We are too humane.

hmmm...uh, well, I don't know what to say. ok, fine everything is evolving all the time. As far as micro-evolution, allele frequencies will be changing and such. Again, I must say I want to get away from micro-evolution and talk about macro-evoltion, where a species evolves from another species. When I type FROM it really makes me think theres a direction. From one species to another, from A--->B, arrow pointing in 'the direction'. Now I realize that speciation is much more complex than A--->B, actually you usually get two species from one (because they have been somehow seperated), but, the formation of a species involves that species going in some direction away from the one it formed from, not physically walking away but evolving away. In this sence of evolution, humans have stopped evolving, even though allele frequencies change and thats considered evolving. I'm talking about a new species of human...not gonna happen.One more thing on the micro-evolution, maybe I can relate my which direction? question, and perhaps you can answer it. As far as humans and evolving, and changing alleles...what changes do you think will happen to us, over the course of many generations? Will they all just be genetic subtleties or something more physically noticeable?

Well Cashfrog,we're talkin apples and oranges I guess. I completely disagree with your view on evolution, perhaps we could start a new thread? I larned Darwinian evolution, and micro/macro evolution (in a biology class btw). I don't see how changes in allele frequencies and sexual selection promote speciation.edit:
ok, I read a little about sexual selection, which i learned is part of Darwin's theory, a 'selective process'. Its a branch of natural selection, I though you were saying it was something different when you said evolution is about sex and not death. I disagree, and I think natural selection requires a lot of death for big changes in species and speciation. I don't see individuals or groups out mating each other and evolving the species. I think the fittest survive and the others die.This message has been edited by Catholic Scientist, 01-28-2005 21:11 AM

I think you'll find that macro-evolution is simply the accumulation of micro changes over long periods of time. I don't know anyone other than creationists that even use the term macro-evolution, and they can't even describe what it is. LOL Who knows? How can anyone predict something that is simply the result of random mutations being filtered through Natural Selection? Again, who knows? Whether it is a major physical change or not will only be known after the fact, long long after. Either way it will most likely be the result of many small changes over extended periods. Any major sudden physical change is far less likely although not impossible.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

All I know about evolution is from a college class I took and what I read on the internet. I went through 12 years of catholic school then went to the University of Illinois were I took a class on evolution, and they taught me about micro and macro evolution. The only time I heard creationist talk about it was after I read your post and googled macroevolution and found some creationist websites talking about macroevolution, but there were also scientific websites talking about it.p.s. I'm going out now and won't be doin anymore replying tonight

Well, when they build the computer of which they ask the question, "Is there a God." and it answers, "There is now!". Then evolution will have been fulfilled. You didn't think evolution really wanted to spend all this time and energy to make squishy smelly protoplasmy things did you?lfenThis message has been edited by lfen, 01-28-2005 21:40 AM

I'm not sure what you think my "view" of evolution is, since I'm largely just repeating things from biology texts. I don't think there's really a "view" to be had about what evolution is, there's just lesser or greater understanding of the theory as currently worked out by scientists. What promotes speciation is divergent allele frequency changes between two reproductively isolated populations. Without isolation there can be no speciation. Darwin was right to propose that natural selection causes populations to change; what he didn't know about was genetics. Darwin did not formulate evolution in terms of changes in allele frequencies, but he did understand that it involved changing trait frequencies. I think you're looking at it entirely the wrong way. It doesn't matter who lives or dies if nobody reproduces. You could live to be a ripe old age but until you can attract a mate, you're as great an evolutionary failure as your conspecific who was killed by predators, or whatever.Most selection pressures aren't quite the life-or-death struggle that you're thinking of. It's really a more prosaic matter of mating, and who has more children and grandchildren than the rest. Then you're not even looking, because that's exactly what happens. But everybody dies. Does that mean no one is fit?

C.S. I think you are oversimplifying the term "fittest survive"There are thousands of individual traits under pressure by hundreds of thousands of enviromental factors that can plausibly ruin a creatures chancee to reproduce and thus continue the species. It is a simple fact of nature that there are more ways for a thing to go wrong than right as pertains to reproductive success.The fittest is the one who's capabilities best deal with the constantly changing facets of nature.

I think you must be misconceiving the structure of natural selection theory.Consider 2 scenario's:
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- the good-eyed organism type A is struck by lightning and fails to reproduce
- the halfblind organism type B reproduces2:
- the good-eyed organism type A reproduces
- the halfblind organism type B fails to reproduceThese 2 scenario's are, of course, one and the same principle operating in nature, natural selection.The goodeyed organism had a higher chance to reproduce, at the start of life. But chance is not certainty, and so it is well expected that many times the fitter (the one with the higher chance to reproduce at the start of life) doesn't actually reproduce. In fact when there are just a few fitter organisms in the population, and the rest are less fit, it should be expected that the fittest become extinct, by natural selection. You can see the math of this easily:type B chance of reproduction 10 percent
type A chance of reproduction 11 percentSo you can see that an organism of type A has a 10 percent more chance to reproduce as organism type B (1.1*10=11). But since the chance is still very little, and since there are so few organisms of type A, in this scenario it is more likely that A becomes extinct.I think the direction that man is evolving is very likely to be according to direct gene-manipulation, gene-therapy. This would be manipulation to get rid of diseases in the first place, but maybe later also some designs according taste, like better eyesight, or hearing.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Um, Syamsu, selection has to be selective.A random instance that has nothing to do with an organism's traits is not a selection pressure. Absolutely anyone can fall of a cliff and die, regardless of the contents of your genes.That's not selection, and you should know better after 3 years of having this pointed out to you, over and over and over again....

Ifen
No, I didn't...I think evolution provided God with a species that was able to appreciate love...thats why he 'created' us and 'injected' us with a soul...but this is a whole nother argument on why he didn't just create the perfect species in the first place instead of letting us evolve, which revolves around free will...Crashfrog,We have such different opinions All theories are just 'views' on what evolution is. In my opinion(IMO), everyone/thing who stays alive will live long enough to attract a mate, the question is not if you will be ABLE to, but if you will live LONG enough to attract a mate, get it? If you live to a 'ripe old age' and haven't attracted a mate yet, then I agree with you and you aren't helping at all, but IMO if you aren't fit to survive then you die first and will be unable to pass on your lousy traits and won't live long enough to reproduce. wow...thanks for helping me understand your point...NOT! No...it means that those who were un-fit were not able to reproduce before they died.Sidelined said: I think this strengthens my point about evolution relying on death more than sex.Syamsu,you totally lost me...to put it in the words of Cashfrog... In order for your scenario to work, type A would have to have to have a trait that made it be more likely to be struck by the lighning, one individul being struck for no reason should have no affect on the entire population. They seem to be different to me. The randomness of scenario 1 should have no affect on the reproductive success of that entire population. Basically, to put it bluntly, you are entirely wrong. Sorry, I don't understand your math... what does the chance of reproduction have to do with the complete randomness of being struck by lightning, unless one of the types has a higher probability of being struck? which should have nothing to do with their eyesight, unless you are talking about dodging lightning? Thank you for responding to my question...I think I agree with this point of yours. In my original point of being humane and inhibiting our evolution I also leaned that promoting our evolution could be in-humane. This point you made strengthens that, I think that we would have to use gene-manipulation/therapy in order to further evolve our species, but I also think that it is in-humane to do that. As do most christians, and the like, who are against gene manipulation/therapy and stem cell research and all those 'in-humane' things that might allow our species to evolve further.Thus, my original point / opining topic...We are too humane and we are stopping ouselves from evolving, unless we lose some humanity and let poeple die or start messing around with genes and practically create our own types of people oursleves.And please don't respnd about how our allele frequencies are changing so we really ARE evolving, I don't want to get into this discussion again.This message has been edited by Catholic Scientist, 01-29-2005 05:40 AM

I think you are just missing that it's a chance. An 11 percent chance of reproducing, still leaves an 89 percent chance of not reproducing.I am just saying that nature stops the fittest from reproducing all the time, and is predicted to do so. So it is not correct to contrast human society with nature, and say that in nature the fittest survive, the unfit go extinct. In nature the fittest also don't survive and go extinct, many times.As far as I can tell people generally don't want to evolve to anything much different. They just want to get rid of some genetic diseases. I don't see any significant opposition to gene-therapy for diseases.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

When I said "evolution" I was referring to the theory, which I don't think there can be different "views" of. What I guess you're going to make me come out and say is, if you disagree with me that this is what the theory of evolution says, you don't really understand the theory. They don't, though. Not every organism mates, and it's not because they died before they had a chance. Organisms are selective about who they mate with. Exactly my point. It's not about who dies; it's about who doesn't reproduce. To get back to your point, under our medical technology, ebola might not neccessarily kill you, but who's going to mate with you? Or AIDS? These people are kept alive when, perhaps, they would normally die; what I'm saying is that it doesn't really matter to our fitness because they either choose not to mate, or can attract no mates in their condition. It's the same either way in regards to our gene pool. I thought my point was clear. In populations, certain genes often come to be "fixed" throughout the entire population, not because the gene caused the death of all its competitors, but because organisms with the genes had more children than those that did not have the gene. In other words, what you say you're not seeing is literally what is happening. It's really not that hard to understand if you remember that most populations are at a stable value (called "K".) If one group always has twice as many children as the other group, that group will come to completely dominate the population. You can even model it mathematically. We didn't get into it the first time, because you did not refute the point. You merely dismissed it. Well, that doesn't make it go away. It's still true that human populations continue to evolve, because our allele freqencies are changing over time. That's evolution. Just think about it for a minute. If evolution relied on death, then why does everything die? If evolution relied on death, how could anything be alive to evolve?Evolution relies on reproduction, because evolutionarily speaking, there's no difference between dying and not reproducing.

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Well, let's see. We allegedly progressed from soup to simplistic organisms to animals to humans. Given the magnitude of the change and progress so far, if the tale were true we're surely destined to become gods.

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Why?

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Disclaimers:
1. It won't happen, of course, being Jehovah God, creator of all is the one and only proven true God and will allow no other gods.

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Wrong. The only true proven god is Krishna. Everybody knows that.

Why not? It appears you just had to say something, so as to put another "yes" on buz's "posts awaiting responses" profile report card. So now do we do a king of the mountain exchange of posts to see who ends up with another damning "yes" on the report card so you can come at me again in the future for non responses?Sometimes, Schraf, I don't respond to you because, frankly, I don't like dialoging with you.

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In Jehovah God's Universe; time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

Those are two bold assertions with no evidence presented to back them up: First, that baboons don't have decision-making power; and second, that humans have transcended the influence of their genetics when it comes to behavior. Neither is true.Humans and their behavior ("humanity") are not "separate" from the rest of the animal kingdom as you describe. Perhaps: You should stop looking for black-and-white answers to explain complex issues of the evolution of human behavior and society.By the way, are you actually a working scientist? (Not meant to be accusatory, I was just interested in what field you might be working in, since you seem to have many misconceptions about evolution theory).