• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Just Accidental?

Status
Not open for further replies.

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
These are a few different species of ducks....one can only marvel at their artistic designs and color schemes.

Who could possibly think that these just evolved and turned out like this through the process of gene mutations and adaptation? What survival advantage is there in being this beautiful?
I believe there is an intelligence behind evolution (and everything) myself, but the duck argument is not going to change the non-believers' position. You are not presenting anything new to the argument that has not been done a million times before. But the ducks are beautiful.:)
 

Iti oj

Global warming is real and we need to act
Premium Member
images
images
images
images
images
images
images


These are a few different species of ducks....one can only marvel at their artistic designs and color schemes.

Who could possibly think that these just evolved and turned out like this through the process of gene mutations and adaptation? What survival advantage is there in being this beautiful?
Some one doesnt know about sexual selection. Good case study of it is seen in swallow tail lengths.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
They just designed themselves to be too irresistible to their women? Really? :confused: How did they do that? Did they imagine a design long enough for the outfit to materialize out of thin air?
The world's top designers would win awards for color co-ordination and fashion accessories like these.
It's called adaptation. Not design. Those colors are random and some happen to work in attracting a mate better than others.
Other times it can get a bird killed by predation.

The "winner" gets the mate, avoids predation, and the scheme of color carries on with subsequent generations of birds within the environment that they abide in. Some looking the same, others with color variation. Generally females are not quite as colorful, males are.

It's not designed. Lol
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Funny thing is those colors are not "designed" particularly for people.

Pretty poor designer flaw if a person can't even realize for a moment that those amazing colors have no relation with people, other than sticking out like a sore thumb for beauty enthusiasts and hunters, for which the less beautiful and more subdued will escape our fancy more effectively.
 

AndromedaRXJ

Active Member
images
images
images
images
images
images
images


These are a few different species of ducks....one can only marvel at their artistic designs and color schemes.

one can only marvel at their artistic designs and color schemes.

As opposed to what? What do non-designed things look like?

Why do you have an expectation of what should and shouldn't exist with or without a creator?What even gives you the nerve? You don't have a non-creator-made universe to compare this one to.

Just because you find something in nature to be beautiful, doesn't mean it was designed. You're only invoking design because you don't understand a particular phenomenon that you see before you. But the truth is, in order for you to be able to say something looks designed, you have to have a known non-designed thing to compare it to. Otherwise, all you know is that stuff exists and has a set of features. The problem becomes even worse when you're claiming that a deity designed everything, including the ugly stuff in nature. So what are you comparing this duck to? A pile of rocks? That God also supposedly made?

It doesn't matter in the end. As it turns out, science DOES have an explanation as to why these birds look the way they do. As answered already, it's called sexual selection. These birds look beautiful because the females aren't willing to get knocked up with the ugly ones. Therefore, the ugly ones don't get an opportunity to get the females pregnant and create ugly babies.

Sounds far less ideal or divine when you put it that way, right? But it's the truth. We humans have done the same thing to each other to an extant, and we've also done the same thing to many breeds of domestic dog (though it's not sexual, but it's still selection based on aesthetic appeal).
 
Last edited:

AndromedaRXJ

Active Member
It should also be pointed out that animals -- birds in particular -- only really care about aesthetics when they live in a rich environment with lots of resources and minimal to zero threat of predation. Finding food and surviving is not their biggest concern, so they can afford to be superficial and care only for the looks of a mate. Birds that live in harsher environments will care more about a mate's ability to find food, defend against predators, and other more practical stuff. It's why not every bird species looks pretty. Only the species that have relatively easy lives look pretty.
 

FearGod

Freedom Of Mind
you do realize that the pics you posted in this thread were not of humans, right?
Or of ducks for that matter...

It makes no difference, the point is that among one species we can see both the beauty and
the ugly, it has no effect on reproduction.

Didn't you ever see a nice looking male cat tracing an ugly looking female cat?
 

McBell

Unbound
It makes no difference, the point is that among one species we can see both the beauty and
the ugly, it has no effect on reproduction.

Didn't you ever see a nice looking male cat tracing an ugly looking female cat?
except for the fact that both beauty and ugly are nothing more than the subjective opinions of the observer.
Thus making your claim a moot point.
 

AndromedaRXJ

Active Member
Beauty is needed for procreation as you said.

It's not needed. It's just wanted.

Ducks don't pick pretty ducks to mate with because they need to. They do it because they want to. They live in rich and easy environments, so finding food and avoiding predators is not a big concern for them.

Chimps live in a tough environment. The beauty of their mate is not the first thing on their mind. Being strong, tough, and resourceful is.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top