The Believabliltiy of Evolution

[gnostic]

"The researchers said that the unlikeliness of the series of “evolutionary transitions” that led to intelligent life means it is likely to be “exceptionally rare”.

They believe that there is between a 53% and 96% chance that humans are alone in our Milky Way galaxy, Discover magazine reported.

Research earlier this year made it seem a little more likely that humanity might be all alone in the universe after a scan of 10 million stars found not a whisper of alien life."

If evolution is possible why isn't it happening all over the universe?

First, neither articles are scientific and peer-reviewed articles, and Yahoo! Is definitely not not peer-reviewed publisher.

I don’t know anything about Discovery magazine, so I cannot comment about it.

But the former article, is mainly expressions of opinions of “what-if” scenarios, so no actual data are supplied to support the article

Second, if you put the numbers and percentages given in both articles, the former (Discovery) say between 53% and 96% probability that there are no life in the “Milky Way”, and the later (Yahoo!) stated recent “research” have only scanned about 10 million star systems for life, and yet conclude there are no life on other planets.

Neither numbers, nor percentages reflect anything true, because there are anywhere between 200 billion and 400 billion (estimate) stars in the Milky Way alone, so the recent scan of only 10 million scanned stars come anyway close to even 53% in the Milky Way, but Yahoo! article is making assumptions on the universe, not the Milky Way.

So, if there are only 10 million scanned stars, you cannot conclude definitively and conclusively that there are no life, especially 10 million stars, in the universe, when there could be as many as 100 billion galaxies (galaxies, not stars) in the observable universe. This number is only a very rough calculation, based on the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image, taken in 2004, observation of only a tiny patch of the sky.

Plus, 10 million stars in the Milky Way, would only make up 0.0025%, if there are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You entirely missed the point. It's easy for science to mis interpret the evidence.

I did not miss the point. I understand that you want this and many other erroneous claims to be true, but you have offered nothing to support those claims. You offrer no basis to conclude that your contrivances regarding the conclusions in science reveal actual misinterpretations by scientists.

Why do you think that no scientist ever thought about the things that you list and that you are breaking new ground here?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You entirely missed the point. It's easy for science to mis interpret the evidence.

What about cataclysmic events?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Do you really think that scientists who spend their entire lives studying this stuff don't know that?

It is a trend I have noticed over the years. That scientists don't think about the work they are carrying out and that those against science are the only ones that think about confounding issues, evidence, interpretations etc.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I can
How many other planets have we explored, looking for life?

I was being facetious in my response, but Mars and the Moon are the only two we have looked at closely.

My comment was in response to the question of if evolution is possible why isn't it happening all over the universe. This question following presentation of popular articles claiming that we may be alone in the universe. My point being that if we are truly alone, the absence of evidence for evolution would not mean that evolution is not possible, but rather that there is no life for evolution to operate on outside of the Earth. The question did not make sense in the context it was offered.

 

[Aupmanyav]

@rrobs : "I can understand how an intelligent individual may have problems with the creation account in Genesis. What I don't understand is how that same intelligent individual has no problem whatsoever believing everything we see in the world somehow came from the so-called primordial soup."

"Quark–gluon plasma filled the entire Universe before matter was created. Theories predicting the existence of quark–gluon plasma were developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Discussions around heavy ion experimentation followed suit and the first experiment proposals were put forward at CERN and BNL in the following years. Quark–gluon plasma was detected for the first time in the laboratory at CERN in the year 2000."
Quark–gluon plasma - Wikipedia

 

[Aupmanyav]

@Dan From Smithville
"I have asked myself this question a million times. If there is no life in the rest of the universe, why is there no evolution seen in the rest of the universe? I can't figure it out. Can you?
If we are alone in the universe, then that means that there is no life to evolve elsewhere."
"Of course, as far as we know this is the only planet where God created life."

Aup.: I suppose you have been around the supposed more than a 100 billion galaxies in the universe to think in that way!

"In 2009, Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science speculated that there could be 100 billion terrestrial planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.

In 2011 NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and based on observations from the Kepler Mission is that about 1.4% to 2.7% of all Sun-like stars are expected to have Earth-size planets within the habitable zones of their stars. This means there could be two billion of them in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and assuming that all galaxies have a similar number as the Milky Way, in the 50 billion galaxies in the observable universe, there may be as many as a hundred quintillion. This would correspond to around 20 earth analogs per square centimeter of the Earth.

In 2013, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics using statistical analysis of additional Kepler data suggested that there are at least 17 billion Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way. This, however, says nothing of their position in relation to the habitable zone."
Earth analog - Wikipedia

That makes me think that intelligent life may not be uncommon in the universe. The problem is only about distances. The nearest Earth-lik planet, Centauri b is 4.2 light years away.
Ross 128 b (28 C - 11 LY), Gliese 667 Cc (29 C - 22 LY), GJ 180 b (39 C - 38 LY), TRAPPIST-1d (9 C - 40 LY) and HD 40307 g (11 C 42 LY) have temperatures that humans will find comfortable.
List of nearest terrestrial exoplanet candidates - Wikipedia
(C Temperature in Centigrade, LY Distance from Earth in Light Years)

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Hilarious.

You think 30 years is a "gradual change".

?????

No. The accumulation of several mutations over several generations resulting in a new trait, is the gradual evolution of said trait.

That's kind of what "gradual" means: step by step.




My statement: So you want to see the result of an experiment that lasted for 5 million years or something?
Your answer:

Yes!!!

My response:

But like all things it might be possible to perform a test or experiment that would show a gradual change

I just gave you one. As predicted, it got the handwave treatment.

For example you could find a series of whales' legs turning gradually into flippers

I already gave you such a series. As predicted also, it was handwaved away.

You'd think with all the animals on earth and the century and a half biology has had to find them that they'd have some sort of evidence instead of none at all.

I'll just post the picture again that I gave you yesterday.

More handwaving denial in 3...2....1....

You hit an e coli on the head with a hammer and it will die every time.
Of course being eaten is harder on the tiger.

Just what do you think e coli is?

I seriously doubt you are trying to understand anybody's viewpoint but your own.

I go by the science. There is no understanding of ignorant and intellectually dishonest stupidity like I just witnessed in your post.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Another assumption.

No. Genetic fact.

It's probably true but is still an assumption.

Facts aren't assumptions.

Then chemicals live.

No.

Yes. "Consciousness" is a gift from God/ nature that allows individuals to succeed and procreate.

I asked you to define consciousness.
Because how the rest of the world defines it, it's not a trait that bacteria have. Consciousness, as the rest of the world defines it, requires a nervous system and brain.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Define the terms, I'll show the math.

Wait, are you saying you made a probability claim while not even knowing what the terms and variables are?

SHOCKING

Good thing I wasn't holding my breath.

 

[cladking]

Wait, are you saying you made a probability claim while not even knowing what the terms and variables are?

SHOCKING

Good thing I wasn't holding my breath.

If I did the math you'd dispute the terms. If I don't do the math I'm afraid of you superior logic and knowledge.

I already gave you such a series. As predicted also, it was handwaved away.

No you did not. A picture of four fossils is not evidence of gradual change. It merely shows the first is the great grandfather of the fourth.

Your standards of evidence and your methodology are apparently highly flawed.

I do not dispute whales came from land animals, I dispute that the changes were gradual AND that they were driven by "survival of the fittest'. I dispute they were driven by some perverse need for each species to be "perfect" as is a common belief even among scientists. Life is consciousness and every consciousness is "fit". Without understanding this you can not understand how and why species change.

I'm sorry reality is so complicated and science made some poor choices in the 19th century.

 

[ppp]

If I did the math you'd dispute the terms.

Which is not a reason to not do the math. The reason that you do not do the math, and I admit this is a surmise, math demands specifics, and you find it easier to argue your position from the vagaries of common language.

The rigors of mathematics backs one into a corner and holds one's feet to the fire. Which is not a problem for those looking for truth. Only for those who insist that they are right no matter what

 

[ppp]

No you did not. A picture of four fossils is not evidence of gradual change. It merely shows the first is the great grandfather of the fourth.

The age of the fossils debunks that claim.

 

[ppp]

I do not dispute whales came from land animals, I dispute that the changes were gradual AND that they were driven by "survival of the fittest'. I dispute they were driven by some perverse need for each species to be "perfect" as is a common belief even among scientists.

As natural selection has nothing to do with perfection, you are not arguing against any scientific position. Merely a fiction that you have created to rail against.

 

[Valjean]

I was being facetious in my response, but Mars and the Moon are the only two we have looked at closely.

We have explored neither very closely. We certainly haven't been able to perform any comprehensive surveys looking for life.

My comment was in response to the question of if evolution is possible why isn't it happening all over the universe. This question following presentation of popular articles claiming that we may be alone in the universe. My point being that if we are truly alone, the absence of evidence for evolution would not mean that evolution is not possible, but rather that there is no life for evolution to operate on outside of the Earth. The question did not make sense in the context it was offered.

Understood.
We have no idea how common life is in the universe. It's only recently we've discovered that other stars even have planets.
We're familiar with only a single planet; a pretty small sample size to draw any conclusions from.

The popular articles are rubbish. We haven't the data to come to any such conclusions.

 

[cladking]

As natural selection has nothing to do with perfection,...

Please pay attention. What scientists believe is becoming what people believe science is.

The age of the fossils debunks that claim.

This is some sort of joke I hope.

Which is not a reason to not do the math.

This is some sort of joke I hope.

and you find it easier to argue your position from the vagaries of common language.

Yes. Math has no place where everything is highly speculative. And then when math is relevant terms must be defined.

 

[cladking]

This simply does prove that whales gradually changed as a result of "survival of the fittest".

It merely suggest a single species changed at least three times and shows absolutely NO EVIDENCE as to how it changed. The "fossil record" strongly implies that species change suddenly.

Do you think a land animal might get longer and longer legs so it can walk around on the bottom of the ocean? Perhaps the first individuals that returned to the ocean were those with the most fin like legs. But it's a safe bet they were selected for the unusual behavior for proto whales. Some event eradicated individuals not in the ocean.

All individuals are fit and the evidence plus logic show this. God/ nature do not do much experimenting creating weak individuals. It is inefficient. It is not logical and God/ nature is logic manifest.

 

[ppp]

Please pay attention. What scientists believe is becoming what people believe science is.

Please pay attention. Natural selection has nothing to do with perfection.

This is some sort of joke I hope.

No joke, squire. My grandparents did not live for a few million years,

Yes. Math has no place where everything is highly speculative.

If you are going to try to dodge, at least be a little less clumsy about it.
...

 

[cladking]

Please pay attention. Natural selection has nothing to do with perfection.

And AGAIN you failed to read it.

I said many scientists believe evolution is a march toward perfection. When I was young a great percentage of scientists believed this but the concept is becoming dated.

I NEVER believed in evolution. I never believed that there is a goal until such time as somebody invents a goal and a means to achieve it. Otherwise I think Vonnegut was closer to the reality in "Galapagos". The Bible is closer to reality in the nature of the change in species.

No joke, squire. My grandparents did not live for a few million years,

So you believe I think whales live for millions of years.

If you are going to try to dodge, at least be a little less clumsy about it.

Define the damn terms. Math is easy.

If you dodge all of these points and continue playing semantics I will not respond further. If you don't understand something I'd be happy to clarify or elaborate.

 

[ppp]

I said many scientists believe evolution is a march toward perfection.

Let me be clear.

No.