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Author Topic:   If evolution is our origin, where will we end up?
nique
Inactive Member


Message 16 of 33 (235853)
08-23-2005 6:15 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by coffee_addict
08-19-2005 5:40 PM


But maybe evolution was predetermined. Evolution to me seems like a theory that has alot of scientific evidence, but alot of religious evidence. The way we are today is a result of millions of years of subtle climatic changes and mutations, and somehow we evolved to become these intelligent capable beings. That to me sounds so amazing and spiritual.
I was trying to explain to a friend of mine that maybe evolution and creation could come hand in hand. And she told me that in the bible it says "God created the heavans and the earth", and she said "how can you interpret that any other way" and i said "well i can say i created my english essay, but it took me two months, it didnt just appear in front of me". Im not too familiar with differnt theories of creation, so can someone tell me the reasons why creation and evolution cannot be joined?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by coffee_addict, posted 08-19-2005 5:40 PM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by coffee_addict, posted 08-23-2005 12:50 PM nique has not replied
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 Message 25 by bkelly, posted 08-26-2005 7:02 PM nique has not replied
 Message 26 by Nuggin, posted 08-27-2005 11:05 PM nique has not replied

  
coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 477 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 17 of 33 (236032)
08-23-2005 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by nique
08-23-2005 6:15 AM


nique writes:
That to me sounds so amazing and spiritual.
Sure, it's all in the personal preference on how to see it. To me, it just looks like the inevitable or a great big coincidence. However you wish to see it.
The question is if life hadn't evolved to a point where a species is capable of consciousness and sentience, would there have been anyone around to ask the question of whether or not evolution is predetermined?
It's like a person winning the lottery saying that it was predetermined by some supernatural force for him to win the lottery. As far as I'm concerned, it's all the person trying to make himself feel special.
I was trying to explain to a friend of mine that maybe evolution and creation could come hand in hand.
No, it can't.
Im not too familiar with differnt theories of creation, so can someone tell me the reasons why creation and evolution cannot be joined?
There are are basically the literalists and the non-literalists. The literalists believe that god created everything exactly as was written in the Genesis account and that satan put all the evidence of an old Earth around to deceive people.
The non-literalists believe that god created everything but that the genesis account was written in the kind of language that the ancient people could understand. It's like trying to explain how the planets remain in orbit around the sun to a 12 year old kid. You have to explain to him by demonstrating that a person, while holding hand with another person, wants to go in a straight line but ends up just going around the person who's standing still. Does this mean that the sun has a hand and is holding the Earth's hand?
However, both the literalists and non-literalists seem to agree that the genesis account cannot be fused together with evolution. You either have to reject scientific evidence or try to squeeze scientific evidence through the genesis hole, like trying to squeeze a square into a circular hole.
and i said "well i can say i created my english essay, but it took me two months, it didnt just appear in front of me".
To many, this is a direct insult of god. Why? God is omnipotent. He could have snapped his fingers and pops out the universe. You, on the other hand, can't snap your finger and pops out your English paper.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by nique, posted 08-23-2005 6:15 AM nique has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 18 of 33 (236090)
08-23-2005 1:53 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by nique
08-23-2005 6:15 AM


nique writes:
I was trying to explain to a friend of mine that maybe evolution and creation could come hand in hand. And she told me that in the bible it says "God created the heavans and the earth", and she said "how can you interpret that any other way" and i said "well i can say i created my english essay, but it took me two months, it didnt just appear in front of me". Im not too familiar with differnt theories of creation, so can someone tell me the reasons why creation and evolution cannot be joined?
I'm not a biologist but as I understand from those that are on this forum evolution primarily occured due to genetic mutations. All that biology can tell us is that they did occur. Why they occured is a totally different question.
Snow will tell you that they occured naturally. His knowledge of biology makes him an expert in his field but and can give him answers as to how evolution occured but it doesn't make him more expert than anybody else when it comes to why it occured.
For myself I believe that we are created by God but I'm quite perpared to leave it up to the scientists to tell me how God did it.

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by nique, posted 08-23-2005 6:15 AM nique has not replied

  
AnEmpiricalAgnostic
Inactive Member


Message 19 of 33 (236512)
08-24-2005 4:02 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by nique
08-12-2005 10:31 AM


nique writes:
Yeh i dont think we could adapt that quickly, lol. Is there a rate at which evolution occurs, i realise it can take millions of years, but how quickly can an organism evolve, and is there any proof of it.
Actually, adaptation can happen very quickly. You have to keep in mind that like evolution happens for populations of organisms so does adaptation. A good example would be to think about ourselves. Humans have evolved over quite some time. During this time some people have developed and inherited a delta32 mutation. If your mother has a delta32 mutation and your father has a delta32 mutation you will inherit a double delta32 mutation. This will make you immune to AIDS. Some people have this mutation as we speak. If a drastic selection pressure were to hit us, like some kind of hyper AIDS epidemic, then everyone without the double delta32 mutation would die. The remaining population of humans would be immune as would their offspring. This means that humans will have evolved to survive that selection pressure. Evolution may take a long time, but adaptation can be forced rather quickly.
nique writes:
And also if a population all acquires the same learned behaviour and passed that onto their children is that evolution, or is evolution only changes in genes.
Evolution has become a catch all word. I’ve seen people talk about the evolution of language, evolution of the universe, or evolution of cars before. What is generally talked about in a venue such as this is biological evolution. That has to do with genetics.

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
-- Stephen Roberts

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by nique, posted 08-12-2005 10:31 AM nique has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 20 of 33 (236516)
08-24-2005 4:14 PM


Drugs and evolution
It seems that many in the western world, including pregnant mothers, are taking drugs both legal and illegal in large quantities.
Many of these druga affect our immune system. It seems to me that some of the changes brought about on the individual through things such as antibiotics could have a permanent affect on future generations.
Any thoughts?

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Replies to this message:
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AnEmpiricalAgnostic
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 33 (236519)
08-24-2005 4:16 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by New Cat's Eye
08-17-2005 7:15 PM


Re: we're in the last stage
Catholic Scientist writes:
Its my opinion that were not going anywhere. I don't think we can expect much change in humans, especially on the physical trait level. I just think that natural selection has too little of an affect on humans to have any noticable change, because of the way we have taken matters into our own hands. Its like we've stopped evolving, we've stopped our own evolution. Now I have to type that I realize that the frequencies of our alleles will continue to change so technically we can never stop evolving.
It’s true that lately natural selection has not had a dramatic affect on our evolution but that is no guarantee it will remain so. Technically, we have only been around a very short while in this universe. Some nasty virus could run amok or some celestial event could make life very difficult on this planet very quickly. How much we could change is speculative, but if we look to the Eskimos or Aborigines we can start to get an idea.
This message has been edited by AnEmpiricalAgnostic, 08-24-2005 04:17 PM

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
-- Stephen Roberts

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-17-2005 7:15 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-25-2005 5:42 PM AnEmpiricalAgnostic has replied

  
Carson O'Genic
Junior Member (Idle past 6113 days)
Posts: 20
From: San Francisco, CA
Joined: 08-15-2005


Message 22 of 33 (236654)
08-25-2005 1:02 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by GDR
08-24-2005 4:14 PM


Re: Drugs and evolution
Most aspects of our immune systems are adaptive to just about any natural threat (ok not all of them we do die from some). This is because B cells and T cells rearange genes and are selected to grow based on their interaction with foreign substances (cellular evolution, if you like). Drugs may have a short-term affect on the survival and function of immune cells, but as long as you survive to pass on your genes the next generation will have the same capacity to make white blood cells that recognize bacteria etc as you did.
Regarding pregnancy, I think one of the more interesting possibilities in terms of human evolution may come from the result of medicine's affect on pregnancy. Human pregancy is not a very optimal situation. Getting our big fat heads out without killing Mom is a potentially leathal problem. Without modern medicine many women die in child birth, a major selective force. So the size of our heads (and babies in general) has been a compromise with female anatomy. I wonder if all the C-sections are going to eventually let the human head get bigger, and what would we stuff in there if we had more room??

This message is a reply to:
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 33 (236980)
08-25-2005 5:42 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by AnEmpiricalAgnostic
08-24-2005 4:16 PM


Re: we're in the last stage
Some nasty virus could run amok or some celestial event could make life very difficult on this planet very quickly
Yeah, this goes with my point:
quote:
I just think that natural selection has too little of an affect on humans to have any noticable change, because of the way we have taken matters into our own hands.
Its gonna take something that is out of our hands to make us evolve. As long as we are in control, we can expect little to no change.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by AnEmpiricalAgnostic, posted 08-24-2005 4:16 PM AnEmpiricalAgnostic has replied

Replies to this message:
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AnEmpiricalAgnostic
Inactive Member


Message 24 of 33 (237244)
08-26-2005 10:10 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by New Cat's Eye
08-25-2005 5:42 PM


Re: we're in the last stage
Some nasty virus could run amok or some celestial event could make life very difficult on this planet very quickly
Yeah, this goes with my point:
quote:
I just think that natural selection has too little of an affect on humans to have any noticable change, because of the way we have taken matters into our own hands.
Its gonna take something that is out of our hands to make us evolve. As long as we are in control, we can expect little to no change.
True, we have the virus end of things under pretty good control thus far. The second thing I mentioned though is still arguably out of our hands. While there are some tentative plans in the works for how we may be able to thwart a large meteor from hitting the Earth, the reality is that we are one Shoemaker-Levy 9 like event away from just trying to survive in a radically different environment. Of course this is all speculative but we can’t deny that this stuff happens and that it would definitely cause some kind of selection pressure.
I’m not sure if we’ll ever have another plague kind of event, but the discovery of the delta32 gene sheds some nice light on how we may adapt to survive such an event.

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
-- Stephen Roberts

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bkelly
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 33 (237518)
08-26-2005 7:02 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by nique
08-23-2005 6:15 AM


Interpertation of Genesis
quote:
I was trying to explain to a friend of mine that maybe evolution and creation could come hand in hand. And she told me that in the bible it says "God created the heavans and the earth", and she said "how can you interpret that any other way"
If you believe that simple language means simple interpertation, which I do belive, then carefully read Genesis and see what your think. For example" in line 26 I find:
quote:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion...."
Start with "in our image" and tell me who god was speaking to. This simple and plain image says god had company when he was creating man, and the only company that could be is other gods.
Next, it says "...after our likeness...." So god looks like a man. Eyes, ears, nose, head, penis, anus, the whole works. (BTW: the "our" in that phrase again says there are multiple gods.) So god has the body of a man, where is he? Where does he dwell.
Why would god have eyes, ears, nose, mouth, when there was nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to small, no planet to hold air to breath, to say nothing of the air?
If someone disagree with these position, tell them the bible says it. Plain, clear, and simple. Is the bible right, or is it wrong? There is nothing to interpret, nothing to add, nothing to take away. There is no middle ground.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by nique, posted 08-23-2005 6:15 AM nique has not replied

  
Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2493 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 26 of 33 (237876)
08-27-2005 11:05 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by nique
08-23-2005 6:15 AM


Why can't they be joined
can someone tell me the reasons why creation and evolution cannot be joined?
Here's some perspectives.
1) They can be, without a problem, if your spirituality / theory of creation is "God set up all the rules and set the ball in motion." Hardly any supporter of ToE would argue with this, as it has little to no effect on the processes of evolution itself. This is the Catholic Churches stance.
2) They can't be - The Evolutionist side. Biology is a science, as such it adheres to certain rules true of all science. Namely that the world in which we live in behaves the same now as it did in the past, and that what we observe is real. If these principles are false, all bets are off. Evolutionists can't accept Creationists view because they hold that the observable world behaved very differently in the past (ie different rate of radio active decay.)
3) They can't be - The Creationist Side. The Bible is the word of God, it is not up to interpetation by man. Evolution contradicts the Bible, and therefore is flawed in it's premise.
I'm sure there are many subviews and nuanced inturpretations, I'm just trying to give a primer of block concepts.

This message is a reply to:
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Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2493 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 27 of 33 (237877)
08-27-2005 11:15 PM


Where are we headed
Back on topic: Where are we headed.
This is all rank speculation, of course. But here's some guesses I would make --
I saw recently that there was a genetic link to AIDS susectablity and resistance. (This has NOTHING to do with methodology of exposure). It seems that certain people when exposed are much more likely to become infected than the other group facing similiar levels of exposure. I think this was discovered in a study of prostitutes in Africa, but I may be combining two different articles in my head.
Anyway, if we do not find a cure or vaccine for AIDS and it continues to spread as it has been, it will be a major influence on our evolution.
I would also suggest that resistance to various birth control methods is being selected for, weither it's the pill, or spermacide, or whatever.
If the ozone layer contunies to deteriorate, expect darker pigmintation to have the upper hand. As well as ability to resist drought and famine.
None of these would be physiologically apparent, but I believe in them nonetheless

  
Annafan
Member (Idle past 4579 days)
Posts: 418
From: Belgium
Joined: 08-08-2005


Message 28 of 33 (237954)
08-28-2005 11:05 AM


Homo Sapiens first species with "progressive" evolution?
Well, I've also been thinking a bit more about where we are heading, and was struck by something that could give direction to the speculations.
In principle, evolution isn't supposed to work towards an end goal, and isn't supposed to produce "superior" organisms. And the reason for this is that natural selection usually only produces a very "local" (in time and place) superiority. Thus, the continued movement in the direction of "progress" only lasts as long as the circumstances remain fairly stable. When they change, it is possible that a lot of the "designwork" that had been done, suddenly becomes useless, and that advantages become disadvantages.
In that regard, I also refer to an analogy I once read: evolution is like holding an elimination tournament with numerous "rounds", and in each round you get to compete in a different challenge. Say, chess, checkers, tennis, bowling, high-jump, sharp shooting, a memory-game... The order of the challenges is also completely random. If you suppose a number of competitors, each with different talents (each of them can be ranked in each of the disciplines, and each of them is The Best in one of them), this kind of tournament will never have something you would call "THE superior competitor" as end-winner, not even one that is the best in one of the individual disciplines.
Anyways, the reason why this is, is that circumstances change, and natural selection makes organisms conform to the changes. Since the changes are more-or-less random, the organism doesn't travel through design-space in a straight line towards a continuously more perfect solution for a particular challenge, but it wobbles in all directions. On top of that, certain historical "design-choices" could prove to be so difficult to "rewind", that they remain a disadvantage for a long time.
The idea that I got is that humans might actually be the first organisms to get around this hurdle. And the reason is that we change the environment around us, to fit US, instead of passively undergoing the changes and evolving along them. So what we are effectively doing is stabilizing the environment, or in other words we are actively "straightening out" our path through design space; we are eliminating the "wobbling" that is typical for evolution.
Wouldn't all this mean that, provided we maintain ourselves long enough, we might be the first species to defeat the 'random' aspect of evolution?

Replies to this message:
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Carson O'Genic
Junior Member (Idle past 6113 days)
Posts: 20
From: San Francisco, CA
Joined: 08-15-2005


Message 29 of 33 (240336)
09-04-2005 1:53 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by Annafan
08-28-2005 11:05 AM


Re: Homo Sapiens first species with "progressive" evolution?
I agree that medicine as well as the rest of civilization has allowed some indivudals to survive and breed that would not have survived a couple of hundred years ago. Look at the aftermath of huricane Katrina. You have countless people in dispair because they are missing their medications and treatments, and some are dying.
I guess the interesting arguement comes to whether this is good for the human race or not. I thiink since our populations and lifespans keep going up that in the big picture we're doing fine as long some big comet doesn't fry us.
On the positive side of medicine, we have prenatal diagnosis and the ability to control our breeding to prevent passing on bad genes (yes, eugenics and it is happening). The effect of this on the whole human race is rather small at this time, but there are local meaningful effects that are improving certain gene pools, at least from the stand point of one gene.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by nwr, posted 09-04-2005 2:22 AM Carson O'Genic has replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 30 of 33 (240338)
09-04-2005 2:22 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Carson O'Genic
09-04-2005 1:53 AM


Re: Homo Sapiens first species with "progressive" evolution?
I guess the interesting arguement comes to whether this is good for the human race or not.
Yes, it is good. Eugenics, by contrast, is bad.
The effect of what we are doing is to increase the amount of genetic variation in the gene pool. This makes it more likely that the gene pool will contain genes that can withstand the next serious crisis, whatever that may be. If we were to get carried away with eugenics, that would reduce the amount of variation in the gene pool, and that would increase the risk that we could not survive the next crisis.
Evidently the way I am looking at this is different from the way you are looking at this.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Carson O'Genic, posted 09-04-2005 1:53 AM Carson O'Genic has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Carson O'Genic, posted 09-05-2005 2:40 PM nwr has replied

  
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