Denial of Evolution VI.

[Trooper]

Nevertheless, however much I might embrace such ideals myself, I still feel compelled to be pragmatic. Why? Because first of all I sincerely doubt that it's even possible to eradicate any and all theistically inclined philosophical stances anyway and second of all I still don't actually really believe that such people are truly harming themselves or anyone else in any significant way, or even at all (assuming we are still just talking about people who practice some sort of moderate freestyle theism that they mostly just keep to themselves, rather than hardcore religious fundamentalists). I mean really, I have many friends and acquaintances who believe in one sort of god or another and I honestly can't detect any negative impact such beliefs might be having on them or anyone around them. In fact all the usual bullshit that is typically associated with human interaction in general that occasionally bubbles to the surface is far more significant, and atheists certainly aren't immune to that. As such, I think far more good could be done in the world if we focused on teaching people how to more effectively negotiate the emotional minefield of human relationships. In fact if we want to talk about fantasy and/or delusion and whether or not it is psychologically healthy there's scarcely a richer place to look.

Well, I’m a little less accommodating than you are. ”Live and let live” and all that jazz…it work both ways.

Humanist: Shh, let them dream. It’s dangerous to wake a sleepwalker. You see, their eyes are open.
Gentlewoman: Ay, but their sense is shut.

Dreams of gods; and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

The enchantment of the divine image-bearer combined with immortality is obviously too strong. They are in a dream, weaved by others, and that alarming fact may slip one's mind. The pious have a skewed world view. Atheism, however, lacks this characteristic. It is not an ideology.

Besides, don’t you feel that people who believe in the supernatural may be more susceptible to the perils pseudoscience? This also, enables them to contribute their problems to imaginary external sources, instead of identifying and dealing with the real cause. Accountability…it’s a bitch, ain’t it?

Thus far, I see no practical reason for superstition and irrationality to replace critical thinking and science.

“We like to believe that our brain has brought us into possession of truth independent of our struggle to survive. But scientific method does not enable us to stand outside evolution. The mutations which led to a brain capable of divining the structure of the atom are tested in the same way as are all other accidents in the hereditary material. Not by grace or truth or beauty, but fruitfulness. It is our survival that vindicates the way we think. We would discard science for superstitions were it advantageous, in the struggle to survive, to do so. In such circumstances, if we did not, those who lived by superstition would soon dominate the earth while those of us who remained loyal to reason would dwindle to the condition of Australian aborigines. We opt for nitrates over sacrifices because nitrates yield better crops. And for no other reason.” ~Allen Wheelis

Your testicles are reused from other species with testicles hanging outside their bodies because they require lower-than-body temperatures for sperm to develop. Fish and amphibians have internal testes -- decent protection. Squirrels have retractable testicles -- a useful feature in the fight. So as you lie there on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, you have to ask yourself how your author is to be known from such work?

Ya, Zeno, gird up now thy loins like a man; for we will demand of thee an answer.

 

[wellwisher]

However, we have seen some traits evolve in the last 100 years: Nylon-precursor-eating bacteria, E. Coli evolving to eat citrate in the presence of oxygen. And of course there are examples of mutations leading to new traits in historical times -- nearly every pest, bug and bacteria that evolves resistance to the chemicals that we try to kill it with is a newly mutated trait.

This seems to indicate cause and effect and not mere chance. The cause is the environmental potential, like a pesticide, which sets a potential that has to lower with the lowering of potential the mutation. You can't depend on the rolling of dice for that speed of change, since random changes in the DNA should lead to more problems than solutions, which is not observed.

Intelligent design, in the science sense, assumes cause and effect instead of the blind man's prophecy of statistics. You don't need intelligence to use a broad based massage tool for everything. All you need is a factory worker.

How is cause and effect possible? The answer comes back to water. Since the discovery of DNA it was assumed, by the oracle of statistics, that protein folds were random and formed an average fold due to the weak binding energy of 3-D protein structures, and the available thermal energy within the water. As technology got better, it turned out proteins exhibit exact folds, even though all the conditions always seemed right for the assumption of random. The oracle said so, and all hailed the oracle.

The oracle still can't explain this observed fact, with probability equal to 1.0. The explanation is life exists via cause and effect in the land where probability approaches 1.0. Water brings many variable to the table, to assure speedy and needed casual changes to environmental perturbations. One is the entropic force which pushes evolution in the direction of increasing entropic force. The oracle needs new questions since the old questions are not in touch with the latest data.

 

[Rav]

Not yet widely fixed: humans with super-dense bones, humans with myotonic hypertrophy. But both are heritable.

I just had to look into this a little more:

“Unbreakable” bones prompt a hunt for genes

Yale Researchers Find Potential Target for Treatment and Prevention of Osteoporosis

"'If there are living counterparts to the character in 'Unbreakable,' who is in a terrible train wreck and walks away without a single broken bone, it's members of this family,' Lifton said. 'They have extraordinarily dense bones and there is no history of fractures. You find this maybe once in a million people.'

Lifton said those family members with the genetic mutation have no symptoms. They do have a strikingly deep and wide jaw and bony growth on the palate. They also report trouble staying afloat when swimming."


Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy (aka myotonic hypertrophy)

"Affected individuals have up to twice the usual amount of muscle mass in their bodies. They also tend to have increased muscle strength. Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy is not known to cause any medical problems, and affected individuals are intellectually normal."


The really interesting thing about both of these conditions is that they don't seem to cause any medical problems. In other words, aside from increased bone density, or muscle mass, we're talking about healthy individuals. Sure, they have trouble swimming, and I can only assume that a person with both of these mutations would be doubly afflicted with this limitation, but every superhero has a weakness right? The reference to the movie 'Unbreakable' was indeed very apt.

But let's not stop there:

"A small number of individuals already exist who possess qualities that could be regarded as “transhuman” in a limited and qualified sense of the term. Rare double mutants in the myostatin gene (a.k.a. MSTN) have lean muscle and low body fat. Rare mutants in the LRP5 gene have extra-strong bones. Mutants in PCSK9 have 88 percent lower coronary disease. Double mutants in CCR5 are HIV resistant. Double mutants in FUT2 are resistant to stomach flu (e.g., noroviruses)." - Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves

No more sick days, superman! And don't think old age is going to one day absolve you of your responsibilities either because: A mutation in APP protects against Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline.

And you know, the list goes on, and is getting longer all the time...

 

[Grumpy]

Zeno

I mean does anybody really believe they are descended from a fish?

Don't believe it, know it, there is a very big difference. We still have their backbone, and your hands are evolved from their fins. Many of the genes for the backbone and other features(for instance our lungs are a combination of their flotation bladder with a shift of their gill genes, as seen in lungfish, who have both lungs and gills, or the axolotl that has gills first, and then lungs, plus our entire skeletal structure, bone for bone)are the same genes you have. You are a descendant of fish and amphibians, as that is where your very bones developed first.

Nobody would believe that there is nobody writing this post, and yet this post is simple compared to the simplest bacterium

The post took seconds to make, the bacterium took nature 3 billion years or so. It only took nature 500 million years or so to go from a bacterium to you(kind of humbling, don't you think?). Only 8 million years to go from an ape to man(who is really just a different kind of ape, after all).

My argument from before still stands, children resemble their parents because they have received their genetic code from them. Everybody knows this.

Children are often quite unlike their parents, everybody knows that. Descent with modification doesn't happen in one generation, or even one hundred, but when you start looking at thousands of generations the differences(minor before)can become major changes.

No new information means no evolution.

Mutation=new information. Gene swaps=new information. Copying errors=new information. Hybridization=new information. New information=evolution(when tested by Natural Selection(=survival to reproduce)). These are undeniable, observed facts not opinions or beliefs, no sane person can logically deny them.

There are considered three major racial groups of mankind: white, black, and asian

Races of humans are like colors of horses, just varieties of the same species. And what are Amerindians? They, the Aleuts, the Inca and Peruvians take offense you ignore their unique variants in your prejudices.

Therefore, man has always existed in its present form and will continue to exist in its present form.

Non-sense, modern humans are less than 25,000 years old, before that it was 200,000 years ago that every person's great, great...grandmother was alive(and no smarter than your average chimp, which she highly resembled). Man has only existed in ANY form for about 8 million years, there was no difference between us and other apes at that time(in fact we were those apes). Again, this is observed fact, we've got some of their remains.

Just a question for the evos, what examples of beneficial mutations do we have of coming into existence and becoming widespread in a population?

You are Smarter than humans were just 50,000 years ago. You are also taller and heavier, mainly because of the efficiency of food production due to our increased intelligence(a result of evolution). Your natural life span is nearly double what it was just a couple of hundred years ago, again intelligence has a lot to do with that. You live in luxury and plenty that even elites did not enjoy just a few centuries ago, largely because of the rejection of superstitious non-sense and the acceptance of scientific advancement, leaving you behind, evidently.

Grumpy

 

[Trooper]

I just had to look into this a little more:

Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy (aka myotonic hypertrophy)

"Affected individuals have up to twice the usual amount of muscle mass in their bodies. They also tend to have increased muscle strength. Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy is not known to cause any medical problems, and affected individuals are intellectually normal."


The really interesting thing about both of these conditions is that they don't seem to cause any medical problems. In other words, aside from increased bone density, or muscle mass, we're talking about healthy individuals. Sure, they have trouble swimming, and I can only assume that a person with both of these mutations would be doubly afflicted with this limitation, but every superhero has a weakness right? The reference to the movie 'Unbreakable' was indeed very apt.

Mighty Mice Made Mightier

I've read about this in the past and have seen it discussed in body building forums. Follistatin inhibits myostain, but it also inhibits FSH. So, I don't quite understand how this wouldn't have impact on male or female fertility.

"In men, LH stimulates testosterone production from the interstitial cells of the testes (Leydig cells). FSH stimulates testicular growth and enhances the production of an androgen-binding protein by the Sertoli cells, which are a component of the testicular tubule necessary for sustaining the maturing sperm cell. This androgen-binding protein causes high local concentrations of testosterone near the sperm, an essential factor in the development of normal spermatogenesis. Sertoli cells, under the influence of androgens, also secrete inhibin, a polypeptide, which may help to locally regulate spermatogenesis. Hence, maturation of spermatozoa requires FSH and LH."

 

[rpenner]

This seems to indicate cause and effect and not mere chance.

Yes, "seems." Evolutionary adaptation in populations mimics cause and effect. But the replication defects do arise at high frequency, occasional slip past the error-correcting machinery, and occasionally lead to beneficial change in phenotype. Atom-by-atom, radioactive decay is extremely rare -- fortunately there are a lot of atoms so we know a lot about the phenomena. Likewise we know a lot about mutation because we have lots of examples. But even if mutations are random, the rate of mutation is frequently higher in stressed organisms that don't have the resources to do he best job of error-correction. And even if mutations are undirected, the filter of survival, competition and differential reproduction (sometimes referred to as the filter of the fitness landscape) gives the illusion of the population following changes in the environment. But for the individual, its mutations and struggle to reproduce are personal and without reference to a plan for the population.

Not only does this idea make sense, it makes mathematical sense as arbitrarily complex simulations of the math of this have been adopted to sample and exploit fitness functions (like antenna design) where the humans have no great insight. Thus evolution in populations is fully capable of mimicking design through fundamentally undirected trial and error, with memory of what basically works (i.e. one's parents). And that's not even starting into the benefits of sex.

The cause is the environmental potential, like a pesticide,

Introduction of a pesticide is a change of the environmental fitness function. Metabolizing the poison in a way that causes damage and in large dose death is a common trait that now is deleterious even if was neutral in the pre-pesticide environment. If the pesticide is used in normally lethal doses and all individuals get equally dosed, the population is doomed to extinction.

which sets a potential that has to lower with the lowering of potential the mutation.

Garbled. The pesticide need not affect the mutation rate at all. Pesticides are frequently deployed against billions of individuals. Some parts of the population might get a low dose and struggle to survive anyway. Some parts of the population might have a formerly invisible mutation that negates some or all of the poison's effect. Some new mutation might help an individual and its descendants. And where survival was more than luck, the survivors pass on the winning combinations. But the actual evidence has shown that new traits do evolve in the populations and we trace these new traits to DNA changes that indicts Zeno's purported author as a better friend of the agricultural pest population than of the school boy learning for the first time that testicles are a weakness.

You can't depend on the rolling of dice for that speed of change, since random changes in the DNA should lead to more problems than solutions, which is not observed.

Did you not read the list of human woes? Mutations happen to individuals all the time, for the individual to suffer through or benefit from. The population mostly doesn't have to live through the pain of the mutations that hurt -- they don't fare well in competition-wise in the gene pool of the population. The individual in Vegas cannot depend on the rolling of the dice, but because of the large numbers of dice rollers involved, the casino can depend on the games of chance. Because of fecundity bringing more players to the table, the population survives when some of them are winners. The winners might mostly be the stick-in-the-mud types or in the case of pesticide introduction the winners might be the rare ones who rolled double-sixes three times in a row.

Intelligent design, in the science sense, assumes cause and effect instead of the blind man's prophecy of statistics. You don't need intelligence to use a broad based massage tool for everything. All you need is a factory worker.

No science can "assume" it's explanatory mechanism into existence -- you make your hypothesis and then you seek evidence to disprove it. As with Zeno's purported author one expects to see actual intelligence and special creation at work here and what we measure and verify in math is long history of trial-and-error without any sign of guidance of what solutions are tried.

How is cause and effect possible? The answer comes back to water. Since the discovery of DNA it was assumed, by the oracle of statistics, that protein folds were random and formed an average fold due to the weak binding energy of 3-D protein structures, and the available thermal energy within the water. As technology got better, it turned out proteins exhibit exact folds, even though all the conditions always seemed right for the assumption of random. The oracle said so, and all hailed the oracle.

Actually, that model was tested mathematically. http://folding.stanford.edu/ Proteins frequently fold only one way in nature because their internal tertiary structures are held together by forces stronger than randomness. And both mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease are examples of proteins that don't only fold one way. These proteins can also fold the wrong way and the wrong way is induced in other molecules in a chain reaction. You seem ignorant about both the facts and the practice of science, generally.

The oracle still can't explain this observed fact, with probability equal to 1.0. The explanation is life exists via cause and effect in the land where probability approaches 1.0. Water brings many variable to the table, to assure speedy and needed casual changes to environmental perturbations. One is the entropic force which pushes evolution in the direction of increasing entropic force. The oracle needs new questions since the old questions are not in touch with the latest data.

Most of this is garbled. Probability 0.95 is correctly rounded to probability 1.0 -- perhaps you meant probability 1, in which case you need to be clearer in what your claim is. You seem to attribute to water many of the traits of Zeno's author -- is this your intention? It's unclear that evolution has a direction, as the same evolution produced kumquats and orangutans yet orange is not more "entropic" than other colors.

 

[leopold]

What alternative is there other than a supernatural creator of mankind to a natural model of the origin of humanity?

to my knowledge there is none

Is that "very few" in relation to the population of a particular city, country or the whole Earth?

globally, yes.

What research did you do before forming such a guess?

i did say it was a guess didn't i?

 

[rpenner]

don't confuse "belief in a creator" with "belief that humanity is more that what nature can explain".
it's my guess that very few believe in a creator but a great many believe humanity is more than what nature can explain.

What alternative is there other than a supernatural creator of mankind to a natural model of the origin of humanity?

Is that "very few" in relation to the population of a particular city, country or the whole Earth? What research did you do before forming such a guess?

Consciousness? Something quite lacking in these days.

to my knowledge there is none

globally, yes.

i did say it was a guess didn't i?

I'll probably edit this post, but I am underwhelmed with what you have brought to the conversation. With ignorant guesses and objections you concede are pointless, you seek to evade your burden in holding up your side of this fact-based discussion.

[posted from an iPhone]

 

[Aqueous Id]

Just out of curiosity what exactly would convince the evos that their theory is false? Probably nothing.

(1) The arrival of a spaceship with new information about how a terraforming experiment gone awry produced a fake fossil layer for some reason that probably makes no sense
(2) Waking up one morning only to discover we are living a dream, as in the Matrix

As in our legal system, you rarely see major laws overturned by new evidence. On the other hand reversals are more common at the lower levels. In most cases this occurs at the level of individual understanding. Everyday everywhere in the world people are learning new facts that reverse their beliefs. In academia, we have journals, which keep a record of central ideas in science, and you will often see these flipping one way or the other based on new evidence, but these tend to be details that are not going to overturn overriding principles.

I mean does anybody really believe they are descended from a fish?

Yes, fish, amphibians and reptiles all preceded first mammals in evolutionary succession.

Nobody would believe that there is nobody writing this post, and yet this post is simple compared to the simplest bacterium. Somebody must have written this post and yet nobody wrote the DNA code for the simplest bacteriuma?

It is no harder to understand the random formation of DNA than it is to understand the random formation of crystals or any other kind of repeating pattern in nature. That being said, the mechanisms that explain it can be hard to understand without first learning chemistry, biology and probability theory.

My argument from before still stands, children resemble their parents because they have received their genetic code from them. Everybody knows this.

They actually receive the genetic code from four grandparents, scrambled randomly during gamete formation and fertilization.

No new information means no evolution.

Every instance of fertilization brings new information, which is only one of many ways it occurs. Mutation and genetic drift are other ways this happens.

There are considered three major racial groups of mankind: white, black, and asian.

That distinction is completely arbitrary and not even correct.

Therefore, as we go forward in time there will still be white, black, and asian people because it is simply different combinations of pre-existing genetic information.

Where do Polynesians figure into this? Aborigines of Australia? Berbers? Native people of the Americas? Inuit? etc. As you see, "race" is not the defining classification, but rather the genetic isolation of any group that is geographically hindered from gene exchange. As time goes on and more and more people migrate and intermarry, that distinction vanishes.

If we go back in time there were white, black, and asian people.

If you go back in time there were no people except Africans, and no reason to think they were immediately split into a variety of races.

Therefore, man has always existed in its present form and will continue to exist in its present form.

That is contradicted by the fossil evidence and the genome projects.

Just a question for the evos, what examples of beneficial mutations do we have of coming into existence and becoming widespread in a population?
The mutations must meet the following criteria:
1. It must be 'new'. It can't be part of the genetic variation that was built into the creation from the beginning.
2. It must produce some kind of noticeable advantage.
3. We know that it has become more widespread in the population because of this advantage.

Your premises are incorrect. Nevertheless, there are as many examples as you care to discuss.

The evolution of corn from maize is a prime example. In this case, the benefit to the corn was that humans would continue to plant seeds from those mutant plants which produced the most food.

It can't be part of the genetic variation that was built into the creation from the beginning.

In the beginning were first cells. Nothing was built in as you presume. It all evolved.

 

[Aqueous Id]

i'm incredulous alright.
asking me to believe things become alive is like asking me to believe in god as creator.

It happens every time a cell divides.

 

[Robittybob1]

It happens every time a cell divides.

That wasn't the brightest thing to say. A cell dividing and producing two cells; which cell was the one that came alive? That must be just a continuation of life, not a starting of life.

You could say the organism is a "new life", as is often said for a fertilized embryo, but it didn't just become alive.

 

[leopold]

It happens every time a cell divides.

that "new" cell came from life, not non life.
in my opinion there seems to be 4 "classes" of life:
cellular life.
plant life.
animal life.
human life.
all of these are different from the other but each has elements of all 4.

 

[Robittybob1]

that "new" cell came from life, not non life.
in my opinion there seems to be 4 "classes" of life:
cellular life.
plant life.
animal life.
human life.
all of these are different from the other but each has elements of all 4.

And what made to come to that conclusion?

 

[PhysBang]

This seems to indicate cause and effect and not mere chance. The cause is the environmental potential, like a pesticide, which sets a potential that has to lower with the lowering of potential the mutation. You can't depend on the rolling of dice for that speed of change, since random changes in the DNA should lead to more problems than solutions, which is not observed.

Actually, it is observed. More evidence that you ignore the actual biology.

Intelligent design, in the science sense, assumes cause and effect instead of the blind man's prophecy of statistics. You don't need intelligence to use a broad based massage tool for everything. All you need is a factory worker.

It seems that it ignores science and results and merely assumes what it wants.

 

[billvon]

that "new" cell came from life, not non life.
in my opinion there seems to be 4 "classes" of life:

There are five kingdoms of life. Animals, plants, fungus, protists, archaea and bacteria.

There are thousands of classes of life. Mammals, for example, are a class, as are maxillapoda (many crustaceans.)

Humans and animal life are not classes. Humans are a species (homo sapiens) and animal life is a kingdom.

 

[Robittybob1]

There are five kingdoms of life. Animals, plants, fungus, protists, archaea and bacteria.

There are thousands of classes of life. Mammals, for example, are a class, as are maxillapoda (many crustaceans.)

Humans and animal life are not classes. Humans are a species (homo sapiens) and animal life is a kingdom.

From an evolutionary point of view would those 5 kingdoms still originate from a common ancestor or would there have been 5 or more separate occurrences of abiogenesis?
Why I say 5 or more is assuming there may have been some kingdoms that have become extinct.

 

[billvon]

From an evolutionary point of view would those 5 kingdoms still originate from a common ancestor

They all share the basic processes of life, so it is very likely that they had a common ancestor. Even the most unusual - archaea - share most of the basic genetic machinery as the rest of life.

 

[Robittybob1]

They all share the basic processes of life, so it is very likely that they had a common ancestor. Even the most unusual - archaea - share most of the basic genetic machinery as the rest of life.

"Five kingdoms - Animals, plants, fungus, protists, archaea and bacteria".
We seem to have 6 names here. I was wondering if they could be put in a likely evolutionary sequence.
Like animals eat things so I don't think they would be first. Plants if they were able to process radiation as an energy source could be early. Fungus generally breakdown organic matter so they can't be first either.
Archaea just the name makes them sound old. Protists - I'm going to have to look them up. Bacteria presumably live on other organisms.

 

[Zeno]

This thread is a waste of time. I really don't believe that anybody posting on here really believes evolution is true.

Originally Posted by Zeno

If we go back in time there were white, black, and asian people. Therefore, man has always existed in its present form and will continue to exist in its present form.

Since "man has always existed in its present form" you eliminate your proposal that man needs an author. Since "[man] will continue to exist in its present form" you eliminate the need to give famine relief or worry about genocide. You have asserted ignorance and in ignorance defeat your own proposal.

Huh? What?

the giraffe vagus nerve takes a path no human designer would have OKed

Your testicles are reused from other species with testicles hanging outside their bodies because they require lower-than-body temperatures for sperm to develop. Fish and amphibians have internal testes -- decent protection. Squirrels have retractable testicles -- a useful feature in the fight. So as you lie there on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, you have to ask yourself how your author is to be known from such work?

And by claiming humans have an author, each design defect in humans that inflicts suffering is attributable to such an author. Women, in your view, are built to suffer in childbirth, something that they simply don't have to do. Auto-immune disease is when the jury-rigged immune response decides to eat the body. Hare-lips, chromosomal abnormalities and mutations, horrific developmental deformities, getting hit in the testicles -- the suffering of humans from your purported author are great. And what's the plot? What great moral lesson should we take from all the different ways one can get cancer or express hemophilia?

So the argument seems to be that living organisms weren't designed because we don't like the way they were designed.
The only way we could have been designed is that if everybody was in perfect health and lived forever.

 

[Robittybob1]

This thread is a waste of time. I really don't believe that anybody posting on here really believes evolution is true.
..... So the argument seems to be that living organisms weren't designed because we don't like the way they were designed.
The only way we could have been designed is that if everybody was in perfect health and lived forever.

Is this where evolution is heading?