Evolution

grek · Post by **grek** » 01 May 2005 09:51

Do guys believe in evolution?

Well I do...

opinions???

Guest_2 · Post by **Guest_2** » 01 May 2005 11:36

Darwinian theory all the way. I do not believe in giving safety instructions for high school chem-We need to weed the morons out of existance

idain · Post by **idain** » 01 May 2005 16:13

Strictly speaking, evolution is simply a data set composed of bone structures, dna, etc. As such, it is really impossible to dispute that species are related, or that somehow, human are descended from monkeys.

Natural selection is Darwin's theory. Survival of the fittest tends to work exceedingly well (in a lot of contexts as well). I happen to find it far more palatable than creationism (I'm an atheist).

Splint · Post by **Splint** » 02 May 2005 01:51

grek wrote:Do guys believe in evolution?

Well I can't speak for all guys, but I do

.

idain wrote:Natural selection is Darwin's theory. Survival of the fittest tends to work exceedingly well (in a lot of contexts as well). I happen to find it far more palatable than creationism (I'm an atheist).

Idain, I'm not cutting on you, but whenever I see that statement I cringe a bit.
I think it's important that people are clear as to Darwin's meaning of "fittest". It has nothing to do with physical fitness as we define it. It was blown out of context in that way about 80 or so years ago. This lead to "Social Darwinism" which was a prevailing theory in the US and Europe and gave way to many attrocities such as the Eugenics movement in America and the Holocaust during WWII.

Here's an example of what Darwin was talking about with regard to "Survival of the Fittest". (Paraphrased from an actual scientific study)

Once upon a time, there was a particular genus of moth (let's say 100 of them) who all hung out on the bark of a dark brown tree, around meal time. 75 of the moths were dark in color while 25 were very light colored.
One day a hungry little bird was flying by and noticed a bunch of light colored specks flipping around that tree. After a decent dive-bomb the bird realized that indeed the Light specks were food and proceeded with 24 additional passes at the tree until it no longer saw the light specked food. He flew on his merry way.
Just after the next mating season that same bird happened by that same tree and saw 15 little white specks. Remembering how good they tasted, he made 15 dive-bombs and seeing none left decided to move on in search of more food.
Next time aroudn there were only 6 white ones.
Next time around only 1.
Next time the tree was empty of food.
However, unbeknowst to the bird the tree was actually now full of about 1000 dark colored moths.
What Happened?
Well the bird couldn't see the dark moth's against the dark tree and so didn't realize they were there to eat. Only eating the white ones left less in the gene pool to be able keep the light colored moths as part of that genus of moth.
Ergo, the dark colored moths, through no physical confrontational act, were deemed the "Fittest" because their natural color simply hid them from their predator, thus allowing them to procreate.

idain · Post by **idain** » 02 May 2005 07:46

Splint,

I think maybe you misunderstood me a little - I can see how it could happen, my answer was a little ambiguous. Survival of the fittest as I understand it can include physical fitness, but it can also include other attributes (for instance, intelligence - humans are neither the strongest species nor the quickest, but we are intelligent enough [at least, one would like to think] to conserve what we have and use ingenuity to compensate).

Darwinism and natural selection have a wide range of applications - it can be applied to society (societies that are unfit tend not to survive) or politics (political parties that don't meet the needs of the voting base do not survive) to even footbag (those who don't take care of themselves will doubtless get injured and be unable to play).

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 02 May 2005 08:36

Splint,

I think you are missing the critical part of David's statement, which is simply that Darwin didn't invent the idea of the evolution of species. That idea had been around since Plato. Darwin's breakthrough wasn't to suggest that species evolve from other species, but that he proposed the reason why species evolve, and that idea was Natural Selection.

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 02 May 2005 10:28

unless your a really fundamentalist Christian, than theres no reason not to believe in evolution.
Evolution is fact.

delakong · Post by **delakong** » 02 May 2005 10:42

Yeah, I have this really crazy condition......when someone can prove to me that something's a fact I just have to believe them. It's weird.

Splint · Post by **Splint** » 02 May 2005 11:30

David and Jonathan,

I think you misunderstood me

.
As I said, I wasn't cutting on David's statement. HE said that "Survival of the fittest tends to work exceedingly well (in a lot of contexts as well)".

I was merely clarifying the notion of "Survival of the Fittest" in general for those who tend to believe in it as it's most commonly accepted (and flawed) form of Social Darwinism.

I am well aware that Evolution (though not as such) was a theory long before Darwin and he was not even the first to map out a full study of it. Aristotle, Linneus, Da Vinci etc.. all made scientific studies regarding evolution. Jean Baptiste Lemark had his theory of Evolution about 70 or so years before Darwin except he tried to say that evolution happened because of a species physical need to accomplish certain tasks (i.e. Giraffes had short necks, but had to stretch them over and over for many generations to reach the leaves at the tops of trees

).

So yeah, I think we're on the same page.

Oh... and evolution is not a "fact". Technically it's still a theory. About 99% of science is still theoretical.

KronoKicker · Post by **KronoKicker** » 02 May 2005 12:25

[off topic]
Dawinism can not be applied to social standards because of the is/ought fallacy. I'll write more on this later, got some good notes on it but they're in my room. The is/ought fallacy is a big argument against some philosopher who believes that nature programs us with moral values....
[/off topic]

I also believe in evolution and survival of the fittest.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 02 May 2005 17:25

i'm fully christian and i believe in evolution, the process of natural selection just makes sense and doesn't deny God's existence at all. It's where he tried to say we came from little ameobas or whatever where i start to get doubtful... as splint said there is very little evidence to support this claim

Splint · Post by **Splint** » 02 May 2005 17:32

james_dean wrote:... as splint said there is very little evidence to support this claim

I said no such thing.

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 02 May 2005 21:03

what i shouda said was as far as i'm concerned evolution is fact.
-I think most Christians do believe in evolution. Pope JPII wrote about it, and so did many other christian thinkers such as thomas aquinas and Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard thought that learning more about science and the complexity of the universe deepened his faith.

professor · Post by **professor** » 02 May 2005 22:05

I don't know about evolution. I have a much easier time believing that humans and animals were created by an omnipotent being than believing that my dog and I came from the same ancestory, but it just happened by "chance" that my species of animal is the only species capable of learning language all by ourselves, inventing, being creative, etc.

I think just the fact that we are discussing this issue proves that we are different from the rest of the animal kingdom. Last time I checked I've never seen a group of lions sitting around talking amongst themselves about whether evolution is true or not. When's the last time you saw a gorilla compose a beautiful score of music, or paint a mona lisa, or sculpt ice into a great work of art, or write poetry that touches the soul?

It's not the fact that humans are the only "species" to have intelligent thought, but it's that humans are so far above any other animal species out there. None are even close to the level of human thought and understanding.

Also, I don't even know if humans have become more intelligent over time. We have invented new things but I think we have the same mental capacity as we always have. Think about the pyramids, they are amazing and were created over 2000 years ago. We have new technology that has made our lives seem better, but they really haven't. Take cars for instance. This invention has made it easier/faster to get places and we are more connected because of it, but it is the leading cause of death in most of the world.

We still do the same things humans have always done. We still murder, lie, cheat, and destroy like we used to. To me it doesn't look like humans have evolved all that much.

I know I've opened a can-o-worms, but this is the way I see it.

KronoKicker · Post by **KronoKicker** » 02 May 2005 22:33

Humans have indeed evovled! Homanids have evolved through several stages to become what the species of humans is now. You can't deny that there were different stages, there is tons of archeological proof. Are species is still relatively young when compared to what we know as the age of the universe, evolution does not occur overnight! Nor does it occur in single lifetime or even several lifetimes (in most cases, mutation of course occurs much faster, but is different).

Don't count the animals out either, they are capable much more than most people will admit to. You also have to remember that their brains are generally much smaller than ours, and are driven by the basic necessities. Humans generally have the basic needs satisfied and are free to use their time for other purposes.

And I agree that humans are still have the same mental capacity that they did thousands of years ago... but who's to say that is our next step. Not a radical change in skeletal/musclar shape or size (even though younger generations do appear to have a much higher average height), but an increase in how much of our brain we actually use. Something very exciting to look forward to... despite the fact that we probably won't see it happen anytime soon.

Splint · Post by **Splint** » 03 May 2005 01:27

Yeah, unlike that totally plausible story about God being able to whip up the earth in 6 days, evolution is not something easily viewable. It takes thousands upon thousands upone thousands of years for a species to noticeably evolve. Seeing as how we've only been at it for 2500 years at most, we're not likely to "see" the evolution of any species.

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 03 May 2005 04:32

I’m a Christian.

I've been a lil iffy on the subject. I do believe that survival of the fittest is real as we have done controlled experiments with them. As for evolution is concerned, I think it MAY work (something from almost nothing) but DID it work? Reciting from memory, I believe the thing that most confused Darwin was that we don’t find different skeletal remains from different stages of evolution for anything else that isn't human. If this is true, someone may argue this saying that whales have backbones and such (or something like that), but nothing further.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 03 May 2005 04:46

Regarding the chance of life forming and it developing the way it does;

Toss a coin. Record the result. Now toss it 9 more times. I'll do it now - here are my results:

t,h,h,t,h,t,h,t,t,t

Now what are the chances of somebody else throwing that exact same combination in that order? It's 1/1024. That means if you tossed a coin ten times a thousand times - you'd only expect one result to be the same as my one. Of course it's all about chance - so that could vary.

The point is I achieved something with odds of 1/1024 on my very first attempt!! Don't you think that's amazing? Is it coincidence or is it because of a higher power. Lets try again:

t,t,t,h,t,t,h,t,t,h

Ok so what are the odds of me throwing that exact combination? It's also 1/1024!! Wow. I must be really lucky today. Here's something even better - what are the odds of me throwing the combination of all twenty tosses? 1/1,048,576. Wow that's odds of over 1 in a million. It was a million in one chance and yet it happened!

How can I be so lucky? Because some kind of result is inevitable. This is the same with life and evolution. There is an enourmas amount of time that's passed for which life to evolve in - it doesn't really matter how small the odds are because the phase space is so big. Given enough time things with very small odds become things that are likely to happen. Especially when there is bound to be a result eventually.

delakong · Post by **delakong** » 03 May 2005 04:47

KronoKicker wrote:Not a radical change in skeletal/musclar shape or size (even though younger generations do appear to have a much higher average height), but an increase in how much of our brain we actually use. Something very exciting to look forward to... despite the fact that we probably won't see it happen anytime soon.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that's noticed that. Alot of high school kids (males) that I see now are huge. I'm 6'2 and they are towering over me. I remember my American History teacher telling me something about how people back in the day (like pilgrims and american indians) were alot smaller than we are now. Even like 100 years ago people thought Abe Lincoln was a giant (he was 6'2).

idain · Post by **idain** » 03 May 2005 09:16

Sort of in support of Jeremy..

Some physicists believe that the universe is contantly expanding and contracting in on itself - resulting in, potentially, an infinite number of combinations, as no to universes could be exactly alike.

If you take that as a valid idea, then it is impossible to conceive that life couldn't exist at some point, in some universe... Like Jeremy said, it's odds, and yeah, they may be pretty enormous, but there is a huge span of time to roll the dice, so to speak. Or flip coins.

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