Questioning The Evolutionary Process

Intelligently and purposefully? Consciously, that must mean. Does the process get wiped from memory, then? Otherwise, those nasty Darwinists, and everyone else, would know about it, wouldn't they?

How could anyone have thought cutting the tails off mice for a few generations might result in mice without tails??? Did they imagine that the organism’s response to such mutilations would be to not grow tails??? An organism’s response to stimuli is much more subtle.The limited ability of organisms to change and interact creatively with the environment is well documented. Living organisms achieve limited adaptations to temperature, altitude and novel food sources. Used organs develop and unused ones atrophy. In most cases such adaptations are not reflected in the genome. Eventually the genome does change, but is that change accidental (random mutations)? Or would it more likely reflect adaptations already achieved over multiple generations by living organisms? Do organisms have some of the same limited ability to change their genomes that they have to change creatively in response to stimuli? Details of epigenetic processes are being described. As it becomes pollitically permissable to investigate the inheritance of acquired characteristics, more will be found. It doesn't matter whether or not you call it science.Biblical creationism, materialism and the concept of intelligence/volition as intrinsic aspects of living systems. Sizeable segments of our society hold each of those three views of life. Coercive attempts to impose any of them upon society will be counter productive. We Americans are jealous of our right to choose our religious and philosophical beliefs.http://30145.myauthorsite.com/

It probably is. So far no one has proposed a viable alternative.- Not as far as anyone has been able to show.- Who's coercing anyone? Darwinian evolution has been verified. Lamarkian evolution has been show to be false. Simply pointing out the facts is not coercion.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

Those of you who think Darwin is the one who first took evlution into account, U people have not even heard about ISLAM!! the fastest religion growing in the world for a reason, media has made u guyz think its an extreem religion but in fact it is the true religon, and a proof for those so called darwainists is that Allah (SAW)(god) discussed Evolution in his book to Muhammad around 1400 years ago, darwin existed less than two centries ago. proof Go to link below
http://www.parvez-video.com/...lam/evolution_quran/index.asp

We try to focus each thread here on a somewhat narrow topic.If you post the same thing to multiple threads then you are clearly not on topic. Do not repeat that or you will be suspended for a short time (at first).In addition, we do not debate web sites. If you wish to demonstrate that the Quran explains evolution 1200 years ahead of Darwin you will have to do it in your own words (with reference to an English language translation of the original documents.

This is what you claim when you say that acquired traits get incorporated into the genome. A cut off tail is an acquired trait.It was before they knew about genes, remember that Lamarkism was very popular and seemed to be possible at the time. They thought that the form of the parents were mixed in the offspring, so if both were tailless, then the offspring should be. It was by doing experiments like that which showed that it didn't work. I think if you do a little research you will see that it is in the phenotype where selection operates on the individual organisms, but that there is no creative interaction. This will involve reaction to changes in ecology and mutations and natural selection for adaptation to achieve those "limited adaptations to temperature, altitude and novel food sources" and that this is more than sufficient to explain those changes and the development of organs that are useful and the atrophy of organs that are not useful.Those adaptations that are not reflected in the genome will still be hereditary traits involving developmental reaction to environmental chemicals during development of the organism (evo-devo), or they will not be subject to natural selection (for or against). The hereditary changes that are genetic will be made in the genome before the hereditary traits are expressed - that's the way mutation works.The hereditary changes that are due to developmental reaction to environmental chemicals during development of the organism (evo-devo) will not be adopted into the genome (they don't need to be), ...... but sections of DNA that are now no longer used during development will be subject to random mutations such that if the environmental chemicals that caused the developmental change reverted they would no longer function. Depending on the developmental change involved this may amount to the same result (a certain feature arrested during development, or the development of a feature not being stopped at the "normal" stage). As far as I know the only "control" organisms have on the process is to speed up the rate of mutations when under stress. This is documented in bacteria and some experiments suggest it applies to multicellular life too. Again I wonder if you really understand what the word "epigenetics" means, that developmental evolution (evo-devo) is an existing field of scientific study independent of politics ... and yes it does matter that you can call it science, because it is only through testing and study according to the principles of science that we will determine what happens versus what is conjectured to happen. How about evidence, hypothesis, prediction, testing, evaluation, to ascertain the logical validity and let the philosophical implications to beliefs sort themselves out? Science is not the same as religious or philosophical beliefs and many people have no trouble reconciling their faith with science.The trouble starts when some people try to deny or change facts to fit their beliefs. You don't get to choose facts, and if a belief is contradicted by facts it is not faith to continue that belief ... it is delusion: So far you have not suggested anything that cannot be explained by science, nothing new or thought provoking and no need to alter current theories.Enjoy

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Hi;I'm a newbie, so I'll introduce myself before you all start making assumptions about me and my opinions.I am not a scientist, and have no formal degree in any branch of scientific or mathematical study. If that is sufficient to exclude me from participation in this board's threads, I would rather be told that here and now, rather than banned for it at some later date.I am very interested in philosophy and the basic questions of existence, because it has been my experience that the proposed answers to philosophy's questions lead directly to the attitudes, values, goals, and politics that inform our societies and control our lives.It seems to me that the question of 'origins', and its various answers, are a big part of this. The particular question of the origins of 'life', and the associated question of the origins of differing lifeforms, has played an extremely important role in the politics of industrialised nations over the past 200 years, and to my mind is part and parcel of what has become of the planet and its biosphere during that time. In short, I am saying that theories of evolution have become theories of social, political, and economic activity, and those theories, when implemented, have enormous consequences for the quality of life on this planet, including non-human life.So, as I look about me and see the biosphere collapsing, with the highest extinction rate since the death of the dinosaurs, with its air, soil, and water poisoned, with horrendous human over-population and over-exploitation of natural resources, and with global warming pointing to an unstoppable 'greenhouse effect' that could literally fry the planet, I pause to wonder just what basic philosophical notion/s have brought us to such a pass?I cannot help but suspect that the the philosopical assumption that has ruled biology ever since Charles Darwin has had a lot to do with it, and since it is still the ruling paradigm today, I can't help but feel that what helped us get into this mess is not going to help us to get out of it. We need a better theory of origins.I am not suggesting a return to the old mythic explanations for origins favoured by religious adherents. If anything, they contributed as much to the present disaster as any science ever did.
I think that we need a 'third way' of thinking about origins, of thinking about evolution. One that is not founded in faith in some whimsical anthropomorphic deity that arbitrarily 'selects' the saved from the damned of the mystical basis of 'grace', nor in some whimsical, quasi-divine 'nature' entity that chooses/selects survivors from victims on the basis of some mystical criterion called 'fitness'.And I happen to think that Bertvan is referring to this 'third way', and from what I can see in the media and on the net, this 'third way' is daily growing in popularity. Not just among us, the despised, ignorant, non-scientists of the world, but even among evolutionary biologists.Having introduced myself, I'll just make a few comments on RAZD's last post. It's quite old, so I hope s/he'll still be around to read my response. S/he says--

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This is what you claim when you say that acquired traits get incorporated into the genome. A cut off tail is an acquired trait.

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Now, some may try to dismiss my objection to this as, 'mere semantics', but the fact is that it is very meaningful when you think about it. And my objection is this--a "cut-off tail" is not a "trait" in any evolutionary sense, any more than a scarred face or a blinded eye is a 'trait' in any other sense than as a 'personal aspect of identification'. You might just as well refer to Long John Silver's missing leg and acquired parrot as his 'traits', if you are going to call any identifying mark a 'trait'. Calling tattoos and facial twitches 'traits' kind of dilutes any scientific meaning into absurdity, don't you think? And the same goes for Weismann's, anti-lamarckian strawman, the amputated tail, 'trait'.Basically, calling a tail that is not there an 'acquired' biological 'trait' is saying that, in biology, that which subtracted or erased or eradicated or excised or otherwise taken out of existence is the same as the addition of something else, even when that 'acquired' 'something else' is nothing but the absence, a lacuna, of anything actual. To simply lose a biological trait is not to acquire another one, IMHO.Lastly, I wish that someone would give me a non-mystical definition of the word 'selection' as used in the following quote from RAZD's post."I think if you do a little research you will see that it is in the phenotype where selection operates on the individual organisms, but that there is no creative interaction." [bold added]The reason I bring this up is because I believe that "selection" is the 'key word' that defines both of the old paradigms, 'creationism' and 'darwinism', whereas "dynamic response" is key to the paradigm that Bertvan refers to, an organism-centered theory of evolution that might be thought of as, 'developmental evolution'; as opposed to the 'gene-centered' theory of evolution that is called, at least by its believers, "THE" theory of evolution.Thanks for listening, but I must caution those who will automatically attempt to flame me that I ignore trolls and also, that I ignore empty-headed gainsayers. That is, I will only respond to those who make a sincere effort to debate my opinions on their logical merits.Edited by Elmer, : typos

Greed, consumer cultures, and applying technology for commercial gain at a point when there's still not much knowledge of the science behind it. Just some suggestions. Human faults, not really "philosophical notions". What is this philosophical assumption? People who think that natural selection is the driving force behind evolution do so from observation and because of the evidence. As individuals, they have a wide variety of philosophies. The Theory of Evolution has to fit evidence, not anyone's philosophy.The industrial revolution, the beginning of the really serious environmental problems you describe above, was well under way before Darwin's birth, let alone the publication of "Origins".Welcome to EvC.

And don't forget the evils of atomic energy. We need a better nuclear energy theory, too! For individuals, "dynamic response" is too general and undescriptive a term. "Selection" much more precisely describes what actually happens, as Darwin illustrated so long ago when he introduced natural selection by first covering in the detail the breeders art of artificial selection.On the other hand, if you're talking about entire populations instead of individuals then "dynamic response" is more useful. One could say that a population dynamically responds to changes in its environment by changing the distribution of alleles in the collective gene pool. Of course, the dynamic response is due to selection factors, so you still can't escape the term "selection".--Percy

Hi bluegenes. Thanks for the welcome. You say--

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What is this philosophical assumption?

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Basically it is the assumption that existence consists solely of this material universe, and that the universe as a whole, as well as each of its many parts, began as a spontaneously generated accident whose characteristics changed over time in a determined, mechanical,inevitable, immutable linear progression. It has many names, including materialism, mechanism, physicalism, naturalism, and positivism. Its chief corollary is atheism.

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People who think that natural selection is the driving force behind evolution do so from observation and because of the evidence.

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Well, once we find out just exactly what this '[natural]selection' thing is, [that is, once it is defined empirically rather than metaphysically], we can go on to discuss it. In the meantime I can only say that I have never observed this 'natural selection' to be an actual entity, nor have I ever observed any phenomena that cannot be attributed to causes that are distinct and empirically identifiable, rather than nebulous, non-specific and hypothetical. At this point, I would have to say that "natural selection" has neither more nor less actuality than a creationist's "angel of death".

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As individuals, they have a wide variety of philosophies. The Theory of Evolution has to fit evidence, not anyone's philosophy.

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I agree that that is how it SHOULD be. But any examination of any board dedicated to defending the old evolutionary paradigm shows that that is not at all 'how it is'. Not in the least.

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The industrial revolution, the beginning of the really serious environmental problems you describe above, was well under way before Darwin's birth, let alone the publication of "Origins".

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I do not believe I said that Darwin started 'the industrial revolution', and I wonder where you got that impression? Probably it was my overly complex phrasing, since what I actually said was that 'the philosophical assumption' that rules the darwinian approach to evolutionary biology, and which darwinian biology seeks to support empirically, has a lot to do with the social, political, and spiritual mess we've made of the world. That philosophical assumption is the materialist assumption, with its corollaries, that I referred to earlier.

Not being familiar with science doesn't rule you out of the debate but it does make you just look ignorant when you make a statements like this built on a completely bogus assumption which familiarity with the actual science involved would remove.Both natural selection and fitness, which you criticise later, have specific definitions. There may be some debate as to the exact extent to which different factors should be incorporated into natural selection but the principles are clear. You seem to be trying to make them into abstract metaphysical entities which they aren't, they are technical terms. The fact that some people use the terms in a loose way doesn't mean that they don't have specific scientific meanings.TTFN,WK

What experience have you had in this?

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

Natural selection is not an entity in itself. Rather it is the name we give to the tendency of those organisms equipped with (heritable) traits that better equip them to successfully produce offspring (which will themselves grow to be viable adults) to be more successful in doing so -and therefore to pass on those traits.(Please read that carefully - the bracketed bits are essential to a proper understanding, but omitting them produces a simplified version which is close enough to get the idea)Thus, natural selection would be better compared to "death" than an "angel of death". And really I can't see how this definition could be considered "metaphysical".I also have to question what you are putting forward here. Are you suggesting that we should place science with a false "mythology" that - you believe - would encourage people to act differently ? I have to say that I do not think that that would be a good or practical idea.

This is just an argument from final consequences. Moreover, the consequences themselves and the claimed philosophical driver are debatable.Nothing in evolutionary science is encouraging humans to not be responsible with the planet. Rather it is personal gain, something that has always existed among humans, that drives such behavior.I also take issue, as others seem to do, with your anthropomorphic description of simple descriptions of natural phenomenon. Natural selection is not an entity, it is a description of what is observed. Seemingly you don't take issue with the observation in nature that the earth orbits the sun. Why do you take issue with the observation that populations experience differential reproductive success with respect to their environment?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Natural selection is defined empirically. The following is observed in real populations:(1) The individuals in a population differ in their physical characteristics.(2) These physical characteristics are often inheritable.(3) Some organisms produce many offspring before they die, and others leave few or no offspring.(4) The success or lack of success in producing offspring is often due to their inheritable physical characteristics.(5) In the next generation there will be more individuals which will have the physical characteristics of the more successful breeders of the previous generation, and there will be fewer individuals with the characteristics of the less successful individuals.We call this phenomenon "natural selection".There is nothing metaphysical about this definition. We observe a phenomenon in nature, and we label this phenomenon "natural selection".

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein