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Author | Topic: 'the evolutionary scapegoat' | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jonathan Inactive Member |
quote: That sharp ridge makes plenty of sense its for structrial reinforcement. A uniformly smooth curve with no reinforcement is very weak. Like an egg shell. If evolution and natural selection were responsable for creating us and relied on variations that were just "good enough" then why dont we still have all of the variations that are totally useless and non life threatning? Like an extra ear on our back that doesnt work. Its not life threatning so natural selection wouldnt eliminate it. But still our bodies only have the minimal necessities to allow us to function. [This message has been edited by Jonathan, 07-14-2002]
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
What determines what is necessary and what is not?
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
You interprit these "design flaws" as evidence of an imperfect design. I see them as misuse of their original intended purpose. God did not design us to sit at a computer all day and eat doughnuts. Therefore we have weak muscles which lead to unnecessary injuries.
If God were to make an infallible human then he would never choke, never get angry, make a mistake, trip, fall or bump our head. Is it Gods fault that I stubbed my toe? Was it because of his poor design that I miss calculated my foot step? No. I run my own life and make my own decisions. Its not Gods responsibility to babysit me and make sure I dont have an accident. God didnt make us poor chewers we did. Pointing out that the human body is accident prone as evidence for the non-existence of God is a weak arguement.
[quote]quote originally posted by shrafinator:A body doesn't "know" it needs extra protection. Variation exists within a population already, unless they are all clones. If an individual (or several) posesses a trait which makes it possible, in the current environment, to be more sucessful at reproducing itself than others in the population which do not have this trait, the trait will therefore be more likely to be present in the more numerous offspring of the individual that has the trait. In other words, natural selection resulted in greater reproductive success to those individuals in a population of early humans which had those protective ridges on their spinal columns. [quote]
This is where I have a BIG problem with the TOE and natural selection. Traits like the spinal ridges, eye brows, mens nipples all have little to no effect in increasing the possibility of reproduction yet every single human has them. Theses traits have zero influence on increasing our chances of reproduction, so why are they all here. And on every single human. Why arent there cultures in which some of these traits are absent? Every arguement in the creation vs evolution debate can be distorted to support both sides equally. . You see it as a "good enough" adaptation. I see it as misused from Gods intended purpose. Its all in how you look at it
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
Your missing my point. These traits have virtually no effect in increasing the probability of reproduction. I know they serve an important purpose but they dont increase the probability of reproduction so how can they increase reproductive success?
I think if you were to apply the body to a "garden of Eden" lifestyle it may me more than sufficient.
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
[QUOTE]Originally posted by gene90:
You're overlooking something. If it serves "an important purpose" then it contributes to reprodution. Simply put, if it helps keep you alive or helps you in any way, it improves reproductive success. [/B][/QUOTE] In theory yes. but in actual real world circumstances I dont beleive it would have any effect. Keeping the hair out of my eyes is helpful, but its not going to win over the ladies. This is the flaw I see in NS. Evolving a new tear duct is very helpful but it is not going to have an impact on my reproduction rate.
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
quote: Right.
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
[QUOTE]Originally posted by gene90:
I doubt someone who has shaved their eyebrows would agree. For one thing, it makes people look strange, thereby harming you in the mate selection department, and since people are social it could cause you even more trouble if you are ostracized all the time or even banished from the group. Another problem is that if you can't keep sweat out of your eyes, you can't see, so it can get difficult to flee from predators. When you get eaten, you cannot produce more offspring. Even a small disadvantage between you and your peers will harm the chances of a particular allele being propagated through a population. [/B][/QUOTE] If you were the first person ever with eyebrows you would look strange. Its easy for you to make conjectures now to justify the survival advantage of eyebrows but in reality I dont think its going to make much difference. If you put two naked men in the forrest and one with shaved eyebrows is it fair to say that the one without is at a disadvantage? Come on now, lets be realistic. [This message has been edited by Jonathan, 07-16-2002]
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
No, your right. I agree I was out of line in my responses. It just frustrates me when people refuse to see the possible errors in thier theories and pass them off as infallible just because it is thoretically possible. Yes all of these theories sound good and would hypothetically work. But so do the plans the A-Team or Matlock has. They look good on paper but in actual real world practice "I believe" they would fall far short of their expectations.
Again I apologise for my attitude.
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
quote: But how significant is this advantage? Would it be enough to have a significant impact on his or her reproductive status?
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
I see your point. All of these traits can theoreticaly offer a survival advantage. However I dont think that the "advantage" they offer would have much impact on their ability to reproduce.
Sure I can see how opposable thumbs can be extreamly advantageous to survival/reproduction. But if all of your species have no spinal ridges (and you are the first to have these) then for this to be advantagous to you all of the others in your species would have to be regularly suffering from spinal injuries otherwise you would have very little advantage over the others. You compared this to a disfigured eye being repulsive to all other mates but if you were the first to have a tear duct then the rest of your species would have disfigured eyes, not you. If natural selection works as well as you theorize then why do we have genetic predispositions towards obesity, poor eyesight, poor hearing even baldness? These traits have a much greater impact on their survival/reproductive success then say spinal ridges, eye lashes, eyebrows or any other trait with low "survival influence." You can call it incredulity but I just dont think that your model for reproductive success will work like you plan. Just because an individual has an improved design (tear duct, eye brow)over the others does not AUTOMATICALLY mean that he will have a reproductive or survival advantage over the others.
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
You guys are right. Im such a fool for beleiving in somthing as silly as that.
What was I thinking?
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Jonathan Inactive Member |
You know what I meant.
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