Evolution

[heurisdick]

Originally Posted by zebrazebrazebraSHAFT

Its definitely good to be skeptical and to be open to new theories concerning evolution.

I'd actually argue that the theory of relativity and the theory of evolution are comparable. There are actually legitimate alternatives to the theory of relativity, but that's besides the point. You cannot see gravity, you can only see its effects. Similarly you can see the effects of evolution in the fossil record and in biology. Evolution is also testable, laboratory reproductions of mutations and natty selection support the theory.

I know I'm splitting hairs here a bit but I just wanted to mention that evolution is more than just an interpretation of left over evidence, it is observable and testable just like the theory of relativity.

I kept saying "Darwin's theory" instead of evolution because I agree evolution is testable. I meant specifically the theory of the origin of species. It's an interpretation, albeit it a pretty solid one.

Gravity is the word that describes the effects. That's not debatable, as you're not defining something that would be seen. The existence of gravity particles, or whatever the hell they're looking for, would be the debatable part.

[heurisdick]

... also splitting hairs

[Mr. Blonde]

BBC - Earth News - Frogs re-evolved lost lower teeth

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by heurisdick

I meant specifically the theory of the origin of species. It's an interpretation, albeit it a pretty solid one.

You mean the origin of life as a whole? It's generally accepted all life on Earth stemmed from a common ancestor, and many people believe that to be some sort of self replicating molecule. Are you more likely to lean towards divine intervention or panspermia? Remember, the latter still doesn't answer the question about the origin of life.

You are correct, of course, that these are (currently) merely modern scientific interpretations and hypotheses. We have a plethora of evidence for natural, sexual, competition, etc. -- all of which is generally associated with evolution as a whole. The only people who claim to know 100% where life came from are the religious. As I said before, it's currently a matter of likelihood:

1: A self replicating molecule developed from the building blocks of life and over the course of 4 billion years evolved into all the life we see on Earth today.

2: An omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent deity created the origins of life (very likely a similar being to the above self-replicating molecule) and used evolution over a 4 billion year period to create all the life we see on Earth today.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

LOL YOUR FAMILY DOESN'T LOVE YOU

[Mr. Blonde]

X-rays reveal hidden leg of an ancient snake

[Repugnant Abomination]

Can someone please put THE THEORY OF in this thread title?

Admins?!

[Mr. Blonde]

New evolutionary research disproves living missing link theories

[Mr. Blonde]

Clay-armored bubbles may have formed first protocells: Minerals could have played a key role in the origins of life

[Mr. Blonde]

Gonorrhea acquires a piece of human DNA

[Mr. Blonde]

I'm reading Origin of Species right now and it has just prompted me to address some of the things heuris mentioned before

Originally Posted by heurisdick

Gravity is a daily observable, testable phenomenon. Darwin's theory is an interpretation of left over evidences.

That last part has been likened to being a detective coming on the scene of a crime with a copious amount of evidence pointing to what actually happened. Regardless, you're kind of asking for an (almost) impossible test: To see evolution happening when it takes thousands or hundreds of thousands of generations to make any significant, observable changes. Humans have only really been closely observing/classifying plants and animals for a few hundred years. While your line of skeptical thought is definitely more cerebral, it's directly related to "why don't we see monkeys evolving into humans today?"

In any case, it is testable to some degree:

E. coli long-term evolution experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And Natural Selection, given enough time, makes perfect sense in light of our domestication of plants and animals:

Originally Posted by Charles Darwin

As man can produce a great result with his domestic animals and plants by adding up in any given direction individual differences, so could natural selection, but far more easily from having incomparably longer time for action.

...but if man can in a short time give beauty and an elegant carriage to his bantams, according to his standard of beauty, I can see no good reason to doubt that female birds, by selecting, during thousands of generations, the most melodious or beautiful males according to their standard of beauty, might produce a marked effect.

It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good, silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hadn of time has marked the lapse of the ages, and then so imperfect is our view into long-past geological ages, that we see only that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were.

Also it should be noted that Darwin writes the longest sentences i've ever read. Average 10-12 line paragraph, with enough commas, dashes, and semicolons, comes out to about two sentences.

I think the main things that will need to be addressed in the future are whether or not there are limits to what natural selection can produce. There's some question about information actually being added through mutation.

Natural selection doesn't "produce" anything -- copying errors in DNA structure produce the mutations. At the heart of it, that comes down to genetics, not evolutionary theory.

Originally Posted by Charles Darwin

Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life.

[heurisdick]

Originally Posted by heurisdick

I kept saying "Darwin's theory" instead of evolution because I agree evolution is testable. I meant specifically the theory of the origin of species. It's an interpretation, albeit it a pretty solid one.

I was mostly arguing against comparing it to gravity right there.

[Johnny Richter]

Saw this article online today. I thought it was pretty crazy.

Racist Monkeys

[Mr. Blonde]

YouTube - ‪Chapter 8: The Indelible Stamp of our Lowly Origin‬‏

YouTube - ‪Chapter 8: The Indelible Stamp of our Lowly Origin‬‏

[angry pancake]

I guess this is good a place as any to post this.

Newly Crowned Miss USA Was One Of Only Two Contestants Who Believe In Evolution | ThinkProgress

[vaga1220 *]

I was ready to be shocked that only 2 of the contestants believe in evolution, but frankly they're only women.

"Campanella affirmed that evolution should indeed be taught in schools because she believes in evolution of humans throughout time."

No, what you believe, as in what your personal opinion is, has nothing to do with whether or not we should teach something in schools. Evolution is taught, rightfully so, in school because of the mountains of evidence supporting it as scientific fact.

[Mr. Blonde]

For female actors, I was very impressed with this acting.

YouTube - ‪Miss USA 2011 ? Should Math Be Taught In Schools?‬‏

YouTube - ‪Miss USA 2011 ? Should Math Be Taught In Schools?‬‏

What they're parodying here:

YouTube - ‪Miss USA 2011 - 51 Delegates Interview (Q2 - Evolution taught in school)‬‏

YouTube - ‪Miss USA 2011 - 51 Delegates Interview (Q2 - Evolution taught in school)‬‏

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

The videos above posted by Blonde were worth the time I spent watching them.

Ms. Montana was hilarious.

[Ugly Bastard]

I watched like half of the first one in disbelief at how hideous some of the pageant contestants are before realizing it was actors in a spoof lol.

[Mr. Blonde]

Kanzi The Bonobo Chimp Lights Fire and Cooks Food (Video)

[Dent]

Who Knew? Orangutans Plan Trips | LiveScience
Do non-human animals always live in the here and now?

[Repugnant Abomination]

I watched the second video thinking it was the parody and only later realized the first video was the spoof.

Yeah.

[Dent]

Atmospheric Oxygen is pain?

1. When do you think suffering in the living world originated, and why do you think it originated? DP: When?
Shortly before the Cambrian explosion over half a billion years ago. The most rudimentary aversive experience may well be more ancient, maybe in the ancestors of choanoflagellates: free-living unicellular and colonial flagellate eukaryotes, which are the closest living relatives to animals. Choanoflagellates display key constituents of neurons, notably the same sodium channels. Nonsense mutations in our SCN9A gene, which encodes the Nav1.7 sodium ion channel, lead to congenital insensitivity to pain.
Clearly the exact date of the world’s first aversive experience, the first “micro-pinprick” so to speak, is a matter of conjecture. Yet dating the earliest forms of suffering is hard too. The experience of pain, I think, only amounts to full-blown suffering in multicellular creatures. Any distinction between mere pain and full-blown suffering is conventional; but it’s not arbitrary. Why don't vertebrates with central nervous systems - and likewise organisms in other phyla with complex cephalic ganglia - undergo not mere discrete neuronal “pinpricks”, but instead, on occasion, a unitary, ghastly experience of severe “physical” or emotional pain? Agony or despair can seem to consume one’s whole being, penetrating the very recesses of one’s soul. This is one aspect of the so-called “binding problem”, more commonly discussed in the context of the unity of perception.

Interview with David Pearce about the abolitionist project

[Dent]

1.5-2 million years ago untill 12-10,000 years ago the agricultural revolution

People started hunting large ungulates, or hoofed mammals. They were very dedicated to hunting, and it was an important part of their subsistence. You cannot have alpha males if you are going to have a hunting team that shares the meat fairly even-handedly, so that the entire team stays nourished. In order to get meat divided, you have to stomp on hierarchy and get it out of the way.

Selection pressure against alpha-males huge for 2 million years, then it flipped 10,000 years ago? Heard something about this on the (zomg socialist BBC) radio the other day but can't find what it was.

[Dent]

Originally Posted by Dent

1.5-2 million years ago untill 12-10,000 years ago the agricultural revolution

People started hunting large ungulates, or hoofed mammals. They were very dedicated to hunting, and it was an important part of their subsistence. You cannot have alpha males if you are going to have a hunting team that shares the meat fairly even-handedly, so that the entire team stays nourished. In order to get meat divided, you have to stomp on hierarchy and get it out of the way.

Selection pressure against alpha-males huge for 2 million years, then it flipped 10,000 years ago? Heard something about this on the radio the other day but can't find what it was.

8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man
An analysis of modern DNA uncovers a rough dating scene after the advent of agriculture.

http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-tech...uctive-success