Audie
Veteran Member
Seriously?
Let us not insult your intelligence by explaining and offering examples.
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The Believabliltiy of Evolution
- Thread starter rrobs
- Start date
Seriously?
Let us not insult your intelligence by explaining and offering examples.
cladking
Well-Known Member
Yes. Thank you.
Over the years biologists have been closing in on the reality... ...sortta.
I don't think they will ever get all the way there until they chuck out the "survival of the fittest" nonsense and actually start looking at individuals and the actual mechanisms of survival as well as death. I don't believe this will be possible without an appreciation of consciousness and the meaning of life. The problem is largely simply one of perspective and the mechanism can't be seen through induction and taxonomies.
All observed change is sudden (less than two generations) and there's no reason to suppose that any individual is less "fit" than another. They simply have different genes driving different behavior through the engine of consciousness. There are no humans who are more fit than other humans. Well this would be exactly true if you were referring to any other life form. Even in humans it is mostly true. Unless an individual is born with mutations or defects or acquires an injury or disease it is just exactly as fit as every other member of that species. This is essentially true by definition except we have strange definitions and perspectives.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Seriously. Too many assumptions and not enough evidence.
Audie
Veteran Member
I guess it's no use even if I did explain.
If you mean Darwin himself had views of the mechanisms of evolution that are primitive relative to contemporary views, yes, but Darwin's perception of the essentials was still admirable. So was his use of his evidence.
No, punk eek is not the only way evolution occurs.
A great deal of human behavior throughout human history has been nonconscious ─ like all your instincts and reflexes. How do you think most pairing / mating works, for instance?
Before that statement can be unpacked, we need a very clear definition of "fit". I've worked with, and encountered, people who were manifestly inadequate at their particular work, for instance. Is sterility 'unfitness'? Is susceptibility to Alzheimer's 'unfitness'?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Who said they don't evolve? If you accuse me of being "silly" or "dishonest', that strikes me as possibly being an example of "projection" as you having me saying something I never said nor implied.
But your post begs the question why you would basically be so nasty back after all I did is to make a point the any geneticist would tell you? I don't get it why you should fly off the handle so easily on what should have been a totally harmless statement of fact. What is your problem that you should act this way while laying claim that you believe in Jesus, the Prince of Peace?
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
I would say you had a weird definition of flying off the handle.
Audie
Veteran Member
That pretty much sums any creogument.
cladking
Well-Known Member
It's easy to forget that Darwin is one of the shoulders on which we all stand and it's especially easy for me since I believe he was wrong across the board. He had only the outline correct and every detail misinterpreted and wrong.
But a great deal of study in biology and evolution in particular is based on induction. This isn't to say it's all wrong but it is misinterpreted.
Obviously mutation is a driver of species change. I believe our immediate predecessor (homo sapiens) was created by a mutation 40,000 years ago that tied the only natural human speech center (wernickes area) more closely to higher brain functions creating the ability to invent and use complex language. I doubt that this sort of mutation is especially rare. I would say something about mother nature experimenting with her creatures but it would be misinterpreted by most readers.
Simply stated there is still no evidence of any gradual change in any life of any sort. Virtually by definition life is change. Consciousness is the ability to change to suit the needs of the moment. Consciousness drives change in the individual thereby driving change in the species. "Fitness" is irrelevant because no such thing exists.
"Human history" doesn't begin until the advent of modern humans (homo omnisciencis) about 3000 BC. The nature of consciousness in modern humans is different than every other form of life and different than homo sapiens. Of course humans are still driven to a greater or lesser extent by parts of the brain to which we aren't normally privy but this is the nature of "consciousness" itself. A rabbit doesn't experience thought like we do, it's entire consciousness is outside of its own "thoughts".
There's huge incompetence in an era where even officials and leaders are held to no standard at all. This is a human construct that can't exist in nature. Nature is cruel to the incompetent so there are none. Humans are created incompetent through years and years of school and cross eyed thinking. There's no penalty for wrong answers. Some people would be very productive and competent in almost any other job than the one they have and everybody is most suited to a specific task under ideal conditions than the work that is available. There are jobs at which even an ignoramus can excel but people aren't steered in the right directions and it can be very hard to find work for some.
All other life forms are competent and fit. If for any reason they quit they suddenly become far more likely to be dinner than to reproduce. Most individual life forms find their niche pretty quickly and is natural for its species. Those that fail do not survive but this is not related to "fitness" because no such thing exists.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
You twisted what I had actually posted, and then you aren't even honest enough to admit that you made a mistake when you misportrayed what I actually had posted and made accusations as to my character. Do you actually think Christ would approve of that kind of behavior?
Yes, we all tend to "fly off the handle" at times, but in your case it was completely unwarranted and you didn't even have the moral compunction to either correct what you had posted and/or to apologize. You might be pleasing yourself, but I seriously don't think that it is right and proper to be so dishonest and then strut around as if you're somehow defending Christianity. Instead, it is actions like that which often turn some people away from the faith.
I will not put up with such arrogant dishonesty, so...
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Where? Show me what I twisted.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
If you can't see it, then I simply have no desire to discuss any matters with someone who talks-the-talk but doesn't walk-the-walk that the Gospel demands.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Hey if I was addressing you directly and called you dishonest I will apologize, because I was meaning it as a general statement about the subject. Of course, I get called worse on here daily, one has to have thick skin to have these discussions.
Do you still have any of your old biology or geology textbooks? Start there. Or just Google. The evidence for gradual change over varying rates of time is overwhelming and consilient.
What assumptions did you perceive? Were they unsupported?
I'm still waiting for a link to wherever you got the idea that evolution is always sudden..
I certainly can't argue with that.
That's why I say faith is bunk. That's why intellectuals always try to draw conclusions consistent with the best evidence, and open to modification as more evidence accumulates.
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Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
Hey snakes can talk. They may not use words but they can talk
Did you even read his book? His observations and premise were correct. He recognized the profound understanding of variation and its role in natural selection. He recognized how boundaries separating populations allow for divergence in species. He recognized the role of sexual selection. He understood role of competition. All of these are as true today as they were in his time. So where was he so wrong?
There is both gradual and rapid change. Fitness in terms of survivability is relevant and plays a role but not the only mechanism. Much of this understanding only came with the increasing fossil record, more accurate dating methods, discovery of the mechanism of genetics and other discoveries found long after Darwin.
The nature of consciousness is more complex in humans but fundamentally similar in organisms with a brain with its origin from the subcortical brain which is shared in organisms with a similar central nervous system. Yes the rabbit does not experience its world as we do but you cannot say its entire consciousness is outside of its own thoughts. The evidence is suggestive of the opposite to be true.
That is fitness in terms of evolution ( not how strong or healthy - that fitness is in reference to the gym). Fitness is that an organism as the phenotypic characteristics that allow them to survive and reproduce in a habitat.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
It's the way you get people to believe anything can happen... when you start talking in millions of years, people's brains understandably get a bit fuzzy, and you don't need it to actually make sense.How so, and how does that relate to an old Earth?
Because certain conditions cause transitions, and the causes either exist or are imminent.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
So what is gonna cause the tuna fish to transition into something else?
But we are talking millions, even billions of years. That's reality. That's the time frame evolution operates in. That's the framework within which the mechanisms of evolution are observable.
Most people have no problem with this, but if your brain goes fuzzy contemplating anything beyond recent history, it's no wonder you're having a hard time realating to with the subject.
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