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Author | Topic: Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taq Member Posts: 10084 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Percy writes: . . . but while much in biology requires evolution to make sense, much does not. Biology is a huge field. A good "counterexample" might be specific observations in physiology. For example, mitochondria store chemical energy by creating a proton gradient across a membrane which involves the metabolism of simple sugars. Evolution doesn't explain why an ATP can be produced when a proton moves from high concentration to low concentration through a membrane bound protein. Thermodynamics does a great job of explaining this process, but evolution not so much.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Was biology even a science ... before Darwin? I still don't understand what Darwin did to advance biology. Are you saying that without him, biologists would not be aware, for example, that the interplay between mutations and natural selection can produce heritable changes in a population? Animal and plant breeders had been aware of such things for thousands of years. Without Darwin, would biologists have discovered drift, lateral gene transfer, recombination, etc, etc? Of course they would have. If Darwin is responsible for nothing more than coming up with the theory that all life evolved from a common ancestor, then he has not contributed anything at all to the advancement of biology - all he's done is come up witha useless idea that is, at best, a curiosity of history. I mean, of what practical use is it to belief that whales evolved from some deer-like creature over a period of 50 million years? Believing in the Tooth Fairy is more useful than that - at least a little money can be made (I used to get five cents per tooth)! Could it be that Charles Darwin is the most over-rated figure in the history of mankind?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I still don't understand what Darwin did to advance biology. No, you don't.
Are you saying that without him, biologists would not be aware, for example, that the interplay between mutations and natural selection can produce heritable changes in a population? Animal and plant breeders had been aware of such things for thousands of years. No, they hadn't really understood it. Natural selection was seen as exerting only conservative pressures.
Without Darwin, would biologists have discovered drift, lateral gene transfer, recombination, etc, etc? Of course they would have. No-one said otherwise.
If Darwin is responsible for nothing more than coming up with the theory that all life evolved from a common ancestor, then he has not contributed anything at all to the advancement of biology - all he's done is come up with a useless idea that is, at best, a curiosity of history. I mean, of what practical use is it to belief that whales evolved from some deer-like creature over a period of 50 million years? No-one claimed that making sense of biology is invariably of practical use, just that one can't make sense of it except in the light of evolution.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
except in the light of evolution What is "evolution"?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
What is "evolution"? Heritable change. We've been through this.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Yes, sorry; your defintion of evolution is heritable change in a population. So what's this got to do Darwin? Heritable changes in a population has been a known fact for thousands of years.
Edited by Dredge, : No reason given. Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Yes, sorry; your defintion of evolution is heritable change in a population. So what's this got to do Darwin? Heritable changes in a population has been a known fact for thousands of years. But people barely knew anything about it. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dredge Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
People were clearly already well aware of the mechanism of natural/artificial selection and its effect on a popularion, so what did Darwin come up with that advanced knowledge of "evolution" (ie, heritable changes on a population)?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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If I said that nothing in the dynamics of the Solar System made sense except in the light of gravity, and acclaimed Newton as a brilliant scientist, would you reply: "So what's this got to do with Newton? Gravity has been a known fact for thousands of years."
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Dredge Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 2850 From: Australia Joined: |
Your straw man doesn't answer my question.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Your straw man doesn't answer my question. You should really find out what "straw man" means --- unless it is your mission in life to make a damn fool of yourself, in which case please do carry on as you are. If there is still something which, having read my posts, you don't understand, or wish to pretend not to understand, perhaps you could ask me politely to explain it to you. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
No?
Goodnight then.
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined:
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Yes, sorry; your defintion of evolution is heritable change in a population. So what's this got to do Darwin? Heritable changes in a population has been a known fact for thousands of years. Yep. Millennia, even. Darwin proposed a theory of how it happened. A distinction which you appear to be unable to comprehend.
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined:
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People were clearly already well aware of the mechanism of natural/artificial selection and its effect on a popularion, so what did Darwin come up with that advanced knowledge of "evolution" (ie, heritable changes on a population)? They were not already well aware that the process, when continued for long periods of time, resulted in wildly different species. Darwin figured it out and called his book "Origin of Species". It was about how different species originated; i.e. how they came to be different species.. Edited by Admin, : Fix use of bold dBCode.
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2134 days) Posts: 6117 Joined:
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People were clearly already well aware of the mechanism of natural/artificial selection and its effect on a popularion, so what did Darwin come up with that advanced knowledge of "evolution" (ie, heritable changes on a population)? Piling up facts is not science -- science is facts-and-theories. Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning: a valid theory organizes them into far greater usefulness. Creationists can't accept the results of science when they conflict with their religious beliefs, so some creationists endlessly pick at the edges of science in an attempt to overturn or discredit the results. That seems to be what's going on in this thread. But to discredit a scientific theory requires evidence...Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge. Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein In the name of diversity, college student demands to be kept in ignorance of the culture that made diversity a value--StultisTheFool It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1 "Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity. Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other points of view--William F. Buckley Jr.
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