Is Evolution Conscious (Some amazing points about evolution)

[Rick O'Shez]

The problem I see with you and @SpineyNorman is that you seem to hold by faith, evolution, and don't fully engage with the conversation.

That's exactly what I was thinking about you. I think we have been explaining things in a straightforward way, and I think it would help if you just slowed down a bit here and reflect on what is actually being said.
I'm still not sure that you have got to grips with the basic principles of evolution, and without that you will be struggling.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Do you mean #89? I'd appreciate it if you'd just go over the points of my explanation one by one, if you wouldn't mind.



No. It is not perfect. If consciousness were involved, I imagine it would be.

Were you educated in the UK? I seem to recall we did evolution at GCSE.

Yes #89.
You are in the UK? So am I. I don't recall anything about that, but your profile says 19 which I assume is you age, so there is a time difference there.

Give me the points one by one if you wish.

If consciousness is involved, it has both a good and bad side.

 

[Robert.Evans]

That's exactly what I was thinking about you. I think we have been explaining things in a straightforward way, and I think it would help if you just slowed down a bit here and reflect on what is actually being said.
I'm still not sure that you have got to grips with the basic principles of evolution, and without that you will be struggling.

I can only reiterate that you are not engaging with the conversation. You seem to be allowing your own belief ignore things I am saying.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Partly, or perhaps you not grasping what I am asking in the first place.

I'm not clear whether you are genuinely interested in understanding evolution better, or whether you are more concerned with promoting a religious re-interpretation like intelligent design or something.

 

[LuisDantas]

Partly, or perhaps you not grasping what I am asking in the first place.

Or perhaps I am your king. Everything is possible if one decides to be ignorant enough.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I can only reiterate that you are not engaging with the conversation. You seem to be allowing your own belief ignore things I am saying.

No, I think that's exactly what you are doing. You are so attached to your personal religious view that you're not listening properly to the answers which are being given here.

I don't think you understand the basic principles of evolution, and I am now wondering if you even want to.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Whatever the reason we come up with for why eyebrows are there, it still beggars belief that they would be.
It is an advantage?
Okay, good.
But why would it remain there in the first place and yet the hair on the forehead fall off?
Heat loss?
Probably.
But then it stops on the head.
So maybe it got in the eyes. So there is an answer. But it answers nothing, as it means that by sheer luck, some ancestors just happen to have hair fall out so they could see better when fighting, so lived. If they had not had it fall out, we might never have survived., That sounds rather stained to me. And that is just one point.

 

[LuisDantas]

I understand the time period involved; i am not-- contrary to popular belief--dragging my knuckles on the floor.
Whether we have a long time or not is not relevant. What is fascinating is that it changes in the first place and that some of the changes are in fact an advantage. That is amazing.

It takes failing to understand the basics of the ToE to see things in such a way.

 

[Robert.Evans]

No, I think that's exactly what you are doing. You are so attached to your personal religious view that you're not listening properly to the answers which are being given here.

I don't think you understand the basic principles of evolution, and I am now wondering if you even want to.

I am not trying to say God did it. Let that one go Spiney and answer some of the questions. I have posted a lot there, and you have not responded in kind. You are holding onto your believe without questioning it, probably because you think it is right.... but it makes me think there is no answer, and thus evolution is incomplete as an answer.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

But why would it remain there in the first place and yet the hair on the forehead fall off?

Such questions are going to be even more difficult for you to answer if you assume intelligent design or an intelligent universe or whatever!

 

[Kirran]

Sure, but still interesting that there would be any of any SERIOUS advantage. i mean we can see animals with added appendages, like a leg on a cow I have seen. It did not appear to be jointed, as it swung around like an empty sleeve. But why is there not more things like that about? If it can happen, why not more? I mean, you are saying that no intelligence is involved; so I would have expected it to be more haphazard like the cow, and that now, with the wonders of modern science, we have them removed.

Seems to perfect, too contrived.

The problem I see with you and @Spiny Norman is that you seem to hold by faith, evolution, and don't fully engage with the conversation. Sorry, that is how I see it. I wish I could find someone who could see the problems I see. @Red Economist seems the closest so far.

What's a non-serious advantage?

An extra leg on a cow is due to developmental errors, not genetic changes.

I don't think it's perfect at all, I think it's remarkably haphazard. For example, there is a nerve (the vagus nerve or 'wandering nerve') going from our brain to our larynx (in the neck), a distance of a few centimetres. Rather than go straight there, it wanders down around the aorta and back up, a distance of about a metre. The equivalent nerve in the giraffe is 5 metres long, again for a distance of a few centimetres. This is a relic of fish physiology. Surely this would not have come into being through conscious design.

r.e. my faith in evolution - You have the perfect right to think that, and I can see how it would be perceived that way. You are allowed to be skeptical. However, I have studied evolution extensively for almost ten years, and am currently studying it at a university level. I feel I understand its mechanisms very well, and it appears to me to be very much a consistent and plausible idea. I accept it as fact, as the majority of the scientific community does. Your scepticism strikes me as willful ignorance - you started this discussion with the agenda of disproving evolution, or of proving the role of consciousness in the development of life, and aren't open to alternate views.

You are in the UK? So am I. I don't recall anything about that, but your profile says 19 which I assume is you age, so there is a time difference there.

Yeah, I grew up in Wales. I am 19, and true enough I don't know when they started teaching evolution in schools here.

Give me the points one by one if you wish.

I was more hoping you'd read the explanation, and inform me of any points in it with which you disagreed or found to be unclear.

If consciousness is involved, it has both a good and bad side.

If you say that, then we can't make any argument against it, because any argument against the involvement of consciousness could just be countered with 'Consciousness got it wrong'.

 

[Kirran]

Whatever the reason we come up with for why eyebrows are there, it still beggars belief that they would be.
It is an advantage?
Okay, good.
But why would it remain there in the first place and yet the hair on the forehead fall off?
Heat loss?
Probably.
But then it stops on the head.
So maybe it got in the eyes. So there is an answer. But it answers nothing, as it means that by sheer luck, some ancestors just happen to have hair fall out so they could see better when fighting, so lived. If they had not had it fall out, we might never have survived., That sounds rather stained to me. And that is just one point.

This is where you go wrong. This is not what the ToE states.

It's not like one guy's forehead hair just fell out, and then all his children didn't have forehead hair. Over many generations, the hair on the forehead, and over much of the rest of the body, became thinner, on average, until we reached the state we're at today. This happened because those on the thinner-haired end of the spectrum, ON AVERAGE, had more offspring who themselves lived to reproduce.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Let that one go Spiney and answer some of the questions.

I have answered your questions in a clear and straightforward way, and so have others here, but I don't think you want to listen. Looking at this and other threads, I think you are just too caught up with trying to prove your idiosyncratic theory about the universe and evolution being intelligent or whatever.

 

[Robert.Evans]

What's a non-serious advantage?

An extra leg on a cow is due to developmental errors, not genetic changes.

I don't think it's perfect at all, I think it's remarkably haphazard. For example, there is a nerve (the vagus nerve or 'wandering nerve') going from our brain to our larynx (in the neck), a distance of a few centimetres. Rather than go straight there, it wanders down around the aorta and back up, a distance of about a metre. The equivalent nerve in the giraffe is 5 metres long, again for a distance of a few centimetres. This is a relic of fish physiology. Surely this would not have come into being through conscious design.

I have heard of this nerve, though I find it fascinating in the extreme that it would somehow wander around and just link up in some haphazard way. Don't you? Consciousness is evolving. But I am not discussing that here at the moment.

r.e. my faith in evolution - You have the perfect right to think that, and I can see how it would be perceived that way. You are allowed to be skeptical. However, I have studied evolution extensively for almost ten years, and am currently studying it at a university level. I feel I understand its mechanisms very well, and it appears to me to be very much a consistent and plausible idea.

So do I.

I accept it as fact,

So do I

as the majority of the scientific community does. Your scepticism strikes me as willful ignorance -

So it is not, okay?

you started this discussion with the agenda of disproving evolution,

No I did not. I just think it is incomplete and accepted to easy. That is why I have question, question which seem are not allowed in this subjecty. I always find this and I have heard others say the same. In that sense, it is also a faith.

or of proving the role of consciousness in the development of life, and aren't open to alternate views.

I am, are you?

Yeah, I grew up in Wales. I am 19, and true enough I don't know when they started teaching evolution in schools here.

Okay. I lived in Wales for a few years.

I was more hoping you'd read the explanation, and inform me of any points in it with which you disagreed or found to be unclear.

I think the answer is #89. The others are just slight advantages to me, but not sufficient in themselves to be the answer.

If you say that, then we can't make any argument against it, because any argument against the involvement of consciousness could just be countered with 'Consciousness got it wrong'.

It is not a case of arguing against it. Anyway, I don't want to get into that. As I keep saying, I want to see an answer at grass root level, a practical level, as to why things are the way they are.

I am seriously disappointed that I never get any answers on this, just the usual rhetoric that you have an agenda

 

[Robert.Evans]

This is where you go wrong. This is not what the ToE states.

It's not like one guy's forehead hair just fell out, and then all his children didn't have forehead hair. Over many generations, the hair on the forehead, and over much of the rest of the body, became thinner, on average, until we reached the state we're at today. This happened because those on the thinner-haired end of the spectrum, ON AVERAGE, had more offspring who themselves lived to reproduce.

But if it was needed to do that, how did they survive until it ended up as it is now?

 

[Robert.Evans]

If you are saying hair slowly fell from our forehead, then was it long before that? If so, how did we survive not being able to see well? If it was short, then why? Is that luck? When it fell out, what they was the need if it was short? If it was long then how did they survive?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I am seriously disappointed that I never get any answers on this, just the usual rhetoric that you have an agenda

Sorry Robert, but coming from you that is just pure projection. You are the one with the agenda and your rhetoric is by now familiar. You ask for explanations of how evolutionary principles work, and then you immediately reject them because they don't fit your personal theory.
I can't help you further.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Sorry Robert, but coming from you that is just pure projection. You are the one with the agenda and your rhetoric is by now familiar. You ask for explanations of how evolutionary principles work, and then you immediately reject them because they don't fit your personal theory.
I can't help you further.

Then you have no answer. My questions are not exactly difficult! You answer with pat standard answers.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Sorry Robert, but coming from you that is just pure projection. You are the one with the agenda and your rhetoric is by now familiar. You ask for explanations of how evolutionary principles work, and then you immediately reject them because they don't fit your personal theory.
I can't help you further.

I did mean me.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

You answer with pat standard answers.

Oh well. Maybe others can respond to your queries in a way that you can accept, though I feel you are so attached to your own views that you will never be satisfied with a different explanation.