Creation vs. Evolution

[Rogue Ssv]

Well, that may be generally true, but what about in some countries like Africa where there are a lot of diseases and conditions are generally very poor?

And what about if there IS an epidemic?

What about if the hole in the ozone layer widens and we have to retreat inland?

What about if, because of the ozone layer, UV light starts damaging our skin? Dark skin is less vulnerable to this (or is it MORE vulnerable?)

So you see, although we have virtually eliminated and certainly lessened the factor of natural selection, there are still many changing factors that will affect us and our genomes.

 

[Danoff]

Well, that may be generally true, but what about in some countries like Africa where there are a lot of diseases and conditions are generally very poor?

The closer you get to primitive conditions, the more death occurs prior to breeding age and the more natural selection plays a role. But fewer and fewer people are subject to those effects as countries continue to develop.

And what about if there IS an epidemic?

Then only the people who were immune would procreate in theory. But that's not long term evolution. It's one specific virus that we'd have to overcome.

What about if the hole in the ozone layer widens and we have to retreat inland?

How does that affect reproduction at all?

What about if, because of the ozone layer, UV light starts damaging our skin? Dark skin is less vulnerable to this (or is it MORE vulnerable?)

It doesn't matter if it doesn't impact reproduction. Light skinned people would have to die BEFORE they reproduce to see any evolution occur.

So you see, although we have virtually eliminated and certainly lessened the factor of natural selection, there are still many changing factors that will affect us and our genomes.

Not many at all. A very select few. Granted more evolution is occuring in 3rd world countries than here. But it isn't much, and it isn't what you'd expect. They may be more efficient at surviving on little food and water, but that's far from the big headed, tall, long fingered creatures people expect us to become.

 

[wfooshee]

Without natural selection, evolution does not occur - surely you can agree with that.

No, I can't. Natural selection is the primary force of evolution in nature. What I'm trying to say is that by giving care to "defective" offspring, we are not making the genome static, we are affecting it dynamically, but in a different way from natural selection. You're saying we make the gene pool static by not culling defective characteristics. I'm saying we're changing the pool, not freezing it, by allowing characteristics not considered to be "normal" or "desirable" to propogate. You might call it a reverse selection, and I would not argue with that, but it does amount to a change over time, and that's evolution, whether it's natural selection or not.

To summarize:

I disagree that tolerance of conditions which many would consider as defects will freeze the gene pool. I agree that it is not natural selection, but I disagree that it is not evolution in the long term.

Evolution is a change (any change) in the display of inherited characteristics.

Natural Selection is the survival of preferable heritable characteristics in a natural environment, and is the primary mechanism of evolution.

As everyone has pointed out, humans do not live in a natural environment, nor do we compete with other species for our resources, or flee from predators. This changes our patterns of selection, but does not remove them.

We do, however, fight over mates, kill each others' offspring, and select mates based on observable physical characteristics, all of which are still methods of selection.

 

[Rogue Ssv]

Wel... once again I have been proven wrong. Maybe I should let Famine look over my posts before I post. You guys really have a way of dissecting things and laying them out clearly, and you are all great debaters. Thats why I love you all and also why I hate you.

 

[LeadSlead#2]

Almost literally.

One thing mankind is good at - and always has been - is moving somewhere, adapting the place for his purpose and wiping out competitor species. Our early stages away from the apes were marked by the coexistance of several anthropoid species - but one was slightly smarter than the others and wiped them out before they could wipe him out.

It's like the plot of Terminator. We make smart machines and the first thing the machines see as a threat to their existence is the people that made them - goodbye people.

If we hadn't killed every competitor, we'd probably see a couple of underclass human species - and they'd probably have been the slaves in place of black Africans, and probably still would be - which would be smarter than other animals but dumber than us, filling the "gap" you perceive.


Less smart hominids existed - they were just slaughtered by the slightly smarter ones.

But this assumes we would have needed them to die for us to survive. which is very possible.
But it also means that we were continuously smarter and/or more savvy than the closest competitor as well, something monkeys are apparantly not, even though we evovled from them.
It's certainly a long string of chance, at least.

TM- what makes dolphins in your opinion, so much smarter than Monkeys, and Cats? I don't know any monkeys, but I know cats, and not only do they express a variety of emotions, but also other intelligent attributes as well.
Ever seen a cat "shun" it's owners? quite hilarious, but seemingly intelligent as well
Literally - sat in front of them, after they returned from a 4-day trip, turned around, and sat down, glancing over his shoulder, and snuffing them. for over an hour.

 

[Touring Mars]

But this assumes we would have needed them to die for us to survive. which is very possible.
But it also means that we were continuously smarter and/or more savvy than the closest competitor as well, something monkeys are apparantly not, even though we evovled from them.
It's certainly a long string of chance, at least.

Not sure I agree with much of that... here's why:-

1) No species needed other to die for them to survive... the fact that one survives and one dies is because the species that is best adapted to it's surroundings will always have a higher chance of survival than one that does not... a species that 'fits' it's environment best will survive - hence 'survival of the fittest'...

2) We did not evolve from monkeys. Check out this site for a great tour of evolutionary history. (This page is the stage where primates diverge)... Primates, which includes the great apes, which includes us, all have a common ancestor at some stage, but then again, if you go back far enough (which you can do on that brilliant website ^), everything (ultimately) has a common ancestor... more accurately, we should say that chimpanzees (our closest evolutionary relative) and humans evolved from a common ancestor, current estimates put the split at somewhere around 4-6 million years ago... (try starting from the beginning and following the path to us - I actually posted the full chain a few weeks ago in this very thread too... gives you some idea of just how long (timewise) our full evolutionary history was... notice how late the dinosaurs turn up... )

3) A long string of chance? Not really... that's the point of evolution... yes, a species gains it's advantageous merits by chance, but the reason any species survives (and hence evolves further) is not chance at all. As hinted at in point 1) of my reply, the species that is best adapted to it's surroundings will survive in favour over others which are less well adapted... (this is 'natural selection') This explains perfectly how many living things 'appear' to be perfectly designed for their environments... but this is just the appearance of design. Infact, this 'perfect design' is achieved by the process of natural selection.

TM- what makes dolphins in your opinion, so much smarter than Monkeys, and Cats? I don't know any monkeys, but I know cats, and not only do they express a variety of emotions, but also other intelligent attributes as well.
Ever seen a cat "shun" it's owners? quite hilarious, but seemingly intelligent as well
Literally - sat in front of them, after they returned from a 4-day trip, turned around, and sat down, glancing over his shoulder, and snuffing them. for over an hour.

I'm not putting cats down - they are intelligent animals, and so are dogs - Dolphins appear to demonstrate a different order of magnitude of intelligence than other animals, e.g. they can communicate with each other, and have much more highly developed mental skills - see this for some details/references. Cats and dogs are intelligent creatures, but on the relative scale of all living things, they are nowhere near dolphins, but head and shoulders above many more animals...

Debating why or how dolphins are 'smarter' than cats is really neither here nor there in the gran scheme of things (although it is fun )... If we take another example, I could make the same point using dolphins v mice, or even cats v mice, or chimps v humans, or chimps v slugs... my point is that there is a broad spectrum of intelligent life, and we are at the extreme end of that spectrum - every other living thing appears somewhere on the scale, and relative to other forms of life, some animals are vastly more intelligent (by our 'human' standards) than others...

 

[Famine]

TM- what makes dolphins in your opinion, so much smarter than Monkeys, and Cats?

Dolphins are self-aware. Very few species are - dolphins, chimpanzees and pigs, to my knowledge.

Experiment: Take one mirror. Take one cat. Combine (no, not in some wierd cat/mirror hybrid - just put the cat in front of the mirror). Cat stares at mirror, repeatedly bobs head, looks behind mirror, attacks mirror and so on. Do that with a dolphin and it will recognise the reflection isn't another dolphin, but itself.

 

[LeadSlead#2]

Dolphins are self-aware. Very few species are - dolphins, chimpanzees and pigs, to my knowledge.

Experiment: Take one mirror. Take one cat. Combine (no, not in some wierd cat/mirror hybrid - just put the cat in front of the mirror). Cat stares at mirror, repeatedly bobs head, looks behind mirror, attacks mirror and so on. Do that with a dolphin and it will recognise the reflection isn't another dolphin, but itself.

Honestly, I think my brothers wolf understands that's him in the mirror... but I'm no animal expert.

as off-topic as it may be, some humor.
A bird, landed on my friends jeep-door, looked in the mirror, and got angry, freaked out, and attacked the mirror. scratching the door, mirror, around the mirror, trying to kill it, but in the process, he crapped everywhere, crap on the door, running down the door, on the mirror, on the mirror casing, inside the door, even on the seat, just bird crap everywhere. you don't even have to ask, it's obvious what happened, there's to much crap and scratches everywhere.

 

[Danoff]

No, I can't. Natural selection is the primary force of evolution in nature. What I'm trying to say is that by giving care to "defective" offspring, we are not making the genome static, we are affecting it dynamically, but in a different way from natural selection. You're saying we make the gene pool static by not culling defective characteristics. I'm saying we're changing the pool, not freezing it, by allowing characteristics not considered to be "normal" or "desirable" to propogate. You might call it a reverse selection, and I would not argue with that, but it does amount to a change over time, and that's evolution, whether it's natural selection or not.

Evolution is a move in a particular direction for inheritable traits. If you don't kill off members with certain traits, the species does not evolve in any direction. The gene pool grows, yes, there is more variation, true, but it isn't evolution. It's diversification. Evolution requires natural selection.

Perhaps wikipedia can help out.

The modern understanding of evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, which was first set out in a joint 1858 paper by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace and popularized in Darwin's 1859 book The Origin of Species. Natural selection is the idea that individual organisms which possess genetic variations giving them advantageous heritable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce and, in doing so, to increase the frequency of such traits in subsequent generations.

Our genetic pool may be getting murkey, but that's not the same thing as claiming we're headed somewhere. In order for us to be headed somewhere, people who don't have genomes that point in that direction have to not reproduce. Otherwise it simply doesn't work out.

This changes our patterns of selection, but does not remove them.

Selection, here, refers to some members of the species procreating and others NOT procreating. If everyone is procreating selection IS, in fact, removed.

 

[Specialized]

Ok i beleive this is to do with creation vs evolution and this is the correct place for this post. My mum was talking to my dad about the "meaning of life" last night.

My argument about it was that the meaning of life depends on if you are a creationist or an evolutionist.

The meaning of life would only apply to creationists as it would imply that we were put on the earth by a higher power and would thus have a meaning to life. If you are a evolutionist then we came to be via evolving and do not have any meaning to life its simply the way of life.

Is the meaning of life and the way of life the same thing and does it apply to both creationists and evolutionists?

Spec....

Apologies if this has been discussed already, i have actually read about 90% of this thread and dont recall ever seeing it

 

[Diego440]

well, creationists believe you came here because of the bird and the bees...

evolutionists believe the bird and the bees came here through a more scientific way, though

 

[Touring Mars]

Ok i beleive this is to do with creation vs evolution and this is the correct place for this post. My mum was talking to my dad about the "meaning of life" last night.

My argument about it was that the meaning of life depends on if you are a creationist or an evolutionist.

The meaning of life would only apply to creationists as it would imply that we were put on the earth by a higher power and would thus have a meaning to life. If you are a evolutionist then we came to be via evolving and do not have any meaning to life its simply the way of life.

Is the meaning of life and the way of life the same thing and does it apply to both creationists and evolutionists?

Spec....

Apologies if this has been discussed already, i have actually read about 90% of this thread and dont recall ever seeing it

Interesting question... but I think it's more appropriate to substitute the terms Creationists with Thiests, and Evolutionists with Atheists... since not all Evolutionists are atheists (not by a long way), and not all Theists believe in Biblical Creation (not by an even longer way...) A key point that Creationists continually overlook about evolution is that it does not seek to address the issue of creation or the purpose of life, but is 'merely' a rational explanation for the origins of species. But since no theist or atheist can or ever will know what the purpose of life is, debating whether life even has a purpose or not becomes moot...

But the implication that life only has 'meaning' if one believes that God put us here for a reason is one that I would strongly contest. For the most part, I think that people find meaning in their lives whether or not they believe than Mankind is a product of biblical creation or a product of billions of years of evolution... human society and human intelligence is so complex and highly structured, that it has almost transcended any debates about how or where it came from - in other words, any atheist can easily find as much 'meaning' in life as a theist...

n.b. It's interesting to note that many evolutionists are theists... therefore there is a large swathe of opinion in the middle ground that life does have some sort of 'divine reason' but that our presence on Earth is not the manifest example of it...

 

[87chevy]

Evolution is a move in a particular direction for inheritable traits. If you don't kill off members with certain traits, the species does not evolve in any direction. The gene pool grows, yes, there is more variation, true, but it isn't evolution. It's diversification. Evolution requires natural selection.

Perhaps wikipedia can help out.



Our genetic pool may be getting murkey, but that's not the same thing as claiming we're headed somewhere. In order for us to be headed somewhere, people who don't have genomes that point in that direction have to not reproduce. Otherwise it simply doesn't work out.



Selection, here, refers to some members of the species procreating and others NOT procreating. If everyone is procreating selection IS, in fact, removed.

my lord I return to this site after 2+years of abscence only to find myself agreeing with Danoff! but he is correct. That's why i'm not the biggest fan of modern medical science and practices. we're not letting anyone die anymore. It sounds bad and aweful but there's a reason there are diseases like ebola, aids and all the nasty stuff. to control the population of humans. our only natural predator is diseases. mother earth has to fight back somehow.

 

[wfooshee]

That's why i'm not the biggest fan of modern medical science and practices. we're not letting anyone die anymore. It sounds bad and aweful but there's a reason there are diseases like ebola, aids and all the nasty stuff. to control the population of humans. our only natural predator is diseases. mother earth has to fight back somehow.

Um, so you're up for 'removal,' then?

It's alway been in our nature to protect ourselves as best we can, whether that's lighting a fire at the mouth of our cave to keep predators out, or develop medicines to fight killing and crippling diseases. That's where the debate came about in whether human evolution has stopped with our species, because nature doesn't get to select over us any more. It's a valid and correct point, and I enjoyed the debate, even though I knew I was pushing beyond the limits of credibility to make the arguments I made.

As for Mother Earth fighting back, I don't buy it. AIDS, for example, was originally a simian disease. Were they 'targeted' by nature for some reason, or just used as a laboratory to find a way to get at us?

 

[87chevy]

Um, so you're up for 'removal,' then?

It's alway been in our nature to protect ourselves as best we can, whether that's lighting a fire at the mouth of our cave to keep predators out, or develop medicines to fight killing and crippling diseases. That's where the debate came about in whether human evolution has stopped with our species, because nature doesn't get to select over us any more. It's a valid and correct point, and I enjoyed the debate, even though I knew I was pushing beyond the limits of credibility to make the arguments I made.

As for Mother Earth fighting back, I don't buy it. AIDS, for example, was originally a simian disease. Were they 'targeted' by nature for some reason, or just used as a laboratory to find a way to get at us?

I'd say humans are still evolving to some degree. But I base this soley on how people looked hundreds of years ago (through artwork) and how people look now. I think physically we have evolved somewhat.

Mother Earth will fight back. If we dont do it for her through global war or some other stupidity.

 

[Touring Mars]

It's alway been in our nature to protect ourselves as best we can, whether that's lighting a fire at the mouth of our cave to keep predators out, or develop medicines to fight killing and crippling diseases. That's where the debate came about in whether human evolution has stopped with our species, because nature doesn't get to select over us any more. It's a valid and correct point, and I enjoyed the debate, even though I knew I was pushing beyond the limits of credibility to make the arguments I made.

Would you say that evolution within our species has stopped because we are now able to circumvent and/or control natural selection? Isn't evolution still possible without natural selection via unnatural selection i.e. eugenics/genetic engineering (regardless of the moral implications)?

As for Mother Earth fighting back, I don't buy it. AIDS, for example, was originally a simian disease. Were they 'targeted' by nature for some reason, or just used as a laboratory to find a way to get at us?

I don't 'buy it' either - The Earth has and will continue to exist for many aeons with or without our meanderings. The forces of nature that brought us about will inevitably also bring about our demise, long before the Earth itself dies. It's a uniquely human conceit that we feel that we have some sort of special occupancy rights on this planet. We're tenants, not landlords, and when our contract is up, the landlord will simply replace us with new tenants. (and what's the betting they will be bloody students... )

 

[87chevy]

I don't 'buy it' either - The Earth has and will continue to exist for many aeons with or without our meanderings. The forces of nature that brought us about will inevitably also bring about our demise, long before the Earth itself dies. It's a uniquely human conceit that we feel that we have some sort of special occupancy rights on this planet. We're tenants, not landlords, and when our contract is up, the landlord will simply replace us with new tenants. (and what's the betting they will be bloody students... )

Yes the planet will exist for millenia to come. But Life on this planet has no garuntee. Let's face it, as a race we believe that we can do no wrong and that the earth will give us unlimited resources forever. But that's not the case. And as human population grows, more and more natural species will disapear.

I heard a prediction that in like 15yrs or so China will have as many automobiles as the rest of the world. And I doubt China will be so concerned with emissions. Imagine the pollution from that. twice as many fuel burning cars in the world. Our kids will be wearing gas masks.

 

[Famine]

Yes the planet will exist for millenia to come. But Life on this planet has no garuntee. Let's face it, as a race we believe that we can do no wrong and that the earth will give us unlimited resources forever.

The layperson maybe. But the layperson's belief and reality are rarely matched.

And as human population grows, more and more natural species will disapear.

And why should we care?

I heard a prediction that in like 15yrs or so China will have as many automobiles as the rest of the world. And I doubt China will be so concerned with emissions. Imagine the pollution from that. twice as many fuel burning cars in the world. Our kids will be wearing gas masks.

The sum total of the pollution emitted by cars into the atmosphere each year is equivalent to putting a single drop of food colouring into nearly 200 litres of water. Double it, treble it, increase it by a full order of magnitude - who'd notice?

 

[wfooshee]

Would you say that evolution within our species has stopped because we are now able to circumvent and/or control natural selection? Isn't evolution still possible without natural selection via unnatural selection i.e. eugenics/genetic engineering (regardless of the moral implications)?

Our earlier debate didn't address eugenics really. As for changing the genome I took the view that allowing a tolerance of less desirable traits over generations had to eventually produce a change in the genome. Danoff called that diversity, not evolution. Probably so. He followed a strict definition of evolution as an emergence of new heritable traits, along with the selection of offspring with those traits as more survivable than offspring without. In other words, Natural Selection would be THE ONLY method of evolution. I tried to define evolution as any change in the genome. Kind of a sci-fi definition, but Danoff wasn't having it.

 

[LeadSlead#2]

I'm not sure it makes sense to believe in "meaning of life" if you don't believe in a God.
Frankly, it sounds highly illogical to, as what purpose can you have, if you were created by chance, and due process?
At least, if you don't believe in a God, but somehow think there's a real "meaning" to your life, you MUST believe that even ants have this same "Meaning", no?

 

[niky]

You don't actually need a "God" to look for a "Meaning" to life. Or, at least, you don't actually need to believe in any of the current "Gods" accepted/created/worshipped or etcetera by people in this time and age.

Looking for a meaning to your life doesn't necessarily imply that there's an underlying purpose that's built into it already. It just means you're looking for something to put it all into perspective.

Maybe the "meaning" of life is to find out whether there is a God?

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

'

The Root Of All Evil Pt 1

The Root Of All Evil Pt 2

RD's very very watchable documentary.

 

[Touring Mars]

I watched this 2 part documentary when it aired on Channel 4 some months, and I have it on video too... It stirred up plenty of controversy at the time, and I remember reading somewhere that the title maybe should have been 'Religious fundamentalism: The root of all evil?'... Richard Dawkins certainly doesn't mince his words, or pull any punches in this devastating onslaught against 'the process of non-thinking that is faith'... Near the beginning of Part One, as Dawkins watches the Catholic congregation at Lourdes in France, he looks and sounds very like another famous science communicator, evolutionist and rationalist, Sir David Attenborough, describing in his typical matter-of-fact style that "This is a benign herd...".

Excellent and highly watchable, but a word of caution perhaps, as some people of a particularly religious persuasion may find it mildly offensive and/or difficult to stomach... however, from the outset, Dawkins makes his point that it is the very aspect that faith/religious belief has to be 'tip-toed around' by scientists, aethists or simply the 'non-religious' - and takes issue with the assumption that faith and religions are above question and therefore are not subject to the same level of scrutiny and/or criticism as everything else is.

As Dawkins quickly discovers, holding an alternate view point that challenges those held by people in positions of (religious) authority (and sometimes merely assumed 'moral' authority), is enough to get you chased off the premises in a less than dignified manner...

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

'

I share some of Dawkin's worry about the content of the Old Testament. How Christianity, Judaism & Islam have the same geographical root & the same endless thirst for mass slaughter. The same unquestioning acceptance of Male Authority. Such similarity seems to breed antipathy, which is mildly paradoxical & yet if one wanted to weaken a species, have it self-curtailing. A little geographical viral injection would work a treat.

Sorry if my views have too much shock potential but this issue continues to endanger our source & mother w/ astoundingly vicious inanities. Apologists for unreason are obscuring chances for freedom, even continuance in a tight temporal bottleneck.

 

[Small_Fryz]

What do you guys think of this? Famine?
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51448

 

[Famine]

That's a link to this thread...

 

[niky]

What goes around.... comes around.... I guess...

 

[Small_Fryz]

My bad....

http://www.doesgodexist.org/Phamplets/Mansproof.html

Try that one 👍

 

[Famine]

I got as far as:

If we do exist, there are only two possible explanations as to how our existence came to be. Either we had a beginning or we did not have a beginning ... The atheist has always maintained that there was no beginning. The idea is that matter has always existed in the form of either matter or energy; and all that has happened is that matter has been changed from form to form, but it has always been. The Humanist Manifesto says, "Matter is self-existing and not created," and that is a concise statement of the atheist's belief.

Before closing the page.

Misrepresenting your opponent's position as a basis of your argument is just flawed in so many ways. Not to mention referring to an "atheist's belief".

 

[Small_Fryz]

Yeah, i found many things that didnt make much sense.