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Is Evolution Conscious (Some amazing points about evolution)

Robert.Evans

Robert.Evans

You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
At one point did a parent of anything decide it might be a good idea to feed that 'thing' that just came out of me?
 
Robert.Evans

Robert.Evans

You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
Why does a bird, having laid an egg, not just walk away from it, just at they would if they had just defecated?
 
Kirran

Kirran

ॐ
Premium Member
I'm going to explain the rearing of young with reference to cichlids, a family of fish found primarily in fresh waters.

Cichlids care for their young. I am going to explain how this might have developed.

The ancestral cichlid, in common with many fish, would lay its eggs and then leave them. If a cichlid had a tendency to remain in association with its eggs, in the general vicinity, this would reduce the numbers of small predators coming by to feed on the eggs. Therefore, more would be likely to hatch and become young fish. This trait became common among cichlids. Later, a cichlid with a lesser tendency to eat its own young, as most fish would, was also at a selective advantage, as more of its young would survive. So this trait also spread, and strengthened through positive selection. Later still, certain cichlids began to perform other activities around the eggs, by stages, such as 'hovering' above them to fan water over them and eating the infertile eggs, leaving more room for the remainder and discouraging the development of pathogens. Also, some fry would emerge with a tendency to stay in association with their parent, as there would be less predators around. All these traits spread. Those parent cichlids which, when surrounded by their fry, moved slowly and brought them towards food supplies would also benefit their young, and so became more common.

So now most cichlids care for the eggs and fry, leading the latter to food supplies. Certain cichlid varieties have developed which care for their offspring using special techniques, for example through exuding a nutritious substance from beneath their scales for the young to eat, through caring for the eggs or fry within their mouths, communal parenting, etc.
 
Laika

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Kirran said:
I can give you a mathematical proof of evolution in the form of the Hardy-Weinberg equation if you'd like ;)

EDIT: Red Economist - to be fair, the ToE doesn't purport to explain the origin of life.
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True. Scientists are still scratching their heads on that one. I think one of the explanations they've come up with is life coming in on and comet or asteroid; but that still leaves you with where does the comet come from?

Spiny Norman said:
So there's a gap for God!
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Yep.

Robert.Evans said:
Interesting that you think I am a Creationists just because I question Evolution, don't you think?
I am not.
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:oops: my mistake. I suppose I take evolution so for granted that to hear someone question it meant I assumed you favor design or creation. But what's become clear in this thread is how there is legitimate scope for debating it as a mechanism for explaining things especially when you're dealing with the deatils, such as eyebrows.

Robert.Evans said:
I believe in Evolution. Evolution explains things through mechanisms and processes, (way more complicated than I could repeat), which work well in the physical plane that we live in.
But there are simple things like eyebrows, eyelashes, teeth, shape of the face, the protuding shape of the skull over the sunken eyes, the shape of the nose to deflect waters, the shape of the mouth, etc etc.
I just can't imagine for the life of me, how it could have come about from sheer random mutations, most of which are bad, and those that are good are good enough to produce something that looks perfect... perfect in the sense that I use it here. I understand that natural selection takes place, but that is no different than saying a man with eyes guided a blind man through a door. What evolution says is that he went through himself. Sure he had many attempts, but we have to ask, why did he want to go through the door in the first place, and why keep trying, and why the right door? Too many things, too many questions, too much complexity, too much design, too much of everything accept answers.
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yeah. Marxists have had a problem with the idea of genetic mutations as the in determinism of it may allow for a theological interpretation as another god of the gaps argument. The sheer complexity of the process and the end result means it's hard to believe that all of our being was determined by evolution. we just don't know yet. Maybe you'll be the one who figures it out? it will happen someday.

Robert.Evans said:
Speaking of a gene pool or DNA is only explaining things in the physical plane that we live in. Great! It works. But it does not answer the whole package. It does not answer simple things like I've asked, (least not yet), it does not answer grass root level problems. I find that interesting that there is no answer accept the pat answer of evolutionary pressure etc. It is like me saying, God did it! Great answer! Answers nothing, even if it is correct.

What I find amazing is that Creationists etc see the design side, and so say intelligence must be involved; and Evolutionists see the biological side and so think there is no intelligence involved. Somewhere in the middle is the answer. I don't really want to go into exactly what I think. I wanted answers for these questions. I find none, which is sorely disappointing.

I see too many things which have to come together whether all at once or over a long period of time, to just accept that it 'just happened' through random mutations in genes and that the best survived. It is obvious, I think, that the best would survive, but why would they survive to such a remarkably clarified state of existence? I find that mind numbingly baffling!
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I think if you try to figure out what parts of the changes are necessarily the product of evolution, and what parts are accidental to that process (what can't be explained by it)- eventually, you'll have to figure out what made those 'accidents' happen. Are they connected in someway? Creationists use consciousness as an explanation, but science should look for cause. But without knowing the cause, 'god' is the best answer we have (god of the gaps again). The anomalies in any theory eventually lead to a new and better theory which explains more than the previous one. Stick with it. :)
 
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