downfall later. Things tend to go extinct eventually. There's a famous quote by Carl Sagan: "Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception."

During mass extinctions, it's usually the most dominant organisms at the top of the food chain that end up going extinct. This is why mammals survived the Cretaceous extinction and non-avian dinosaurs didn't.

This is for a number of reasons. Successful animals often tend to have individuals that live longer. And longer living animals means longer generations, which slows their evolution. Short living animals can evolve and adapt quicker. Successful things tend to get bigger. During a catastrophy, small animals have the advantage of burrowing and escape. Small animals tend to have bigger numbers, meaning more genetic diversity, meaning a better chance that individuals within their population will have the right mutation for survival.

Big population is a double-edged sword. As stated already, if a population is big and it's already successful with low selective pressure imposed on it, any advantages mutation will be buffered, as less advantages genes will also be selected roughly equally as much.

On the other hand, if you have a big population but the animals aren't at the top of the food chain and have significant selective pressure imposed on them, advantages mutations are more likely to be selected, and the big population makes it more likely for the mutation to be there at all in the first place. If it's a small population with a lot of selective pressure, yes, the small population makes any advantages mutation more likely to pass on. But being a small population makes it less likely for the mutation to be somewhere in the population at all in the first place.

So when that asteroid hit, you have a bunch of big successful dinosaurs with small numbers. The asteroid introduces massive selective pressure that the dinosaurs can't react to. And their generations are much longer so they can't produce the right mutations in time. Where as small mouse-like mammals reproduced like crazy, producing more mutations over a given amount of time.

 

[Nietzsche]

I think we agreed on this already, it's a dead end with regards to the process of evolution, Horseshoe crabs stopped evolving because they were too 'perfect' hence for humans to have progressed beyond, this dead end had to be avoided at every stage. another hurdle for chance alone, the odds against us evolving through chance quickly compound into astronomical numbers

A horseshoe crab lives in a static environment. It does not migrate often, nor does it do much in general. Humans and other apes, though? We move around a lot, we're curious. Our evolution was influenced by this curiosity inherent in primates because we just want to know things. And it isn't just primates in that regard either. Wolves are curious, elephants are incredibly curious, octopi are freakishly smart & curious.

we're both speaking as the audience in this reality though.
similarly it's not impossible the correct card was randomly selected, but there is a better explanation involving creative intelligence -without knowing how the trick was done

Fair enough.

>150 million years wasn't enough for dinosaurs.. or even one single species of any kind.. how much longer did they need?
Yet humans developed sentience practically instantaneously in geological timescales

We're the most recent in a looong line of mammals. We've been evolving just as long as everything else, because if you go back far enough you'll find that everything in Animalia has a common ancestor. It is an utterly ancient being, but it's there.

Dinosaurs ruled by excelling at physical dominance, and without their surgical removal, there is no marketplace for intelligence. Small clever animals would simply be snacks.Of course It's impossible to rule out that something could have developed intelligence, but there was plenty time for that possibility to manifest and it never did.

That is an outdated view of dinosaurs. Now that we realize they were basically just birds, they are far more intelligent than what we previously assumed. These were not cold-blooded, ponderous and slow beasts. These were quick creatures who had to think on the move and adapt to a world full of what amounts to proto-dragons. They became THE dominant lifeform not because of size but because of their brains compared to all other creatures. It was only after they were the smartest animals that they became the biggest.

We are the only being we know of that is even aware that we are on a planet, far less be able to investigate the origins of the universe, count the number of stars, unravel the secrets of life itself... and this in a so far silent galaxy. If it is arrogant to consider this utterly unique capacity special, what is it to insist that we are not special? an inferiority complex? I say just look at the objective reality of it- reality being arrogant or self deprecating according to our amateur physiological labels is secondary and entirely subjective

I'd appreciate it if you would respond to my thing about aliens I posted a bit ago, if you don't mind.

 

[Sapiens]

I think we agreed on this already, it's a dead end with regards to the process of evolution, Horseshoe crabs stopped evolving because they were too 'perfect' hence for humans to have progressed beyond, this dead end had to be avoided at every stage. another hurdle for chance alone, the odds against us evolving through chance quickly compound into astronomical numbers

Horseshoe crabs have NOT stopped evolving, all that can be said is that their physical shape has not changed much (if at all) in a long time. Evolution does not occur by chance, natural selection is not a stochastic process.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

>150 million years wasn't enough for dinosaurs.. or even one single species of any kind.. how much longer did they need?
Yet humans developed sentience practically instantaneously in geological timescales

Marking the timescale like that is arbitrary and unfair.

If humans evolved immediately from something with dinosaur intelligence, you'd have a point. But a lot of our brain power is homologous and shared with all other mammals, and mammals have been here for 160 million years. Also right around the time birds evolved.

And all life eventually has a common ancestor far back in time. Dinosaurs and humans both sit on top of over 3 billion years of evolution. They died out 65 million years ago, so we're sitting on top of an extra 65 million years of the evolutionary intellectual development.

That's the most fair comparison one should give. It's silly to simply mark it at 300,000 years ago to around where modern humans emerged. The intellectual development didn't start there. It started when life it self started, which means we're sitting on more time than the dinosaurs. Simple as that.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

As said already, if the species is so perfect that it doesn't need to evolved, then the dead end doesn't really need to be avoided.

But you're actually right. The success of a given group of organisms often ends up being their downfall later. Things tend to go extinct eventually. There's a famous quote by Carl Sagan: "Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception."

During mass extinctions, it's usually the most dominant organisms at the top of the food chain that end up going extinct. This is why mammals survived the Cretaceous extinction and non-avian dinosaurs didn't.

This is for a number of reasons. Successful animals often tend to have individuals that live longer. And longer living animals means longer generations, which slows their evolution. Short living animals can evolve and adapt quicker. Successful things tend to get bigger. During a catastrophy, small animals have the advantage of burrowing and escape. Small animals tend to have bigger numbers, meaning more genetic diversity, meaning a better chance that individuals within their population will have the right mutation for survival.

Big population is a double-edged sword. As stated already, if a population is big and it's already successful with low selective pressure imposed on it, any advantages mutation will be buffered, as less advantages genes will also be selected roughly equally as much.

On the other hand, if you have a big population but the animals aren't at the top of the food chain and have significant selective pressure imposed on them, advantages mutations are more likely to be selected, and the big population makes it more likely for the mutation to be there at all in the first place. If it's a small population with a lot of selective pressure, yes, the small population makes any advantages mutation more likely to pass on. But being a small population makes it less likely for the mutation to be somewhere in the population at all in the first place.

So when that asteroid hit, you have a bunch of big successful dinosaurs with small numbers. The asteroid introduces massive selective pressure that the dinosaurs can't react to. And their generations are much longer so they can't produce the right mutations in time. Where as small mouse-like mammals reproduced like crazy, producing more mutations over a given amount of time.

So again we agree with the process here, that there is a self defeating component to evolution- where success=failure for large groups to adapt, and hence extinction when new circumstances arise.

Conversely, adaptation is more effective in small stressed populations... but those populations are small and stressed for some reason already, and hence also prone to extinction. They are also prone to deleterious/terminal mutations from small gene pools

we get back to the same point, that natural selection without a map is not the simple straightforward inevitable plodding path to improvement and sentience that it is sometimes characterized as.
it looks more like a Buster Keaton chase scene with endless absurdly improbable fortuitous accidents, arriving here to have this debate is a little like the Griswolds waking up to find their car neatly parked at the motel... fluke may be all that's superficially apparent, and it's always possible, just not necessarily always the best ultimate explanation.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

So again we agree with the process here, that there is a self defeating component to evolution- where success=failure for large groups to adapt, and hence extinction when new circumstances arise.

Conversely, adaptation is more effective in small stressed populations... but those populations are small and stressed for some reason already, and hence also prone to extinction. They are also prone to deleterious/terminal mutations from small gene pools

we get back to the same point, that natural selection without a map is not the simple straightforward inevitable plodding path to improvement and sentience that it is sometimes characterized as.

Well, I don't really know what you're implying or getting at in the end.

The only thing we can describe as an "accident" or random, are mutations themselves. The selection of mutations is what's predictable and not random.

 

[Nietzsche]

Well, I don't really know what you're implying or getting at in the end.

The only thing we can describe as an "accident" or random, are mutations themselves. The selection of mutations is what's predictable and not random.

That is the most important part.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

That is the most important part

That isn't a very good argument simply because as I stated, life could be downright abundant and we'd never know for several reasons. One, anything we find will most likely be immeasurably older or younger than us(the Angels or Apes concept). Two, they could be so radically different and well, alien to us that we would not recognize it as life in the first place nor us them. Three, there's the problem of distance. Four, there's the issue of technological advancement, namely that there is no reason to assume that our path is the one another civilization(one made up, I stress, of aliens) would go down.

if this was the part I didn't respond to

one:
the galaxy has been around for billions of years, immeasurably older civilizations have had plenty time to arise and colonize the galaxy many times over, even with technology little better than ours. They would have found Earth long before we started looking for them... ancient alien theories not withstanding, this apparently never happened.

two
'Life but not as we know it' is a good premise for Star Trek episodes, especially where floating balls of sentience are easier than alien costumes.. but in reality- the entire universe is made of the same old stuff we have here, we have a vast diversity of possible ecosystems right here on Earth, and even where surrounded by complex life, it has never even been able to adapt to live there, far less arise there in the 1st place.

three + four

if they were not curious and intelligent enough to seek answers, to look for other life as we do, then I wouldn't consider them sentient.
Perhaps you could imagine if you wanted to, a very intelligent species that had no interest or ability to do so... or one which destroyed itself, or one which intentionally remains hidden- but all of them? The premise seems to walk a pretty fine line between aliens 'definitely existing' but 'definitely not common enough to find'.

We've barely developed technology and got off the ground for a few generations, and we're already actively sending and listening for messages,
what could we do in another 1000 years? 10k? mere blinks of an eye geologically. Hawking for one sees it as our probable destiny to colonize the stars- the mere fact of sentience makes it an inevitable goal- why has no other civilization done so in billions of years?

Well, I don't really know what you're implying or getting at in the end.

The only thing we can describe as an "accident" or random, are mutations themselves. The selection of mutations is what's predictable and not random.

That the mutations are not truly random, or the probability of our being here is vanishingly small

 

[Nietzsche]

if this was the part I didn't respond to

It is, thank you very much.

one:
the galaxy has been around for billions of years, immeasurably older civilizations have had plenty time to arise and colonize the galaxy many times over, even with technology little better than ours. They would have found Earth long before we started looking for them... ancient alien theories not withstanding, this apparently never happened.

Why would they have found earth? The galaxy is massive, there are untold numbers of stars, planets & asteroids for them to visit.

two
'Life but not as we know it' is a good premise for Star Trek episodes, especially where floating balls of sentience are easier than alien costumes.. but in reality- the entire universe is made of the same old stuff we have here, we have a vast diversity of possible ecosystems right here on Earth, and even where surrounded by complex life, it has never even been able to adapt to live there, far less arise there in the 1st place.

This is all true. But you are forgetting something. Namely, how radically different life even on our planet can be. There is a type of mold that is growing on the Chernobyl Sarcophagus. It feeds on ionizing radiation. Imagine something more complex than a mold who manages to do that. It would be utterly, completely alien and it would have no interest in finding 'us' because we do not consume the same things. Our needs would be radically different. There is also reason to believe that the spectrum of light visible to us need not be universal in other life.

Again, if you want to see aliens, look at the most radically different forms of life already here and imagine something even more different than that, because you and I would have more in common with a cabbage than with anything from another planet.

three + four

if they were not curious and intelligent enough to seek answers, to look for other life as we do, then I wouldn't consider them sentient.
Perhaps you could imagine if you wanted to, a very intelligent species that had no interest or ability to do so... or one which destroyed itself, or one which intentionally remains hidden- but all of them? The premise seems to walk a pretty fine line between aliens 'definitely existing' but 'definitely not common enough to find'.

We've barely developed technology and got off the ground for a few generations, and we're already actively sending and listening for messages,
what could we do in another 1000 years? 10k? mere blinks of an eye geologically. Hawking for one sees it as our probable destiny to colonize the stars- the mere fact of sentience makes it an inevitable goal- why has no other civilization done so in billions of years?

Different technological development?

Or, if you'll humour for a moment, perhaps we live in what amounts to a galactic 'nature preserve' of sorts. I mean is it really that strange to think that other sentient life might want to not-intervene with our development? Perhaps they(the aliens) have had a bad record regarding the 'uplifting' of life, and find it morally wrong to interfere until we've reached some level of technological & social advancement that would prevent us from losing our minds and deciding to fight them.

 

[Sapiens]

When you are discussing the detection of alien life you need to factor in the distances and technologies of communication. Seti and such are, I think, a waste of time because they are looking for analog transmissions; which due to the innate superiority if digital transmissions, only persist for a very small window in time. Digital transmissions, unless you know exactly what to look for and how to decypher them, are just white noise.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

if this was the part I didn't respond to

one:
the galaxy has been around for billions of years, immeasurably older civilizations have had plenty time to arise and colonize the galaxy many times over, even with technology little better than ours. They would have found Earth long before we started looking for them... ancient alien theories not withstanding, this apparently never happened.

This, it self, can be rare for life. We don't even do that. And we could very well kill ourselves before we get that far.

There can be a million of civilizations at our level of advancement. A million sounds like a lot, but given the vast distances between stars, we would never know about them.

Heck, there can be civilizations at our level of intelligence, but not necessarily at our level of technological advancement. We couldn't know about it as they wouldn't be sending any radio signals.

If a Roman Empire type civilization was at Alpha Centuri (closest star to our solar system at 4 light years away), there's no way we could know about it. Who's to say there aren't millions of "Roman Empires" out there?

That the mutations are not truly random, or the probability of our being here is vanishingly small

What's vanishingly small?

Given the vastness of the Universe, "vanishingly small" is more than enough to pretty much guarantee life, arguably multiple times.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

This, it self, can be rare for life. We don't even do that. And we could very well kill ourselves before we get that far.

There can be a million of civilizations at our level of advancement. A million sounds like a lot, but given the vast distances between stars, we would never know about them.

Heck, there can be civilizations at our level of intelligence, but not necessarily at our level of technological advancement. We couldn't know about it as they wouldn't be sending any radio signals.

If a Roman Empire type civilization was at Alpha Centuri (closest star to our solar system at 4 light years away), there's no way we could know about it. Who's to say there aren't millions of "Roman Empires" out there?



What's vanishingly small?

Given the vastness of the Universe, "vanishingly small" is more than enough to pretty much guarantee life, arguably multiple times.

millions of roman Empires existing now, would imply gabillions having existed in the past- not one single one went on to colonized the galaxy, or at least transmit a signal we could detect?

Personally I'd be willing to bet we are alone, but this is not based on the silence so much as the odds, I think the universe would have to be much, much larger to make another sentient life form probable.

 

[metis]

'perfect' was a label Nietzsche and I agreed on for e.g. Horseshoe crabs- a design that is good enough to effectively halt evolution in that species.
and hence the drift, variety ceases. Just one of the complications to the process, that this 'dead end' must be avoided for improvement to continue.

3rd to 5th.. as I said to Nietzsche, we don't disagree on the history so much as the cause/implications, chance or a blueprint

6th, there's no objective evidence for how a magician correctly identifies your card, that doesn't make chance the best explanation

Actually, the "magician" is much more a theistic approach than a scientific one as science does not rely on magic as most theists do.