posted 06-03-99 05:53 PM ET        

When some talk about evolution they start using creationist terms. Thus more evolved creatures are called more complex designs implying that they were created or that natural selection plans ahead of time witch mutations are better equipped to survive. Witch to me seems like a clandestine attempt at explaining a creator. When the very foundations of evolution is spontaneous generation and random materialization of new life forms.

posted 06-03-99 08:32 PM ET            

Actually, most people have found "hyper-evolved" roaches. Darwinian evolution does not select for the more complex, it selects for organisms which thrive in their environments. The fact that roaches have been around for so long is a testament to the fact that they have a fabulously good "design". The work well in their environment.

posted 06-03-99 09:37 PM ET            

1. if creature "a" dose not die and reproduces
it passes good and bad traits to its offspring. (what happens to the bad traits like sickle cell in humans)

2. generation after generation creature "a" will have mutated. If these mutation are useful they are passed down.(what happened to the unuseful mutations like tail feathers on peacocks on very functional)

3. after multiple mutations have snowballed creature "a" may evolved so far from is roots it can no longer interbreed with Creature "a" thus becoming Creature "B"(what if �B� is weaker than �a� and becomes extinct)

The flaw I see is more factors retard evolution while few promote it.
Think of human defects 6 fingered hands are a dominate yet rare trait yet most humans have 5. According to evolution principals most human should have 6 just because its dominant and nobody is unfit for having 6.

posted 06-03-99 10:07 PM ET            

One of your distant relatives, something akin to a frog or a fish perhaps, got tired of living in the water all the damn time so he gave land a try. Land was great but it would be even better if he had proper lungs and hands and feet and so forth. But he died before he could evolve further. But now his offspring, they we're hooked up. They stomped around on land and found wonderful plants and other small evolving animals to eat. Everyone evolved their own separate way so as to fit with their lifestyle. Some evolved into birds, some into reptiles, or fish, or mammals. Then one day this guy named Noah came by said he was building a boat. Noah explained what was going to happen with a bunch of rain and such. And oh how some of the animals laughed and carried on. But some believed him and got on the boat. The ones that didn't get on the boat all drowned when the rains came. And that's where we are today. Of course I left out the part about the large incestous orgies that took place that eventually produced you and I.

posted 06-03-99 10:35 PM ET         

1.Sicle cell anemia has no affect on a creature's reproductive ability, because the creature is able to reproduce before any major problems develop.

2.The peacock's feathers are used for attracting a mate. Female peacocks do not have those colorful feathers. Males use their feathers to attract a mate. The more colorful, the more likely they are to reproduce. VERY darwinian. However, 'features' that have no bearing upon a creature's ability to reproduce fertile offspring may come and go. In darwinian terms, it doesn't matter whether they 'stay' or 'go'.

3.Obviously, unless resources are unlimited, the less capable species becomes extinct. What is the problem here?

What factors are you talking about? The 'sixth finger' a. Has absolutely nothing to do with reproduction, so is unimportant, and b. Is so rare that it doesn't matter if it's dominant. Non '6-fingered' people will always have a higher growth rate than '6-fingered' people. And just because a trait is dominant doesn't mean it will express. It's just likely.

We will never live forever because we can only 'evolve' to deal with threats to successful REPRODUCTION. We will never evolve an immunity to cancer, for example, because people reproduce before they develop cancer.

posted 06-03-99 10:50 PM ET            

Within a population, there is natural variation. For example, some people are taller than others, some frogs can jump farther than others, some peacocks have bigger tails than others. Some of these variations can be "freak" mutations, some can just be normal, run-of-the-mill variation like being 0.01% taller, or something.

At least some of these traits are heritable, i.e. they can be passed on to offspring because they are genetically determined.

Some of these traits contribute to what we call fitness, i.e. how successful you are in your environment. What is fitness? Well, it's basically the ability to have your genese show up in the next generation. Anything that causes your genes to show up in the next generation in greater proportion than somebody elses contributes to your "fitness". That can be a bit confusing, so an example might help: Imagine two birds that are identical in every way, except one has a strong, short beak while the other one has a long, weak beak. If the birds live in an environment where the only food source is nuts which have to be cracked open, then the bird with the short, strong beak has higher "fitness" because he can more easily crack the nuts. If, on the other hand, the only food source is water bugs, the bird with the long beak probably has the advantage, because he can probably snap them up better. Since one bird will be well fed, and the other will go hungry, it is more likely that one bird will survive to mate and produce offspring, while the other is more likely to die and never produce offspring. This is what is meant by the popular term "survival of the fittest."

"So you are saying that fitness is the ability to get food?" you ask. Certainly not! Allow me to provide you with another example...

Peahens (i.e. the female version of a peacock) find males which have big tails to be more sexually attractive. When two males are courting a particular female, she is far more likely to pick the one with the bigger tail. The small-tailed peacock then has low "fitness" because he is far less likely to get any offspring with his genes into the next generation, because all of the peahens are spending quality time with his big-tailed competitors. In peacocks, big-tails are a high fitness trait, even though they may adversely affect personal survival (a big-tailed peacock is more weighed down, and therefore has a harder time evading predators). (There is a special term for this kind of Natural Selection because it is so interesting: Sexual Selection).

Okay, so we have some organisms withing the population which have traits that give them high fitness, and other organisms with traits that give them low fitness. In the next generation, there will be more offspring from "high-fitness" parents than from "low-fitness" parents (either because there are less "low-fitness" parents around, or they didn't have as many children, or any other scenario that can cause a difference in fitness). Since the traits in question are genetic, that means that, on average, the population now looks more like the "high-fitness" version of the organism than the "low-fitness" version.

If you repeat this many, many times, you can see that by taking many tiny steps, you can achieve a large overall change. If the changes are so dramatic that interbreeding is no longer possible, we say that speciation has occurred, i.e we have a new species. This usually results when a part of a population is isolated and faces different selection pressures than another part.

That, in a nutshell, is the basis for Darwinian Evolution.

posted 06-04-99 01:18 AM ET            

Some animals like certain lizards can lay unfertilised eggs that hatch into clones of the mother I think thats were they got the premise for the last Godzilla movie. So those lizards won't evolve as quickly correct.

Virus' they resimble the fist lifeforms evolutionist claim spontaniously occured. But they require cells to reproduce and they don't need to be fit in conventional terms. They mutate at alarming rates and they still have not evolved in a traditional sense.

posted 06-04-99 10:18 AM ET            

If you clone perfectly, right. If you have a 99.999% perfect clone, that 0.001% could allow for evolution.

"So those lizards won't evolve as quickly correct."

Correct. The major advantage of sexual reproduction is the increased rate at which evolution can occur. And you don't need weird examples like creatures which normally reproduce sexually doing funky things, there are plenty of examples of organisms that reproduce asexually, bacteria for example. Mutations are more important to these species for the purposes of evolution.

"Virus' they resimble the fist lifeforms evolutionist claim spontaniously occured."

I don't think so.

"They mutate at alarming rates and they still have not evolved in a traditional sense."

Sure viruses evolve. That's why people keep getting reinfected with the same old stuff. We develop an immunity to one strain, but the virus mutates into something we're not immune to, and that one spreads.

"By the way most know uv rays and lightning destroyse live tissue. How then is it supposed to create life."

posted 06-04-99 04:28 PM ET         

If I have my facts straight, Sickle Cell Anemia is not what evolution meant to create. It did mean to create an unlikeliness for malaria. If you have only one SC gene, you will get the extra tolerance for malaria & no disease. Those who have two genes get the tolerance and the disease.

Obviously most blacks only get one gene.

posted 06-04-99 08:52 PM ET            

Spoe your sorta explaining micro evolution istead or macro evolution.

Plus throw in mass extinction. Its probaly happend 12 times. were 99% of life died how come it took so long for life to evolve then in a few million years its back to normal with a whole new cast. Its like a season finaly on sweeeps month.

Oh and scientist have found fossilized bacteria that are nearly they same as the ones living on the rocks on the hot spring they wer dug up from. So dose that mean they did not evolve.

To reply to biogenesis. How come most evolutionist and creationist when their backs are to the wall they say

posted 06-05-99 05:53 AM ET            

Riddle me this what dose evolution offer? Besides someone�s opinion that life is random and uncertain.

Hello any body home creation happens every day. If Intel releases a new chip it has not evolved into a better design. It was created by a person or a team of designers that knew electronics, physics, computer engineering and countless other fields.

Imagine if you copied a empty document file billions of times on your PC and lets say some empty files corrupt.

What�s the chance they are readable by the hardware or software? If they are readable can they be read by the user? If the user can't read them will it delete them? What�s the chance of the file resembling an exact copy of the original screenplay for starwars episode IV.

Most likely they will be total unreadable and if they are they will garbled beyond recognition.

Most skeptics (not evolutionist persay) use someguys razor forgot his name. It states "what is most likely to happen usually dose happen".

How come evolution dose not pass this test as well most wish. if you randomly pick a strain of DNA and mutate it rarely dose a creature benefit. Most often there are little benefits if any or negative side effects.

Also genes repair themselves and some mutations are not passed down. Also some mutants are sterile.

posted 06-05-99 12:37 PM ET            

A coherent and believable and scientifically supported explanation for the current level of biodiversity on our planet. A way to understand why organisms have the traits that they do.

"Hello any body home creation happens every day."

Hello, anybody home, evolution happens everyday. Look at what Spoe wrote about bacteria.

"Most skeptics (not evolutionist persay) use someguys razor forgot his name."

Occam's razor (I've also seen it spelled Ockham's razor).

"How come evolution dose not pass this test as well most wish."

It passes Occam's razor much better than creationism.

Do not dwell on "big" mutations. Mutations are quite rare. Most evolution occurs because of normal genetic diversity and sexual reproduction.

"if you randomly pick a strain of DNA and mutate it rarely dose a creature benefit."

Right. Most of the time it has no effect at all.

posted 06-05-99 03:27 PM ET            

In sexual reproduction, the offspring has a combination of both parents' DNA, likely in a pattern never seen before in nature. This contributes to genetic variation. (The question of how the parents had different DNA is another question...)

posted 06-05-99 05:51 PM ET            

Some scientist think that Homo sapiens are about ten thousand years old. Most creationist believe its between 8 and 6. Most know Gods work days are not literal. Mans workdays can be 9am to 5pm, 5 days a week but mostly payroll measures time like that.
Everybody else uses 24 hours 7 days.

Number two every time evolutionist get trapped they say something like.

"This sort of thing is exceedingly rare, almost always maladaptive, and almost never required for tracing evolutionary patterns"

If their is a blue fish and due to mutation or variation its offspring has red coloring. It has not evolved in my mind. If later it no longer breed with blue fish it still has not evolved. If it loses its fins and becomes eel like it has not evolved. To me its just the same blue fish now red and deformed.

Take the popular 4+ legged frogs. hundreds of frogs are born with more than four legs if they were fish it may be a triumph for Darwin. Imagine fish still emerging from the seas after all these years. But they are frogs and most call them deformed amphibians. While these frogs have more legs than most of their contemporaries (a giant leap (no pun) in evolution) to most they are still after millions of years frogs.

If they cant reproduce with four legged frogs one day they will still be frogs to me even with six legs.

If you had a fast enough PC you could probably predict the genetic code of every possible DNA based life form. With that in mind evolution maybe the default setting of the universe. Maybe God created it as an autopilot when he gets board.

posted 06-05-99 10:36 PM ET            

I�m just trying to figure out how come evolution seems only to appeal to those that cant except someone may have all or most of the answers even if they will not.

Most Evolutionist believe in possible extra terrestrial life (so do creationist but that�s besides the point) yet they assume out of all known life humans are the most evolved A.I.

When they don't know.

Most people can't trace their family tree over a thousand years. How do they think they can trace billions of years of evolution?

You all are intelligent persons answer that question. How do they think they can trace billions of years of evolution?

The great thing about creation in real life is for every bone form a skeleton taken from a fossilized fish with legs you present as proof for evolution, I can show you any thing from a paper clip to a 69 ford mustang for proof of creation.

Given the unlikely odds for both if scientist where computers they would say something like "inconclusive data for an adequate response". But no they just rant to creationist like the creationist are idiots and rub each others ego and if they ever get trapped they stick out their proverbial tongues and say things like.

posted 06-05-99 10:58 PM ET            

What is so unreasonable about this assumption, COPY_CAT? Please, offer us some candidates of known species which might be more intelligent than humans.

Once again, I fail to comprehend your post. I am continually bewildered by what you say. I have no idea what you are even getting at.

"if they ever get trapped they stick out their proverbial tongues and say things like. "However, since we can't go back in time to actually find out, we will never know for sure what actually happened. We can only get some educated guesses.""

posted 06-06-99 12:03 AM ET            

Tracing family trees? Well, most people don't go to the effort of digging up as many bones and analysing DNA etc. etc. when trying to trace their family. Then you have to consider that evolution is NOT trying to trace the direct lineage of every living being, it is tracing the lineage of species, not individuals. You can't really tell if a person is related to another by comparing bone structures (not that I know of anyway) but you can make a reasonable assumption that if two species have similar bone structure, they might both have a common ancestor. Of course, you can't just look at bone structure and say that, you have to look at a whole lot of other things.
Also, evolution does have many gaps, evolutionists admit it, why do you think it is still only a THEORY of evolution, but just because it has gaps does not invalidate it.

Your point about the arrogance of scientists can also be applied to some religous people, I hear people ranting about how evolution is rubbish, and how scientists are idiots, and how they KNOW that creation is what really happened.

When they don't.

And now you are stereotyping all evolutionists as arrogant people who can't accept their own limitations, and then you say that because they can't accept their own limitations, they're evolutionists... that's called a circular argument and doesn't mean a thing.

Evolution appeals to me, it's fairly logical, and works within the framework of what I know and see around me. God's existance or lack of cannot be proven either way, so god does not get taken into account when I consider if evolution is a better explanation or not. For whether he exists or not, it does not matter. Evolution can occur with or without god. It can occur with or without creation too, so whether creation is true or not doesn't really matter either.

Scientific knowledge is constantly shifting and changing to fit the current understanding of the universe, they are NOT absolute underlying things about they universe, they are MODELS which are derived from our observations, and which are useful in predicting and comparing things about the universe. If the models don't fit reasonably well, then they get chucked out, or revised.

Creation is less appealing because it's explanation for why we are what we are is "we were created that way".

posted 06-06-99 12:27 AM ET            

If their is a blue fish and due to mutation or variation its offspring has red coloring. It has not evolved in my mind. If later it no longer breed with blue fish it still has not evolved. If it loses its fins and becomes eel like it has not evolved. To me its just the same blue fish now red and deformed.

Then I suppose the blue fish itself is nothing more then a prokaryote with fins and eyes and stuff?

if there is or ever was a God he knew what he was doing

Really? From all the failed prototypes and now extinct species, I would think he was had done all his creation and evolution through trial and error. For every species as successful as the rat there are dozens who went the way of the dodo.

The great thing about creation in real life is for every bone form a skeleton taken from a fossilized fish with legs you present as proof for evolution, I can show you any thing from a paper clip to a 69 ford mustang for proof of creation.

These are things sentient beings make. Sentient beings can be produced through evolution. That means that evolution can explain the existence cars and office supplies just as well as creation can.

Number two every time evolutionist get trapped they say something like "This sort of thing is exceedingly rare, almost always maladaptive, and almost never required for tracing evolutionary patterns".

I'm an evolutionist, and I've certainly never said this when "trapped" by a creationist. Try not to make broad generalizations about groups of people. Doing so can discredit your argument in the eyes of others.

Most people can't trace their family tree over a thousand years. How do they think they can trace billions of years of evolution?

posted 06-06-99 01:46 AM ET            

The reason octopus dose not get my argument was I did not have one. I just wanted someone like zekkei to get pasts facts or lack there of and speak their mind.

Just come out and say I take this side because it appeals to me. Then state why it appeals.

If I started the post out like this at the begining most likely it would have been ignored it. So I just started to try to inflame general interest.

How do evolutionist view the world?

Since I like to design things I would become very depressed if I succeeded in creating arguably intelligent life and it disowned me when I took away the proverbial car keys.

I sorry if I over generalized I was just being sarcastic.

Can you evolutionist explain how you view the world?

posted 06-06-99 07:27 PM ET         

Um, this seems to have nothing to do with the rest of your post...?

"Just come out and say I take this side because it appeals to me. Then state why it appeals."

Evolution appeals to evolutionists because it makes sense and helps explain the world around us according to rules we can understand.

"Can you evolutionist explain how you view the world?"

Because we are different people, we will have very different world views. I am an athiest, I believe we don't have true free will, I think that there was no 'beginning' to the universe because time is not linear (provable, btw), people invented the idea of gods because they are basically insecure and needed explanations, and I like seafood.

posted 06-07-99 02:20 PM ET            

The Ockham's Razor argument boils down to which is simpler:
A conscious entity that has to individually create each species.

or

A process with one guiding principle that allows for all known species to come into being.

posted 06-07-99 03:31 PM ET            

Like a few other posters, I'm a bit confused about what your question actually is. If you are looking for a once and for all explanation of evolution, then you are out of luck, because the THEORY (as has been stressed before) is constantly undergoing modification. This modification is happening on many fronts, and many reasonable scientists accept that the advances in understanding that they propose are potentially short-lived, or only half way to a "solution".

Each person's belief - or otherwise - in evolution is conditioned by what people have told him; what he has seen on television; and what he has read. Of these, the most important resource has to be written text. I note from your first post that you have done some reading about the subject. What have you read? In the last couple of years I have started reading some of the more accessible books on science that are becoming more common. My recommendation is that you read 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins. Any and all of his other books are also worth looking at. Another very popular author is Stephen J. Gould, but I find his style very hard to take - too American for me. Both of these authors have their bad sides, such as mouthing off at Creationists, but in general they are easy for the layman to read.

If what you are asking for is a personal view, and how you arrived at it, well this is my story. I went to Church (Methodist) and Sunday School as a child, and was told all the bible stories ... and that's all they seemed: stories! I wanted proof, and that was not forthcoming. The only way to believe these stories was to have 'faith'. Sorry, not good enough. Now evolution was explained to me at some stage, and those that taught me must have backed it up by saying "There is scientific proof for this". At that stage, and it that environment, the claim that my teachers made was backed up by the authority of the school, and thus the national educational environment. All the information that I received after that - through books, television, newspapers and journals (like New Scientist and Scientific American) - provided reinforcement to the evolutionist viewpoint. I say ALL the information, because anything that tried to put counter-arguments always left a gaping hole that required the word "faith".

I now realise that I never seriously questioned the "scientific proof" too closely, and that is what I am trying to remedy now. The ideas that Dawkins, Gould et al summarize stand up to my questioning, and stimulate me to think further ... and that is how I arrived at my standpoint as a dyed(died?)-in-the-wool evolutionist.

Remember that what I mean by evolutionist isn't what *anyone* else means by evolutionist, because everyone is conditioned by different influences, so your general attacks on evolutionists are a bit hard to take. My major influences lead me to think that a lot of what has been put forward as "evolution" in posts above (with exceptions - of course) is pretty unsophisticated: the driving force behind evolution isn't the organism and the environment, but the "mindless" gene itself, which wants to rule the world! OK, you've got me - I'm a great fan of Richard Dawkins!

Another of the proposals that Dawkins writes about is the meme. (I don't know if it is actually his idea.) Trappist's post exemplifies this: the idea as a gene!

Anyway, enough rambling. C_C - go and do a bit more reading ... ask some "simpler" questions (i.e. ones that can help you make a judgement, rather that just leading to rambling diatribes) ... put forward your own view, and how it was formed (what schooling did you have? Were you brought up in a religeous environment?).

I love the thread. Well done.

posted 06-07-99 06:45 PM ET            

I live in a town recently renamed Rancho Dominguez in Los angles California USA.

It rest between the high school educated and the college educated.

My parents are very educationally minded and have attended college irregularly, my father will soon have an AA. They both enjoy bible research. My father has a large collection of bibles he reads regularly along with other publications.

My family is very artistic. When I was little I would build all kinds of odd things at my grandparents house.

I was introduced to evolution early through magazines such as national geographic and TV documentaries. Then by biology text books.

My parents never seemed to engage my beliefs till I was about 13. They just studied the bible and bought me lots of science books.

Like most young boys I liked dinosaurs since I don�t now of any creationist books that deal with prehistory excluding the bible I was constantly exposed to evolution. After years of reading about it I decided to research it.

Once I had got my fill of researching Darwinian evolution. I just gave up trying to understand it. I'm 18 and after 12 years of evolution maybe I�m dumb but I still don�t get the principals that states "This is the reason things evolve."

Most sources just state "things evolve", "there is no reason", or "the reason has something to do with sustaining life". I�m not one of those that need a reason just because. I don�t need a reason if I get the point Like � Don�t murder�. If I miss the point Like �Evolution� I�ll hunt it down for years till I ether disregard it or find it. I�ve decided in my mind evlution is like a oven cooked fishstick thats still froozen in the middle. Its golden brown on the outside but cold and hard inside. It I was starving Id galdly eat it but since I�m not Ill wait for desert even if I can only assume it is on the menu.

Most evolutionist "not trying to generalize just stereotype" Don't try to make a creation model of how life was created. If they do it is usually sarcastic.

"Can evolutionist make a convincing creation model?"

"Do they try?"

posted 06-08-99 02:06 PM ET            

http://www.spacelab.net/~catalj/

I've only just found the site, so I can't give any recommendations, but I'm going to start with "The G Files".

posted 06-09-99 03:30 PM ET            

I had a browse on the web site I found, and I couldn't believe the arguments and name-calling between supposedly serious scientists. If you are finding such contradictory views in your research, then no wonder you are having difficulty making a judgement on what to accept as the "truth" about evolution. As I said before, you're going to have to make your own mind up over a period of time (which will probably be years).

From what I've seen, there are three levels to this evolution thing:

1) creation
2) micro-evolution
3) macro-evolution.

1) Creation. How did life start? "Scientific" research into this has been going on for the greatest length of time - if you count alchemy - but has progressed the least. An earlier post referred to one experiment that had produced some basic building blocks, but I can't see anything being proved in the near future: the nearest you are going to get is a theory. There are probably quite a few theories out there, and you are going to have to decide if you *trust* one or more of these theories. OK, this does mean that you're going to need "faith" (which is near enough to trust), which I condemned in my earlier post, but at least any decent theory worth its salt will have people out there trying to prove/disprove/refine the theory, rather that just saying "have faith".

2) Micro-evolution (My own term.) By this I mean evolution at the chemical/biological/gene level. This is probably the newest field of study (say, the last half-century, if you count the proving of the double-helix nature of DNA as the major boost to research), but to my mind the one with the most rigorous case to support the theories. Again, I worship at the feet of Richard Dawkins, and his theory of 'The Selfish Gene' as being the major driving force behind evolution. It is at this level that I see the operation of a) mutation and b) re-combination of the gene pool working, in order to provide the variety with which natural selection juggles in order for species to evolve. Proponents of the theories that address evolution with this as the underlying basis seem to be classified as neo-Darwinists.

3) Macro-evolution (Once again - my own term.) In this camp I place those theories that address natural selection working at the organism or species level, for which the natural starting point is Darwin's 'Origin of Species': so about one and a half centuries worth of research is out there. At this level I categorize the theories about speciation, and the grosser mutations that can actually be seen (e.g. your frogs) as candidates for natural selection. i.e. research can be carried out by observation and study of the fossil record. Stephen Jay Gould is the advocate of selection at this level being the driving force behind evolution, with a number of theories to his name that propose explanations for the array of adaptations and species that exist now. At this macro level, there seem to be two classes in the set of theories: a) classical Darwinism (natural selection or 'adaptation': the peacock's tail and development of the eye) and b) a number of theories such as punctuated equilibrium which modify the influence of natural selection. This field is so rich in terms of subject matter, that the mass of source material that there is will only scratch at the surface.

So where do you go from here? Start with micro-evolution, because it's really quite a simple theory. If that convinces you then you can start dabbling in macro-evolution (a) theories, where you should be looking at the overall weight of evidence, and which should be more convincing given that some of the examples used come from the world around you, where you can actually see the results with your own eyes. Macro-evolution (b) theories are harder to put credence in, because there will be a lot of reliance on the fossil record, which opens up the whole new fields of geology and palaeontology. If you get past these stages then you can procede to study theories of creation, but don't be looking for any easy answers here! In fact, if you will only accept evolution if it is a coherent set of theories that encompasses creation, then give up now, or be prepared to spend the rest of your life in the search - but I urge you not to take this short-sighted view. If you put enough trust (there's that word again) in those scientists whose theories you can support, and if they believe in some form of scientific creation (even though unproven), then I hope that you can find it in you to accept evolution as a valid premise.

A few points:
1) evolution does not equal progress
2) evolution is not measured by complexity (witness earlier post mentioning lobsters)
3) humans aren't the pinnacle of evolution. If there was such a concept, then better candidates would be roaches, woodlice, horseshoe crabs or the coeleocanth (sp?), because these species seem to have reached a level of adaptation that sustains their existence without the need for further evolution.
4) evolution does not design. If you see someone mention the word design with respect to evolution, then they are a) misguided, b) poor teachers or c) using the word as a noun, not a verb, and should have picked a less confusing word!

I'm exhausted. Enjoy your research! Let us all know if you get anywhere in your quest.

posted 06-12-99 04:25 AM ET            

My personal view is we can't be sure of how the mechanism of the universe fuctions at the atomic and sub-atomic levels. Scientist have created matter from photons and some speculate photons can conciously alter their paths.

Most know molecular bonds are caused by energy exchanges between atoms. Since photons are high energy packets that can transfer energy into matter.

The world as we know it may have been formed by some intergalactic photonic logic gate.

Since we only see the end result we can't prove or disprove it.

posted 06-13-99 12:34 AM ET            

Hears is a new question how do evultionist veiw God?

The felling i get is they think of him as some hippy bearded guy that wears sandals and lounges on a cloud in a bath robe all day.

posted 06-16-99 08:26 PM ET         

Um, WHAT? Photons, being energy could concievably be used to create matter (matter is energy). But how the hell could they be considered intelligent? You lost me.

The world as we know it may have been formed by some intergalactic photonic logic gate.

Again. WHAT? You're saying that we've formed from a titanic bunch of photons that appeared out of some kind of portal? Um, no. The matter in the universe is accelerating away from a single point at an increasing speed. For what you're saying to have happened, the photons would somehow have been reflected back on to each other and then the little subatomic bits that formed would have had to combine into matter that started acceleratinc away from a center point for no reason.

The felling i get is they think of him as some hippy bearded guy that wears sandals and lounges on a cloud in a bath robe all day.

posted 06-18-99 03:51 AM ET            

The theory works as a "no brainier old stand by" reason for me. Most assume it was caused by a large super dense ball of some type of matter that exploded. But that means something had to be there. That's to unimaginative for the way I see the world.

Then I read this

-----------------------------
Physicists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California have succeeded in producing particles of matter from very energetic collisions of light. The team, which included researchers from Stanford University, the University of Rochester in New York, the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and Princeton University in New Jersey, published an account of their work in the September 1, 1997, issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Scientists have long known that matter can be converted to energy and, conversely, energy can be converted to matter. In 1905 physicist Albert Einstein quantified the relationship between matter and energy in his famous equation E=mc2, in which E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light (300,000 km/sec [186,000 mi/sec]). In an atomic bomb blast, a very small amount of matter is converted to its equivalent in energy, creating an immense explosion.

Scientists have also created matter from energy by bombarding heavy atoms (atoms made up of many protons and neutrons) with high-energy radiation in the form of X rays. Collisions between the X-ray beam and the atoms created matter in the form of sets of electron and positron particles, a phenomenon known as pair production. Positrons are particles that have the same weight and amount of charge as electrons, but positrons are positively charged, while electrons are negatively charged.

In the recent experiments at SLAC, physicists accelerated a beam of electrons to nearly the speed of light. They then aimed a split-second pulse of high-energy laser light directly at the electron beam. Occasionally a photon (a tiny, discrete unit of light energy) collided with an electron. The photon then recoiled from the collision and rebounded into oncoming photons from the laser beam with such violence that the resulting energy was converted into an electron-positron pair. Over several months of such experiments, the physicists were able to produce more than 100 electron-positron pairs.

---------------------------
The photons were always moving away from their point of origin.

Due to the Doppler effect, the law of conservation of energy, the first law of thermodynamics, the snowball effect, the domino effect and a tiny bit of chaos theory. This is my model

The as the photons traveled for days they began to run out of energy to accelerate forward. But the energy can't be lost so it just gets transferred to the photons around them causing the surrounding photons to accelerate. As some photons gain higher velocity They hit lower velocity photons causing some to retrograde fiercely. As more and more particles start to ram in to each other the resulting energy was converted into an electron-positron pair that was bombarded by more oncoming photons. The end result was a ring of loosely scatter mater still being effected by the inertia from ancient photons. Thus moving away from the photons point of origin or so called center of the universe.

posted 06-18-99 12:42 PM ET            

"...but as light spreads out, the intesity does dim (i.e., the density of photons)."
By an inverse square law, due to the equation for the surface area of a sphere.

COPY_CAT:
"Most assume it was caused by a large super dense ball of some type of matter that exploded. But that means something had to be there."

posted 06-18-99 05:25 PM ET            

I = ((e * m) / (e₀ * m₀))^0.5

c = (e₀ * m₀)^-0.5

c_{some material} = c/I = (e * m)^-0.5

posted 06-18-99 06:25 PM ET            

Gravity can bend the direction a photon travels(but not direction) and change its energy(i.e. frequency). This has been experimentally confirmed. From E=m*c²(actually rearranged as m=E/c²) photons have mass from the energy they carry, they just don't have rest mass. There is a difference. An electron has rest mass, which means that there is still some mass there even if it is not moving. A photon does not. This is experimentally testable. If the photon does have a rest mass electromagnetism would not follow an inverse square law. Magnetic fields would drop off faster than they do. The speed of light would vary with frequency. Current experimental data place an upper bound on photon rest mass of 10^-44g based on analysis of frequncy dependency(for reference, the rest mass of an electron is approximately 10^-27g or 10¹⁷(100 quadrillion) times larger). Upper bounds based on observations of the Earth's magnetic field are even smaller.

posted 06-18-99 07:04 PM ET            

Objects cant just loose mass infinitely. Since mass cant be destroyed it has to be transferred into another object. Things propel themselves by loosing mass. I assume photons would also follow the trend.

By the way you cant measure the speed of light accurately anyway. Eve most advanced sensors can't measure every photon or wavelengths at one give instance.

posted 06-18-99 08:07 PM ET            

You need to join the 17th century and leave Aristotlean physics behind. Once an object is in motion it keeps moving without losing mass.

Then you need to join the 19th century and read up on Maxwell. The speed of light in a vacuum is easily derived from his laws of electromagnetism and the constants involved are readily measured.

Then you need to catch up with the rest up us on the verge of the 21st and learn some relativity. Just because we can't observe a photon at rest does not mean the a photon's rest mass does not have consequences that we _can_ observe, such as those I outlined above. Because a photon has no rest mass it can only move at the speed of light, never anything else, so it comes into being at the speed of light, experiencing no acceleration.

Your comments about there being no real vacuum are technically correct, but that does not destroy the usefulness of the vacuum as concept. It is the ideal that is never quite reached.

"I never stated that the photon changed speed anyway."

What about when you said, "As some photons gain higher velocity They hit lower velocity photons causing some to retrograde fiercely."?

posted 06-18-99 09:01 PM ET            

You assume photons dont collide and their mass never effects each other. I assume it dose. Ive never read if photons hit head on they will pass through each other. Have you? I wonder if they are equal will they push on each other indefintely or fuse into a particle with heavier mass.

posted 06-19-99 07:20 AM ET            

Also, no object slows down once kinetic energy is transferred to it. It is collision with other objects absorbing this kinetic energy (eg, atoms in air, as in air resistance). That causes something to slow down when acceleration is withdrawn. In theory, in a perfect vacuum, if you threw something, it would never EVER stop. Do not get confused with the phenomenon of resistance which is caused by collisions with other particles. And this thing about the light slowing down to however many metres per second it was. The photon is NOT slowing down. The period between absorption and re-emission of the photon is becoming longer, probably a phenomenon of supercooling. But the photons will still travel between individual atoms at the same speed. It is why you get a refractive index. It is not photons slowing down. It is their absorption and re-emission that gives the impression that they are slowing down.

posted 06-19-99 05:04 PM ET            

This is more than someguys theory it actualy happend hundereds of times. Repeatablely so this seems to prove light slows down a dose hit things.

Oh Id consider belife in evolution if (ill use the theist version or what ive heard illogical atheist say) a fish crawled out of the sea layed eggs and baby turtles hactched.

Any way with a theoreticle pc you could probaly perdict evry T C G A combo of dna that may yeild life. So evolution only works if you set finite limits on life. If some animal had tcga and "x" amino acid mabe that may prove evolution. Then agian If you take every molecular combo you could get amino acid "X". So why bother stating evolution is the only logical way to veiw the world or at least the most logical.

I fear diehard theist and atheist will start a holy war in the future. Why dont they both adimit they both have faith just in different things.

I think in the future people may become more new age/ cult/ church/ science/ state. Everybody will have their own gods and do silly things like sacrific children to the god of gravity and say enstien was the second coming of christ.

posted 06-19-99 09:00 PM ET         

'Oh Id consider belife in evolution if (ill use the theist version or what ive heard illogical atheist say) a fish crawled out of the sea layed eggs and baby turtles hactched.'

WHAT? That is exactly what evolution is NOT. Evolution is very gradual changes from small mutations over a long period of time.

Any way with a theoreticle pc you could probaly perdict evry T C G A combo of dna that may yeild life. So evolution only works if you set finite limits on life. If someanimal had tcga and "x" amino acid mabe that may prove evolution. Then agian If youtake every molecular combo you could get amino acid "X". So why bother stating evolution is the only logical way to veiw the world or at least the most logical.

I'm sorry, but you lost me. What is wrong with putting a finite limit upon the incomprehensibly large number of possible combinations? And how does this disprove evolution?

I fear diehard theist and atheist will start a holy war in the future.

What the hell gives you this idea? Athiests (die hard athiests? Never met one.) number a whole lot less than the various fanatics from just the monotheistic religions. More likely the theists will start a holy war to persecute the drastically smaller number of athiests.

Why dont they both adimit they both have faith just in different things.

I have never said that I do not have faith in logic and reason. Neither has any other athiest I know. However, if you're talking about some kind of 'religious' faith, then it's because you can't have faith in an area where you lack any beliefs.

I think in the future people may become more new age/ cult/ church/ science/ state. Everybody will have their own gods and do silly things like sacrific children to the god of gravity and say enstien was the second coming of christ.

posted 06-20-99 02:17 PM ET         

No, I think you are making broad generalizations about athiests that have nothing to do with reality.

"and my prediction takes place between 3010 and 4060"

posted 06-20-99 03:21 PM ET            

Photons, in general, do not collide. The SLAC experiments are a special case, as outlined here:
"REAL PHOTONS CREATE MATTER. Einstein's equation E=mc2 formulates the idea that matter can be converted into light and vice versa. The vice-versa part, though, hasn't been so easy to bring about in the lab. But now physicists at SLAC have produced electron-positron pairs from the scattering of two 'real' photons (as opposed to the 'virtual' photons that mediate the electromagnetic scattering of charged particles). To begin, light from a terawatt laser is sent into SLAC's highly focused beam of 47-GeV electrons. Some of the laser photons are scattered backwards, and in so doing convert into high-energy gamma ray photons. Some of these, in turn, scatter from other laser photons, affording the first ever creation of matter from light-on-light scattering of real photons in a lab." again from Physics News Update from the American Institute of Physics. Also of interest might be abstract from Physical Review Letters vol 79 issue 9:
"A signal of 106 � 14 positrons above background has been observed in collisions of a low-emittance 46.6 GeV electron beam with terawatt pulses from a Nd:glass laser at 527 nm wavelength in an experiment at the Final Focus Test Beam at SLAC. The positrons are interpreted as arising from a two-step process in which laser photons are backscattered to GeV energies by the electron beam followed by a collision between the high-energy photon and several laser photons to produce an electron-positron pair. These results are the first laboratory evidence for inelastic light-by-light scattering involving only real photons. � 1997 The American Physical Society"

This is under very special circumstances. It's not often you find a beam of 47-GeV electrons, you know. Light slows in refrective media, but always at a fixed speed particular to each medium.

posted 06-21-99 12:05 AM ET            

According to your logic blackholes don't exist (because you can't make one in a lab) and antimatter can only be found for (ns) in laboratories. How do you know how rare something is? What do you consider rare? How do you quantify it?

The universe is so large a french poodle could spontaniously matterialize every day for a billion years at a random location and if 100 people say "We saw it happen and have a copy of it on tape" People with your logic would assume the tape is a fake and 100 people are all lying.

Comepared to hydrogen carbon is rare.

So you argument is invaid due to the fact it only works in finite circumstances.

My view is evlution psoible yes (due to the fact I have no clue how life came to be). Is there enough evidence to support it yes (due to the fact people belive in it). Dose evolution appeal to me No (Its cheap and not Quick enough).

My view is Creation psoible yes (due to the fact I have no clue how life came to be). Is there enough evidence to support it yes (due to the fact people belive in it). Dose Creation appeal to me yes (Its cheap and Quick enough).

C0PY_CAT's Razor: the faster and cheaper
an efficent design is the more like likely it will be used.

posted 06-21-99 02:03 PM ET            

"Is there enough evidence to support it yes (due to the fact people belive in it)."
"Is there enough evidence to support it yes (due to the fact people belive in it)."
In both cases(indeed in all cases), other's beliefs are not evidence for the validity of their beliefs. Consider the following statement of belief: "I believe that you have blue hair and red eyes." Is this evidence that you actually do have blue hair and red eyes? Of course not. So how does it follow that because a bunch of people believe in evolution and a bunch of other people believe in creation that there is evidence that either is correct? It doesn't.

posted 06-22-99 07:05 AM ET            

I don't want to sound patronising here but I might so I'll start with what my background is. I have a degree in Physics with Astrophysics which I got despite a heroic lack of effort on my part, I still find these concepts difficult to understand. I think one of the problems here is that physics is a linear subject, you have to understand the basics before you can understand this heavy particle physics. If you don't understand Newtonian relativity and prove to yourself that it makes sense it is extremely hard to accept the more complex arguments like Special and General relativity which you are discussing in these posts about photons. That's before you even touch on Quantum Physics which is so counter-intuitive that I think it takes a time just to believe the basic ideas CAN be true. The problem is that in these posts we are asking COPY_CAT to accept our arguments without him being able to read and experiment on his own and without the benefit of the physics experiments and papers we have read and done.

To get back to the topic. My view as an evolutionist is much the same as other posters here but here is a question I would like to ask a creationist.

Would it be possible for you to accept a theory which suggested that the 6 day creation was not really based on 6 days but the lifetime of the universe. Statements like 'let there be light' would refer to star and galaxy formation. The creation of animals represents the slow evolution of chemicals into biological compounds and then into simple creatures. Then eventually humans appear. In that case 'God' would be whatever there was before the big bang or even the thing which went bang. We don't know and can't prove what that was at the moment. So God didn't create everything he created the fundamental laws of physics which govern the creation.

posted 06-25-99 09:20 AM ET            

Evolution is VERY subtle. if you understand the principles of genetics, you will understand that it makes perfect sense. there is more evidence for evolution than most people comprehend. The arguments against evolution are usually quite invalid. they tend to be merely holes in our knowledge.

Copycat, creation may be very 'easy' to believe in, but could you life 'easy' being fobbed off with such utter nonsense. I, for a fact, could not.

Before you can understand evolution, it really does help to understand elementary genetics (after a 4 year degree in Biochemistry, my knowledge is quite concrete). Evolution DOES make sense. Creation DOES not.

Things in evolution do not merely 'fall together' to form a french poodle as you so say. it is a self-perpetuating process. Once the basic interaction of DNA-protein came about which allowed transcription of DNA to protein, there was an explosion of life VERY rapidly. This interaction, in my opinion, would take time, and is probably the major bottleneck in evolution. The rest is merely mutation and selection. Slow, granted, but compared to the initial building steps, not that slow.

Please, see beyond the thin veil of theism. I am an atheist. It does not, however, mean that i would fight to the death for them, I believe that with proper education in society, people will eventually see sense. it is the unforgiving nature of society that drives people towards religion as shelter. Creation is just part-and-parcel of this, and really, I have not seen ONE convincing piece of evidence for it. It's evidence is so ambiguous, it is immediately discardable.

The gift of life is a marvellous one, and it's unravelling of it's mechanisms just puts me more in awe of it, and it's inherent beauty. And I believe it has a lot more beauty than religion.

posted 06-25-99 10:16 AM ET            

Have you ever heard of Behe's "Darwins Black Box"? It's not worth buying, but it is worth finding out about...he's a biochemist arguing for Intelligent Design (ie creation) saying that certain things (like eyes, flagella, blood clotting) have so many parts that are dependent on each other that they are irreducibly complex. In other words, without all the bits evolving at the same time they wouldn't work. It was a favourite of creationists last year. It has also been thoroughly debunked...in fact I have a web page here on it...read it and weep...

posted 06-25-99 05:05 PM ET            

To revisit the train that's still on the tracks, this is my postage stamp summary of evolution.

There are three things:

(1) Genetics.
(2) Selection.
(3) Mutation.

Genetics means that you were born.

Selection means that you will die.

Mutation means that maybe you'll surprise the geneticists by developing cancer, or a sixth toe, or, if you're really lucky, Uncle Martin's antennae.

Mutation happens because, well, biologists aren't entirely sure how it happens.

My theory which is mine, is that viruses never evolved as independent lifeforms. Instead, they are one species' way of surreptitiously having sex with another species. This is how new species form - by cross-fertilising what shouldn't be cross-fertilised (yuck, yuck, yuck!) : you know, like Jennifer Lopez having a human _and_ a Klingon parent.

OTOH, she's not so yuck at all, so sometimes the offspring are viable, and even look better with the makeup on, so it stays on, and we get a new species of cast member on the good ship Enterprise.

posted 06-25-99 05:48 PM ET            

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are four things:

1) CREATION
2) Genetics
3) Selection
4) Mutation
5) PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM

(Damn, that's Five!)

Genetics isn't just getting born, it's when (if you're a sexual animal) the Mummy gene and the Daddy gene put all their clothes in a pile and (with the light off) pick one item off the footwear pile, one off the underwear pile, etc., etc., until they've got a full set of kit, and that's what you have to wear for the rest of your life. (I've always wondered why slingbacks felt so comfortable .)

Selection isn't just dying, it's WHEN you die! If you die before you can pass your jeans (ripped at the knees, of course) along to the next generation because a) you didn't get old enough to procreate or b) nobody loves you, then you naturally don't get selected!

Mutation isn't just growing a sixth toe, it's growing a sixth toe and finding out that foot fetishists stand less chance of dying a horrible death from Athlete's Foot, and are willing to share their genes with you, so your kids get the best of both worlds. (Of course, you only have a one in a billion, billion chance that the sixth toe is actually on your foot!)

I hope that makes things clearer.

posted 06-26-99 03:31 AM ET            

That logic is equal to if the world had a 100% literacy rate we would have all read the bible because it is a good read.

By the way ever heard of the Cambrian explosion. It dose not fit well with evolution in my book. I'm of the personal belief the universe should still be void but its not. One atheist on a thread stated some thing to this effect.

If there is and all powerful God that judges all, predestines all, sees all, and knows all, and it is responsible for life as we know it. It maybe be gravity. But that dose not make me want to bow down and worship it nor dose it deserve my worship.

If science proves some force as plane as gravity created life as we know it atheist would still be atheist evolutionist would still be evolutionist.

So why say things like "I shall go and visit the theological twit, thank you very much!"

You have a low opinion of people in you field that disagree with you. Were is the science in that. You criticize religion for being divided but when science is divided you say science is about testing all theories and models.

The only reason evolution science dose not like the God concept is their is no magical a=b+c formula the world is more like?=?+?
(I know abc and ??? are both variables but I think you get the point)

posted 06-26-99 05:20 AM ET            

Each answer we provide has had a probability of being correct, I just consider religious answers to have an extremely 'low' probability. Just because lots of people believe in it does not make it correct.

The Cambrian explosion. Not that much of an enigma, really. It is a fact that evolution goes in bursts. A major evolutionary step, ie, the formation of multicellular organisms opens up a diverse new potential for mutation - the availability of cellular differentiation, segregation of tissues, organs. If some factor on Earth caused an increase in mutation rate, this is quite understandable. But evolution of this more 'communal' cellular environment allowed more complicated biochemical systems to establish. Perhaps previously high mutation rates slowed down because of the evolution of these multicellular organisms proofreading capability, error correction, etc, in DNA, thus dramatically slowing down evolution. After a while, this would become favourable with successful species, lowers risk of extensive cellular damage, cancer, etc, which would become a problem in these higher organisms. What I am trying to say is previously (cambrian explosion), mutation rate was higher and thus this 'explosion' occurred. But as evolution carried on extremely fast, it brought problems to some of the more developed species. Mechanisms of mutation prevention came to the fore which were evolutionarily more favourable. I believe this is quite a rational theory, although not necessarily correct. This is my opinion, but I consider it to be logically derived, and I am quite willing to accept criticism of it. I won't be preached to that the cambrian explosion was a 'work of god', that does not hold water.

Viruses, the standing theory on viruses are that they are actually a result of 'backwards evolution', as the first viruses probably originated from a cell line from pre-existing proteins that were altered, and bang, the virus (it's precursor, anyway) appeared. Not really backward evolution, because they are highly successful in what they do (look at HIV, thrives, highly successful in it's role and evades all our best defences).

posted 06-29-99 12:54 PM ET            

You and I know that no positve or strong athiest will ever belive in God only negative or weak ones. The same gose for theist In my view God only inspired religion for agnositcs. Everybody esle has thier mind made up.

In all these post I still don't Understand evolution in a absolute sense.

posted 06-29-99 01:15 PM ET            

That's because just about everybody has societal preconceptions on the nature of God, whether they realize it or not. Since most of the people you talk to a probably from Western societies you run into the stereotypical Judeo-Christian God because that is the societal reference(all the way back to Christmas specials like "The Little Drummer Boy"). Even with the few exceptions that don't have preconceptions of the nature of God, it is a fairly safe assumption(again, in Western societies) that just about any discussion about God is dealing with the Judeo-Christian flavor.

Go back to Rome 2000 years ago and people will probably either assume the Roman gods or that you are talking about these gods.

"Some say thats proof of God regardless of the medication the person took prior."

And I say it's pretty naive. And this doesn't just apply to this case alone. It also applies to quack cures such as homeopathic cures for the common cold(everybody is going to get better eventually so a fair proportion are going to take it just before they get better and think this "cure" did it).

"In all these post I still don't Understand evolution in a absolute sense."