76 replies to this topic

[TrueMonolith]

Sidroc, the way you're looking at this is akin to a puddle saying "Isnt it wonderful that this hole designed specially for me".

[sidroc]

TrueMonolith, on 19 February 2010 - 21:11, said:

Sidroc, the way you're looking at this is akin to a puddle saying "Isnt it wonderful that this hole designed specially for me".

Not quite, as I don't care much for the ID argument at all. I go back in forth from whether I am steadfastly a believer in evolution or not but today I finally read about an animal that helps to change my position. The blind mole rat seems to me like perfect evidence for evolutionary theory. Nevertheless something else will most likely come up and change my perception again.

[the evn show]

sidroc, on 19 February 2010 - 21:07, said:

Your right in saying that other forms of life do just fine without all these extra components. I also am to the understanding that in evolution these systems did not come about with a specific purpose, but rather took over that purpose as it developed. This is something I buy into and what your saying makes sense to me. I think I just need to study more into it I guess.

I think for the questions you have: Richard Dawkin's book will be the best choice. I flipped through the two I mentioned and it seems to me that "Why Evolution is True" focuses more on the evidence we have to support it while "The Greatest Show on Earth" drifts more toward the mechanics by which it all happens. If you've still got a soft spot for religion or intelligent design you might find him a bit confrontational: atheism is sort of his hobby-horse.

"Greatest Show" reads much more like a science text than say "The God Delusion" but it's got more content devoted to religion than "The Selfish Gene" or "The Extended Phenotype". If you can deal with the occasional digression to agnosticism/atheism then the biological science presented is excellent, convincing, and accessible.

If you find studies of particular animals and their origins to be more compelling then you should probably steer towards Coyle's book "Why Evolution is True." I suppose Dawkin's is more like the math that explains how atoms bind. Coyle was more about the chemical reactions that we did to prove the math was right.

[Growled]

Why is it even an issue with you? The way I look at things, something like this is an fascinating intellectual discussion but it really doesn't impact my day to day living one bit. If this I evolved from monkeys or was designed by a creator does not change anything for me.

As for the discussion itself, the complexity of the world lends itself toward a creator who uses evolution, in my opinion. You could say I subscribe to both. To me it's just too much order to be just random chance.

[sidroc]

evn., on 19 February 2010 - 21:56, said:

I think for the questions you have: Richard Dawkin's book will be the best choice. I flipped through the two I mentioned and it seems to me that "Why Evolution is True" focuses more on the evidence we have to support it while "The Greatest Show on Earth" drifts more toward the mechanics by which it all happens. If you've still got a soft spot for religion or intelligent design you might find him a bit confrontational: atheism is sort of his hobby-horse.

"Greatest Show" reads much more like a science text than say "The God Delusion" but it's got more content devoted to religion than "The Selfish Gene" or "The Extended Phenotype". If you can deal with the occasional digression to agnosticism/atheism then the biological science presented is excellent, convincing, and accessible.

If you find studies of particular animals and their origins to be more compelling then you should probably steer towards Coyle's book "Why Evolution is True." I suppose Dawkin's is more like the math that explains how atoms bind. Coyle was more about the chemical reactions that we did to prove the math was right.

I'm gonna look into reading these. I got a lot of spare time coming up as I am taking Spring Semester off from my studies. Might as well read something in that time .

[splur]

sidroc, on 19 February 2010 - 21:30, said:

Not quite, as I don't care much for the ID argument at all. I go back in forth from whether I am steadfastly a believer in evolution or not but today I finally read about an animal that helps to change my position. The blind mole rat seems to me like perfect evidence for evolutionary theory. Nevertheless something else will most likely come up and change my perception again.

Blind mole rat? How?

[Kirkburn]

justmike, on 19 February 2010 - 20:18, said:

I try not to quote Wiki anything. It's in many ways like quoting uncle Henry's Myspace page.

If Uncle Henry's MySpace page was edited by thousands of people from all fields, and had many references cited. Strangely enough, Wikipedia is not about spreading lies, and you think someone might have noticed something in ... ooh, I don't know ... the last five years?

In summary: Wikipedia is perfectly reasonable to reference for overviews of concepts. If you want more info, check the references.

As to the rest of your argument, why bother thinking anything then, if you reckon it'll change entirely in 300 years?

[sidroc]

splur, on 19 February 2010 - 23:23, said:

Blind mole rat? How?

Simple, it has an organ that is a true vestigial organ. Its eyes are internal. Their fully developed but they are completely internal under the skin. That cannot come about about in intelligent design.

[+Xinok]

I was taught in school that evolution was a random process, and that natural selection is what drives evolution. The animals with the best traits are more likely to survive and pass on those traits. More and more though, it seems that evolution is more of an adaptive process than a random one. I keep seeing more and more examples of genetic changes being triggered by changes in the environment and other factors, and not just happening completely at random.

An example of this is lactose intolerance. Europeans have one of the lowest percentages of people with lactose intolerance because their ancestors have been drinking milk for thousands of years. Simply drinking milk caused the specific genetic change so they were no longer lactose intolerant. I can't think of many other examples right now, but another example is that some scientists think we became as intelligent as we are simply because we eat cooked food.

Personally, I think all of physics is perfectly balanced for producing and sustaining life, but we just haven't gotten to a point yet where we can understand or explain how this is possible. I think life is a naturally occurring phenomenon which happens given the right conditions. This is how I get around the argument that "life is too complex to have happened by chance" and throw out the idea of creationism.

More or less though, I'm an atheist more because of history than science. History can explain the origins of each religion, and how certain things influenced the development of said religion. It can show how peoples interpretations of religion have changed throughout time. The more I learn about history, the less convinced I am that there is a creator or higher being of any sort.

My views on religion aren't all negative. I think it's responsible for creating the world we have today. Religion gave our ancestors a reason to build the pyramids and all of the other grand structures that came with each civilization. And this helped us to develop engineering and science to give us the world we have today. They didn't build the Parthenon because they were bored.

[Stetson]

Xinok, on 20 February 2010 - 00:29, said:

I was taught in school that evolution was a random process, and that natural selection is what drives evolution. The animals with the best traits are more likely to survive and pass on those traits. More and more though, it seems that evolution is more of an adaptive process than a random one. I keep seeing more and more examples of genetic changes being triggered by changes in the environment and other factors, and not just happening completely at random.

An example of this is lactose intolerance. Europeans have one of the lowest percentages of people with lactose intolerance because their ancestors have been drinking milk for thousands of years. Simply drinking milk caused the specific genetic change so they were no longer lactose intolerant.

Or the people who were lactose tolerant were naturally selected because milk was what was available.

[jebus197]

The answer to this question is simply time. You have no concept (saying 4 or 5 billion years may sound easy - but is in fact almost impossible for most humans to conceive of in the limited extent of their own life spans.

We humans have only been around for the equivalent of one minute to midnight on the evolutionary clock. Before us life continued on very happily without us. Also all of the species alive on Earth today represent only about 3% maximum of all of the life that has ever existed. That's billions, upon billions, upon billions of iterations (given that life also has a tendency to overproduce). So if you ask the question, has there been enough time for all of these changes to occur, the answer is yes! Certainly.

I would wait until you learn more about how evolution works and about, geology and about the history of life before you consider discounting it. I am also a biology student, and am often filled with wonder at the intricacy that has emerged from such humble beginnings - but it has not led me to attribute these changes to a creator.

Rather it has often led me to wonder about purpose, since there is often a sense in me that sometimes life does seem directed towards a purpose. But I am torn on this front, because I know that much of this can be attributed to a personal desire in me to see this purpose, even though in reality such a purpose may well not exist.

But certainly it is an arbitrary choice, since with or without God, there is a sufficient mechanism in place and there has been sufficient time for all of the changes you speak of to occur.

You accept the doctrine of a higher order of meaning because you chose to, but it doesn't mean that if you do that evolution is false.

Also it's important to remember that evolution is an adaptive process, not a random one as someone else pointed out. An average biology course doesn't give you a full run down on the intricacies involved in the evolutionary process. As I said, don't make your mind up about anything until you have had time to do a course and to study the topic properly.

[jebus197]

I would also certainly also recommend you read the books others have pointed you too. Beware somewhat of Dawkins. Read him and you will find him utterly convincing - and he is because his arguments are largely sound. But Dawkins confuses much of his study of evolution (and much of his readership!) with his ardent support for the ideology of atheism. Evolution however has nothing to do with atheism. They are not as Dawkins would have us believe, 'the same thing.' The study of one, does not automatically lead to the conclusion of the other. (I personally despise the angry atheist brigade, as they have often helped inspire just as much ignorance and intolerance in the world as many of their religious counterparts).

Evolution simply studies life processes. That is all. It does not ask questions about God, because as in most sciences God is a subject that it is impossible for biologists to study. Could evolution have happened and could a God still have existed? Yes! Could it have happened without the need for a God? Yes! Could life exist for a purpose? Yes! Could life exist entirely without purpose? Yes! If God does exist, does he care about us, or is he entirely indifferent? Equally so yes to both questions... Again these are not questions that are open to scientific enquiry. That evolution (given all of the evidence we have) is very likely to have occurred is something that we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty, but the kind of questions you are asking have more to do with our personal values and preferences They are as I said in large part almost wholly arbitrary choices - and as such are almost equally interchangeable with each other.

You are certainly at the moment trying to piece together an understanding of a world view from the perspective of very limited knowledge. This is always a dangerous thing to do. You will not 'see the whole picture' until you look and can see the whole picture. (Or at least as much of it as it is possible for you to see). You should stop and accept where you are at the moment, an undergraduate with limited insight and experience and then look again at everything when you have had a chance to think about it and study it more fully.

What you are experiencing is a sense of wonder. Even if you do get a chance to understand evolution properly and you do not feel able to attribute life processes, or evolution itself to a God, if you study well, with any luck I trust that sense of wonder will never leave you.

[omnicoder]

We have developed a huge complex society, communication, science, and all sorts of crazy things. Why could your body not do the same?

[PreKe]

Xinok, on 20 February 2010 - 00:29, said:

I was taught in school that evolution was a random process, and that natural selection is what drives evolution.

Mutations are random. Evolution is not "conicidence", as you seem to suggest. Natural Selection indeed "directs" evolution.

Quote

The animals with the best traits are more likely to survive and pass on those traits. More and more though, it seems that evolution is more of an adaptive process than a random one. I keep seeing more and more examples of genetic changes being triggered by changes in the environment and other factors, and not just happening completely at random.

Uh, yes. That's Natural Selection. Not "completely random" at all.

Quote

Personally, I think all of physics is perfectly balanced for producing and sustaining life,

How?

[splur]

jebus197, on 21 February 2010 - 19:47, said:

Evolution simply studies life processes. That is all. It does not ask questions about God, because as in most sciences God is a subject that it is impossible for biologists to study. Could evolution have happened and could a God still have existed? Yes! Could it have happened without the need for a God? Yes! Could life exist for a purpose? Yes! Could life exist entirely without purpose? Yes! If God does exist, does he care about us, or is he entirely indifferent? Equally so yes to both questions... Again these are not questions that are open to scientific enquiry. That evolution (given all of the evidence we have) is very likely to have occurred is something that we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty, but the kind of questions you are asking have more to do with our personal values and preferences They are as I said in large part almost wholly arbitrary choices - and as such are almost equally interchangeable with each other.

Completely agreed. Evolution does not disprove God nor does it try to, but it points out the inconsistencies of religion.