Best arguments for/against evolution!

juvenissun · Apr 24, 2015

DogmaHunter said:
That didn't answer my question.

What do you propose as an alternative, and better, tool for investigating the world, instead of science?

For you, science would be the best.
If you want to become better, then try religion.

juvenissun · Apr 24, 2015

DogmaHunter said:
1. It's proprietary code which I do not own.
2. I'm positive you wouldn't understand a word of it.

Meanwhile, Boeing uses GA's to optimize fuel distribution in their big plane engines.

You can say whatever you wish. It won't make GA's stop working. Because they do work. Very well. Because mutation + selection as a mechanism works. If it didn't, GA's would be useless. But they aren't. So yeah...

I do not understand it yet. But I can surely work on it.
The problem is: you have no intention to learn anything about it.
So we have no way to use GA for any argument. Just like you said: you can say anything about it if you do not work on a solid ground.

pgp_protector · Apr 24, 2015

DogmaHunter said:
....snip....

To put it poetically, I'm "proud" of my bloodline upon realising the following (courtesy Prof Dawkins):

For the past 3.6 billion years, not a single one of my ancestors died before succesfully reproducing.

I find that to be one of the most poetic facts in nature. I think it's very humbling.

Not only that, but for your ancestors that had multiple sperm(or equivalent) the one sperm that fertilized and produced the offspring out of all the others won. If any other won, you wouldn't be you as the genetic lineage would of changed.

OldWiseGuy · Apr 24, 2015

DogmaHunter said:
Because mutation + selection as a mechanism works.

No one doubts mutation; look at the monstrosities we've created out of our dogs. However, would such mutations occur in nature?

The concept of selection needs clarification as well. Because a weak organism dies and a stronger one lives means that some mysterious force made a "selection" between the two. That's simple survival of the fittest.

Going to ridiculous lengths would posit that evolution provided lions to remove the sick and weak from the herds of antelope.

Loudmouth · Apr 24, 2015

Belk said:
Would you say this evidence is better then retro-viral insertion data?

The ERV evidence is one part of the evidence I am talking about. The phylogeny of species distribution for ERV's matches the morphological phylogeny.

It isn't simply that species share ERV's at the same locations in their genomes, although that is powerful evidence on its own. Rather, it is the fact that they form a phylogeny that evidences evolution. This allows evolution to also predict which ERV's will NOT be found at the same position in two species. For example, PtERV insertions are found in the chimp and gorilla genome, but not the human genome. Since humans and chimps share a more recent common ancestor, this would mean that the PtERV insertions had to occur after chimps and gorillas split from their common ancestor. Therefore, PtERV insertions should not be found at the same position in the chimp and gorilla genomes, and they aren't.

Lineage-Specific Expansions of Retroviral Insertions within the Genomes of African Great Apes but Not Humans and Orangutans

Again and again, we see DNA aligning with morphology when it simply doesn't have to in a design scenario.

Loudmouth · Apr 24, 2015

OldWiseGuy said:
No one doubts mutation; look at the monstrosities we've created out of our dogs. However, would such mutations occur in nature?

Every human being is born with about 50 mutations.

Also, mutations are what separate us from other species. The reason that we look human and chimps look like chimps is because our DNA is different. If changing DNA only produced monstrosities, then there should only be one species with all the members of that species having an identical genome. That isn't the case. In fact, there are 6 billion different combinations of DNA bases that result in just humans.

The concept of selection needs clarification as well. Because a weak organism dies and a stronger one lives means that some mysterious force made a "selection" between the two. That's simple survival of the fittest.

Heritable traits are non-random mechanisms that cause organisms to be stronger or weaker, or better put, fit and less fit. The fitter organisms in a population will pass on their fitter genes at a higher rate which causes the gene pool of the population to change over time.

Going to ridiculous lengths would posit that evolution provided lions to remove the sick and weak from the herds of antelope.

No one derives morality from how nature works.

Loudmouth · Apr 24, 2015

DogmaHunter said:
We started to work together more closely and build tools to facilitate something like hunting for example.

Suppose we had big teeth and claws that were used for hunting previously.
When starting to use tools and cooperation... the better we get at that, the lesser we would need that brute strength (and rather dangerous approach of 1-on-1 combat).

It is a bit interesting to look at the hands of our ape cousins.

Gorilla:

Chimp:

Orangutan:

Archaeopteryx · Apr 24, 2015

juvenissun said:
For you, science would be the best.
If you want to become better, then try religion.

I've tried it. Overrated.

Belk · Apr 24, 2015

Loudmouth said:
The ERV evidence is one part of the evidence I am talking about. The phylogeny of species distribution for ERV's matches the morphological phylogeny.

It isn't simply that species share ERV's at the same locations in their genomes, although that is powerful evidence on its own. Rather, it is the fact that they form a phylogeny that evidences evolution. This allows evolution to also predict which ERV's will NOT be found at the same position in two species. For example, PtERV insertions are found in the chimp and gorilla genome, but not the human genome. Since humans and chimps share a more recent common ancestor, this would mean that the PtERV insertions had to occur after chimps and gorillas split from their common ancestor. Therefore, PtERV insertions should not be found at the same position in the chimp and gorilla genomes, and they aren't.

Lineage-Specific Expansions of Retroviral Insertions within the Genomes of African Great Apes but Not Humans and Orangutans

Again and again, we see DNA aligning with morphology when it simply doesn't have to in a design scenario.

Ah! Very well then. I had always heard that ERV evidence was pretty much top of the charts as far as evidence was concerned.

Loudmouth · Apr 24, 2015

Belk said:
Ah! Very well then. I had always heard that ERV evidence was pretty much top of the charts as far as evidence was concerned.

IMO, what makes the ERV evidence so popular is that the mechanism is easy to explain to those who don't have a strong genetics background. It is a bit harder to explain how DNA sequence is compared, what a bootstrap value is, what an outgroup is, etc. The "best" argument in this type of setting is often the argument that is easily understood.

Lately, I have been referencing Homologene, which is an interesting tool. For example, you can compare the cytochrome C gene between humans and some of the other model organisms.

HomoloGene - NCBI

It is an interesting way of illustrating how phylogenies work. For example, let's look at the scores for human, mouse (M. musculus), and chicken (G. gallus) at the DNA level.

Human-mouse = 90.5%

Human-chicken = 81.6%

Mouse - chicken = 81.9%

This is one of the interesting relationships that evolution produces. It is called genetic equidistance. As it turns out, H. sapiens and M. musculus share the same common ancestor with G. gallus. Since they are equidistant from chickens, then we should expect DNA divergence to be in the same ball park, and it is. ID/Creationism makes no such prediction, and it simply can't explain the genetic data like evolution can.

TheImmortalJellyfish · Apr 24, 2015

TheImmortalJellyfish · Apr 24, 2015

No, not just "everything else". It goes for every species.

What does?

Humans have supposedly evolved to be....social

And we aren't alone in that at all. There's plenty of other social species out there.

Define "social" for me, in your words, please. I'm just curious.

Loving. Artistic. Aware of our own mortality. Able to contemplate concepts such as eternity.

Yes, those are some of the human-only traits, yes. Every species has traits unique to them. It's kind of what defines them as a species. If we would have the exact same traits as chimps, there would be no difference between humans and chimps. Derp.

If we looked and acted like chimps, we'd be chimps. That's basically what you just said. Double-derp.

We didn't evolve tails that aid us in balance - apparently, we lost 'em.

Yes. It's called the tail bone. I'm sure you heared of it.

Any manifestation of a tail in humans occurs in the womb during biological growth. The tailbone does nothing to aid in balance. How is this beneficial? Is evolution beneficial or not? Don't say it just....is. If I'm going to understand the theory better, how is this edifying?

Claws and teeth that aid us in self-defense, extra joints, bigger muscles for improved mobility, etc...evolution emphatically points out how animals thrive in their environment due to such physical "changes over time", however any correlation to humans and the evolution of their mental capacity over time is guesswork at best.

No, it's not.
Evolution can explain the human trait of intelligence and cooperation just as well as claws and big teeth. Both are useful tools to assure survival for the respective niches of life they belong to.

Superior balance, vision, hearing, and olfactory senses are not useful tools? Apparently "Natural Selection" decided we didn't need such things because of our big ol' brains?

Animals are naked for all intents and purposes with fur, feathers, scales, etc, which help them camouflage against their environment

We have fur as well, just like all mammals.
Have you ever gotten goosebumbs when cold or afraid? You know what those are, right? And why they appear when cold or afraid? Cause it sounds like you don't.

Hmm...so why do I get goosebumps in relation to positive sensory experiences? A good melody, a back scratching...

And why do some people have much more "fur" than others? Are they more closely related to chimps?

Take a naked human and throw it into a jungle, and he's basically a big weak meat lozenge which can't run very well, has no self-defense against claws or teeth, no venom, no ability to blend into environment, NOTHING.

Right.
That's because we evolved in another direction then simple brute strength and solo hunting. We evolved into tool use and cooperation. For us, that worked better then the brute force approach.

We didn't have the ability to use tools and cooperate before we "became human"? Chimps can use crudely fashioned tools, apparently, as you all so emphatically point out. Evolution wanted us to make better ones? Why? And why is it that there is much stress on the importance of being physically fit? If we were apparently not meant to have "brute strength", what are all these gyms for? Shouldn't we just honor this wonderful gift of evolution and strengthen our brains, ignoring all the other things we apparently "didn't need" in the first place?

You seem to have the cliché false idea that "evolved" means "bigger, stronger, faster,..." etc. As if it were a ladder. This is false.

So "survival of the fittest" does not apply? We evolved these bigger, stronger, faster brains for what reason then?

And we have evolved...?

yes.

All arguments I've seen for human evolution when confronted with such concepts don't seem to make much sense.

I'm guessing that's because you are somewhat ignorant on how evolution actually works, considering your above statements.

That's okay though. Ingorance is not a problem, because it's easily fixed. All it takes is a bit of reading and a minimum of studying.

Surely you must agree that it's kind of silly to try and argue against a theory without first actually studying what the theory is really all about......

Do you know what it's really all about? Couldja maybe sum it up for me?

edit: sorry for the confusion. My original posts are emboldened and italicized, Dogma's are italicized, my responses are normal font.

GrimKingGrim · Apr 24, 2015

Is this a new type of meta quoting?

TheImmortalJellyfish · Apr 24, 2015

GrimKingGrim said:
Is this a new type of meta quoting?

No, it's a combination of trying to keep my conversation straight with DH, and having problems with posting for some reason. I apologize for the double post.

DogmaHunter · Apr 25, 2015

juvenissun said:
For you, science would be the best.
If you want to become better, then try religion.

How does religion help in understanding quantum mechanics, genetics, relativity, chemistry, etc?

Do you think we would be communicating through this channel if science never took of and if religion was all there was to teach us about the world?

DogmaHunter · Apr 25, 2015

juvenissun said:
I do not understand it yet. But I can surely work on it.
The problem is: you have no intention to learn anything about it.

I designed a framework that is based on it.

How do you think I did that, if I didn't learn about it first????

When I create a program to automate a certain thing, I need to know exactly what it is that I am modeling.

If I need to write an application for an accounting firm, I need to understand how accounting works.

If I need to write an application that uses GA's to optimize or solve certain problems... I need to understand how GA's work.

So we have no way to use GA for any argument.

I do. It works. It models the natural process of evolution: mutation + fitness test (=selection) + reproduction. Repeat.

Your bare denial isn't going to have any impact.

Just like you said: you can say anything about it if you do not work on a solid ground.

The paycheck I cashed for it sure was solid enough...

juvenissun · Apr 25, 2015

DogmaHunter said:
I do. It works. It models the natural process of evolution: mutation + fitness test (=selection) + reproduction. Repeat.

Ahh... I remember it now. It seems we have talked about it before. I forgot the result of the talk. It seem you were speechless by my argument.

Let's try again, if you will. It is in fact, very simple thinking:

Original algorithm --> change it a little bit and run it again --> repeat the changes and runs.

Is that what you called a GA? I would simply call it a common sense. A 10-year old boy could do it. How could this kind of GA provide any support to biological evolution? You would not be so naive to say because this kind of GA works, so biological evolution works, won't you?

I even question why would you call it a "Genetic" something. This term is abused by you people. It is simply a logic cause--consequence relationship.

juvenissun · Apr 25, 2015

DogmaHunter said:
How does religion help in understanding quantum mechanics, genetics, relativity, chemistry, etc?

Do you think we would be communicating through this channel if science never took of and if religion was all there was to teach us about the world?

I said that science is a tool, but not a way. A machine shop can be used to make things. But people in the shop need a guidance to know what to make.

You (and many others) are so busy in learning how to use and improve tools. But you are also lost in doing that.

Archaeopteryx · Apr 26, 2015

juvenissun said:
I said that science is a tool, but not a way. A machine shop can be used to make things. But people in the shop need a guidance to know what to make.

You (and many others) are so busy in learning how to use and improve tools. But you are also lost in doing that.

Nonsense. The tools are not the primary focus of science. It's the questions that we're concerned about. The tools are secondary to the questions. Learning how to use a tool (e.g., fMRI) is necessary but not sufficient for good science.

GrimKingGrim · Apr 26, 2015

I still have not been convinced of one fault in the evolutionary theory.

Best arguments for/against evolution!

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