Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

[Yerda]

you know that's interesting, although I doubt I will read it because I have so much to do and read as well, but -- now you got me wondering if DNA and RNA actually die when the flesh dies. What do you think?

DNA and RNA chains will break down and decompose along with the rest of the body. They are just molecules.

Edit: just saw response from @McBell in post #869 which is a better summary

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Reading your posts, it seems that what you call "erroneous definitions and assumptions" is just you and your strawmen, mistakes, misunderstandings and willful ignorance.

Like after all this time, still not understanding what "fit" means in evolutionary biology.
I mean.... literally in the previous post of the one you are replying to, you required it explained that "mate selection" is part of "natural selection".

You even literally used the word "selection" and still you had to have this pointed out to you.
It's kind of hard to take your objections to the biological sciences seriously if you even manage to get such basic things wrong.



What's up with the quotes?
Are you trying to make another fallacious anti-science point?



Yeah, it shows. You manage to get most basic terminology completely wrong. Like "fit" and "selection".



HILARIOUS.

It took you literally just one post to repeat the mistake of which I predicted that while you seemed to acknowledged to have learned something, you would simply repeat the same mistake in the future. Which you do in literally the very first post following that prediction.

Ow my!




Yeah, it seems you have already forgotten it.


Correct. You don't care about being wrong and misrepresenting the theory.
That's a you-problem.

We can't help you if you are so adverse at learning and so insisting on repeating your mistakes.
Be my guest to live your life in this perpetual willful ignorance, but the only thing you'll accomplish is that you'll continue to be wrong.

It's amusing. Selection isn't natural, but naturally females select. It's a natural choice with naturally no choice. Its selection but not natural selection. It's a conscious choice but not a conscious choice since females are hard wired to select outside of conscious choice. Anyway, it all seems to be solved by changing the definitions of the words describing the observation and keeping those definitions vague and mostly secret so that it is and isn't at the same time.

It defies all logic and goes in circles. Each circle contradicting the other. And of course this personal internal model is externalized and unjustly applied to all to justify its existence in the source of this nonsense in my view.

Just as the implication of knowing all is followed by the claims of not knowing in some weird self-effacing, self justification.

In the end, all I see is a belief system based on a seemingly lot of cascading willful ignorance and self justification. It's weird to me to see this plunder along in the face of facts. I read it as delusional.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Answer to what?

Who knows?

 

[cladking]

Selection pressures change in parallel with ever-changing environments.

Of course they do. I NEVER said otherwise. Species adapt to changes and if they had to evolve then they would do that too. But they don't "ever" need to evolve because changes in environments is a random walk. For thousand of years rabbits need to be more alert, or faster, or have a more varied diet and then each parameter changes. They don't have time to evolve.

What possible pressure would drive whales into the sea but leave all the other land animals?

 

[cladking]

I mean.... literally in the previous post of the one you are replying to, you required it explained that "mate selection" is part of "natural selection".

A female parakeet can't predict the future environment or the characteristics required of her suitors to deal with it. She's not almighty Darwin, afterall. Many people don't even think she is conscious so how is she supposed to know? Even if she is conscious how can she know longer beaks are really going to be in next year.

What's up with the quotes?
Are you trying to make another fallacious anti-science point?

No. Science is science. There are plenty of experiments comprising the ToE.

However there are no experiments that apply to our belief in gradual change caused by survival of the fittest as the cause of speciation. This is what we're talking about; whether speciation exists and if it exists its nature and causes. Fitness and gradual do not rise to the level of "theory" and could be wrong.

Yeah, it shows. You manage to get most basic terminology completely wrong. Like "fit" and "selection".

People get hung up on definitions. You can't cause something to exist by naming it. Adam named the animals, he didn't invent them.

 

[cladking]

There is no reference to consciousness, because there is no evidence to support that it is involved or necessary to evolution to require being mentioned by the theory of evolution.

One time you say a woman's mate selection is survival of the fittest and then you say it is not conscious.

 

[cladking]

A nearly incoherent claim that is incorrect. There is no reference to consciousness, because there is no evidence to support that it is involved or necessary to evolution to require being mentioned by the theory of evolution. And I think zero chance you will ever even attempt to support your claim that it is.

There are countless, infinite, ways that conscious can drive change in species in whole or in part. It's possible individuals can affect mutation by all manner of processes. It's possible the species change suddenly at bottlenecks because of unusual consciousnesses, it's possible that an overarching consciousness is driving it, it's possible that life in aggregate could be conscious, and for all I know it's possible a committee of rabbits is sitting down right now drafting a proposal to make foxes just a little bit slower.

Without even so much as a definition for consciousness it's wholly impossible to even study it or to assess its impact on change in species. To blithely just ignore the possibility that just as every individual controls itself and defines its species that these individuals are irrelevant to change in species is most unfortunate.

If consciousness can have such a huge effect on a single individual why can't a population of individuals be far more affected by it? To put it in Darwinian terms, how do you know that consciousness is not the most critical component of fitness. You already seem to believe that consciousness is the primary driver in mate selection and mate selection is a primary driver of Evolution.

 

[cladking]

Selection isn't natural, but naturally females select.

No matter what you call it there is no such thing as "natural selection" or "survival of the fittest". If it did exist it would be perfectly natural as in the sense a crystal is completely natural where the Hope Diamond is not. Things that require effort, theory, and understanding are not natural by your own definitions. Mate selection, especially mate selection on highly complex parameters as you are proposing, is quite "unnatural'.

 

[cladking]

Selection isn't natural, but naturally females select.

I think I called that 'it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it". Logically the job would fall to the female since it is she who looks after the offspring or at the very least endeavors to give each of them the best possible chance of survival. If she's already looking after the offspring she might as well look before them as well.

Normally it's the bigger and stronger members of a species that get his way. Surely this affects "survival of the fittest". So why is this usually not true in the determination of which genes are propagated? This is anomalous but all Darwin can do is provide anthropomorphized and facile answers.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

A female parakeet can't predict the future environment or the characteristics required of her suitors to deal with it. She's not almighty Darwin, afterall. Many people don't even think she is conscious so how is she supposed to know? Even if she is conscious how can she know longer beaks are really going to be in next year.

Selection isn't about "future change".
It's about current selection pressures.
And there is a distinction between pressures in context of survival on the one hand and pressures in terms of sexual selection.

With every post you make, you are digging the absurdity hole deeper and deeper.

No. Science is science. There are plenty of experiments comprising the ToE.

Such as?

However there are no experiments that apply to our belief in gradual change caused by survival of the fittest as the cause of speciation. This is what we're talking about; whether speciation exists and if it exists its nature and causes. Fitness and gradual do not rise to the level of "theory" and could be wrong.

Every theory "could be" wrong. It's why they are called theories and not facts.
And yes, speciation exists. Google "observed speciation".
And yes, speciation is accomplished through the gradual change that occurs every generation and is accumulated over generations.

People get hung up on definitions.

Well, terminology is kind of important.
If everybody insists on using his own personal definition for words, then no communication is possible and you'll just end up being wrong about everything - like you so clearly demonstrate.

Adam named the animals, he didn't invent them.

Uhu. And a talking snake tricked him and his imaginary wife to eat the magical fruit.

 

[wellwisher]

I'm not. I'm more concerned that you manipulated my post that you responded to. You may want to reconsider persisting in that practice.

Why worry about what you claim is fact when there is nothing to consider it to be fact.



A nearly incoherent claim that is incorrect. There is no reference to consciousness, because there is no evidence to support that it is involved or necessary to evolution to require being mentioned by the theory of evolution. And I think zero chance you will ever even attempt to support your claim that it is.

The lack of involvement of consciousness in evolution is not an assumption of the theory. It isn't considered, because there is no reason to consider it.

So far, we know what you think are assumptions of the theory, but not any actual assumptions.

Then I would say that all your worry is for naught and merely a manifestation of your ignorance of this subject.

Consciousness is not in the current Evolutionary Thery since that theory is half baked and not sophisticated enough. The easiest example of the importance of consciousness is migration. Migration needs brains. If any species stayed put, say during a coming ice age, they may not be selected, since they are optimize to warmer climate and not extreme cold and snow. But if they have the sense to migrate, where to where it is still warmer, they can increase their odds of being selected. If you move to where the weather suits your clothes; like the song, you have a better chance to become optimized for selection.

If you compare the first humans and their descendants who left African to those who remained, the descendants of those who migrated north, appear to have more selective advantages in modern terms. Natural selection is like a matrix of local potentials. If these do not work for you in terms of selection, if you are smart you can move where you fit in better. This takes the brain and consciousness. Civilization is about the brain and consciousness learning to control the environment, until natural selection becomes a minor player for humans. A climate controlled house and supermarket allows you to live anywhere and avoid de-selection.

Darwin, when he visited the Galapagos Island, saw ancient animals stuck in time. They could not migrate, being on islands, but rather were optimized to an environment that had reached steady state. England on the other hand, had been deforested, over generations, and through migration, commerce and world trade, people had brought in planst and foods from around the world. England, at the time of Darwin, had this evolutionary variety, based on the spin offset migration; migration of species via commerce. If one takes care of the rare foreign plant, with proper breeding, it can be acclimated; then selected by local nature.

Consciousness can control selective pressures, through migration, breeding, and even by altering the environment; pull weeds. Some cool plants can only survive if you pull weeds, since weeds tend to have more selective value and can even create they own selective pressure, But thanks to consciousness this is not s problem, if goal are fine perennial gardens.

 

[Yerda]

Of course they do. I NEVER said otherwise. Species adapt to changes and if they had to evolve then they would do that too. But they don't "ever" need to evolve because changes in environments is a random walk. For thousand of years rabbits need to be more alert, or faster, or have a more varied diet and then each parameter changes. They don't have time to evolve.

Hi.

I haven't read all of your exchanges in this thread on account of their being lots of them. So, if I ask questions that have been answered please forgive me.

I'm wondering how it is that you can accept that species adapt to changing environments but that they don't ever need to evolve?

What possible pressure would drive whales into the sea but leave all the other land animals?

Anything that produces a difference in rates of survival and reproduction could be a selection pressure. So for the sake of argument, the terrestrial ancestors of whales having access to greater calories from entering the ocean could drive that lineage towards aquatic life but not the ancestors of dung beetles or hyenas.

Wouldn't you agree?

 

[cladking]

Every theory "could be" wrong. It's why they are called theories and not facts.

No! Theory is state of the art. Theory is by definition what science knows. But every scientist should know that theory will stand only until an experiment comes along to show it is wrong.

Saying it's just a theory is a cop out. I am saying gradual change caused by fitness isn't even a proper theory. Not only can theory be wrong but hypotheses to explain the nature of change can be wrong as well.

Well, terminology is kind of important.
If everybody insists on using his own personal definition for words, then no communication is possible and you'll just end up being wrong about everything - like you so clearly demonstrate.

But you can't point out a single instance of me using a word that is inconsistent with the 1952 unabridged Funk and Wagnalls dictionary. You simply choose to parse my words wrong.

Uhu. And a talking snake tricked him and his imaginary wife to eat the magical fruit.

For all I know...

Of course you're just paraphrasing something that was paraphrased before it got in the bible and then was retranslated six times. But I'm sure you know the original author's intent since you know how to parse words.

The world sure looks different to someone who assumes reality exists, all people see this reality, and they always make sense all the time. With such assumptions you quickly realize the world is not what it appears to be to any observer. I very seriously doubt that the original author believed in talking snakes pulling fast ones on Eve nor did he believe in magical fruit. People have lots of strange beliefs but as a rule of thumb they fit seamlessly with all their other strange beliefs. People don't pick beliefs randomly off a shelf because we are each a product of our time and place. Without this knowledge you can not possibly understand anything outside your own narrow sphere.

 

[cladking]

I'm wondering how it is that you can accept that species adapt to changing environments but that they don't ever need to evolve?

I think of all change in species as resulting from population bottlenecks. But don't forget that each time a pair reproduce they are excluding every other individual. It is a population bottleneck in microcosm. By the same token when populations are isolated or restricted severely due to predation, disease, or lack of food other aspects of "bottleneck" apply. This especially shows where the stressor is extreme and the response to the stressor is insignificant. "Peppered moths" make a good example because the population of moths of the wrong color plummet leaving a niche wide open for moths of the right color. This results in the species suddenly making the transition in a change I call "adaptation". Like all change in species adaptation is sudden and results from a bottleneck. Most large changes are caused by consciousness but peppered moths are unlikely to have their coloration affected by consciousness; certainly not directly.

Obviously large changes do not occur through adaptation. An animal doesn't choose to wander to the water and give birth to whales nor will it happen naturally through predation or disease. It requires a bottleneck where the only individuals which survive are more closely related to the water.

Anything that produces a difference in rates of survival and reproduction could be a selection pressure.

I don't believe any such pressure exists. Each individual is adapted to its environment virtually by definition. A whale depends on things that exist to support whales or he would never have been born. Whales exist because their exists a niche and their existence precludes almost all similar species. This means nothing will "evolve": to fill the niche so long as the whale exists.

Yes, individuals are different but we all breed true. If there were a net change in the parameters of the individuals which survive such as the fastest then there would be such a change in species but even in aggregate and even over a very long time period these changes will not normally result in a new species. They probably could just as Darwin imagines but in point of fact it appears that most such major changes that aren't dependent on mutation are actually very sudden and arise at bottlenecks. Unusual individuals are "selected" by nature because they have unusual consciousness leading to an unusual behavior which allows them to survive a bottleneck. The unusual consciousness derives from unusual genes which are the very basis of how life is formed and these unusual genes result in speciation suddenly over a few generations.

So for the sake of argument, the terrestrial ancestors of whales having access to greater calories from entering the ocean could drive that lineage towards aquatic life but not the ancestors of dung beetles or hyenas.

No. An animal nor a species has a choice in what happens to it. Individuals have free will but free will can lead to either success or failure. You choose your course but not your destination.

Sure it's possible whales' ancestors were unusual individuals that ate more fish than rabbits but unusual behavior related to random characteristics like proximity to water with easily caught fish is not going to have an effect because these individuals are just like every other member of its species other than having the opportunity to eat fish.

All observed change in life is sudden. I am wagering the unobservable change as displayed in the fossil record is equally sudden. I am wagering Darwin was wrong because all his assumptions were wrong and we're still wrong because these assumptions survive even today.

 

[YoursTrue]

It's amusing. Selection isn't natural, but naturally females select. It's a natural choice with naturally no choice. Its selection but not natural selection. It's a conscious choice but not a conscious choice since females are hard wired to select outside of conscious choice. Anyway, it all seems to be solved by changing the definitions of the words describing the observation and keeping those definitions vague and mostly secret so that it is and isn't at the same time.

It defies all logic and goes in circles. Each circle contradicting the other. And of course this personal internal model is externalized and unjustly applied to all to justify its existence in the source of this nonsense in my view.

Just as the implication of knowing all is followed by the claims of not knowing in some weird self-effacing, self justification.

In the end, all I see is a belief system based on a seemingly lot of cascading willful ignorance and self justification. It's weird to me to see this plunder along in the face of facts. I read it as delusional.

It can be amusing depending upon one's inherent sense of humor. Evolved perhaps after birth?

 

[YoursTrue]

No! Theory is state of the art. Theory is by definition what science knows. But every scientist should know that theory will stand only until an experiment comes along to show it is wrong.

Saying it's just a theory is a cop out. I am saying gradual change caused by fitness isn't even a proper theory. Not only can theory be wrong but hypotheses to explain the nature of change can be wrong as well.



But you can't point out a single instance of me using a word that is inconsistent with the 1952 unabridged Funk and Wagnalls dictionary. You simply choose to parse my words wrong.



For all I know...

Of course you're just paraphrasing something that was paraphrased before it got in the bible and then was retranslated six times. But I'm sure you know the original author's intent since you know how to parse words.

The world sure looks different to someone who assumes reality exists, all people see this reality, and they always make sense all the time. With such assumptions you quickly realize the world is not what it appears to be to any observer. I very seriously doubt that the original author believed in talking snakes pulling fast ones on Eve nor did he believe in magical fruit. People have lots of strange beliefs but as a rule of thumb they fit seamlessly with all their other strange beliefs. People don't pick beliefs randomly off a shelf because we are each a product of our time and place. Without this knowledge you can not possibly understand anything outside your own narrow sphere.

When I went to school, before I believed in the truth of God, I believed everything I was taught in science.

 

[YoursTrue]

Selection isn't about "future change".
It's about current selection pressures.
And there is a distinction between pressures in context of survival on the one hand and pressures in terms of sexual selection.

With every post you make, you are digging the absurdity hole deeper and deeper.



Such as?




Every theory "could be" wrong. It's why they are called theories and not facts.
And yes, speciation exists. Google "observed speciation".
And yes, speciation is accomplished through the gradual change that occurs every generation and is accumulated over generations.



Well, terminology is kind of important.
If everybody insists on using his own personal definition for words, then no communication is possible and you'll just end up being wrong about everything - like you so clearly demonstrate.


Uhu. And a talking snake tricked him and his imaginary wife to eat the magical fruit.

It was not a magical fruit. Maybe one day you'll understand that. Bye for now...

 

[firedragon]

No! Theory is state of the art. Theory is by definition what science knows. But every scientist should know that theory will stand only until an experiment comes along to show it is wrong.

There's more to it. In the philosophy of science, a scientific theory can never ever be considered truth. That's an axiom in science. A lot of preachers of scientism have never read up on the topic.

An observation could be truth. That's not a theory.

 

[YoursTrue]

DNA & RNA are essential biological macromolecules (macromolecule means ”large molecule“) in each living cell, but DNA & RNA, by themselves are never alive, YoursTrue.

DNA & RNA can persist in the body of a dead organism, but just as tissues decay and decompose, breaking down the proteins in the tissues and cells, so can either nucleic acid. Eventually you cannot test the DNA of any cells, as the nucleic acid breakdown.

DNA can survive for thousands of years, but it depends on the body of being a frozen mummified remains, like some of the frozen mammoths found.

You cannot test DNA or RNA when it become fossilised, where the mineralized tissue parts (eg bones, teeth, exoskeleton remain) in a body becomes rock.

Did I say thank you for your reply? If not I am saying it now. Thanks. I'll try to ponder over it.

 

[cladking]

When I went to school, before I believed in the truth of God, I believed everything I was taught in science.

I was lucky to have great teachers who warned me about believing anything and taught me science from that perspective. I also grew up in an age when metaphysics was taught concomitantly with science. My favorite teacher used to say "don't believe anything you're told and only half of what you see". I try to pass this wisdom down through the generations because it is important for a child to know that they'll believe what they want to believe and will then become their beliefs so to be careful about what they accept as real. If you have ugly and evil beliefs you will become ugly and/ or evil. I only tried to believe what was true and then reorganized my beliefs to fit a few fundamental axioms like everyone makes sense all the time in terms of his premises.

Since I learned processes and meanings preferentially to knowledge itself it follows that I think differently than most people today after all these years. I am a generalist and never specialized in any area of science. Then I learned about Bee Science and Termite Science and have incorporated these metaphysics (to the degree possible) into my own.

Reality is such everyone (or at least anyone) can be right. We each see slices and spectra of reality in terms of our beliefs which act as filters to what we can see. I try to see only the big picture but, of course, there's no means at this time to know if the picture I see is reality or if it really is similar to ancient reality as I believe.

We all throw the dice and take our chances. Curiously one of the biggest reasons I got on this course was Einstein's failure to develop a unified field theorem. I guessed there was something fundamentally wrong with modern metaphysics just as ancient metaphysics failed due to its complexity.