Evolution

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 03 May 2005 12:45

Jeremy's point about the fact that there are huge odds of the earth being the perfect size, atmosphere, distance from the sun, orbit...etc. all in order to support life. Those are huge odds for all those factors to be in place, many believer that this is the grace of God that lead to all this working out in such a delecate balance the way it did. Jeremy makes a good point that considering the age and size of the universe, that the odds of this happening is not that much of a surprize. --But what if you look even farther than that, the entire universe exists in an equaly delicate balance as the earths solar system does. If the big bang exploaded 1 trillionth of a percent slower the universe would have colapsed, if it exploaded 1 trillionth of a percent faster than everything in the universe would have been spread apart so widely that nothing could have formed.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 03 May 2005 15:03

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.

Well, assuming humans live long enough anyways, which we wont, we're to removed from nature to continue evolving. We have no reason to need evolution. Evolution only occurs as a result of necesity, it doesn't just happen because it happens.

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 03 May 2005 15:08

According to Borel's single law of chance, it is stated and generally accepted that odds that are at least 1 of 10^50 (10 to the 50th power) are considered impossible. When talking about evolution, odds are generally greater than this.

Colin · Post by **Colin** » 03 May 2005 15:32

Is it impossible to flip a coin and record the results 169 times? Because the odds on that result are 1 : 7.483 * 10^50.

Who is that law generally accepted by? It sounds like complete nonsense to me.

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 03 May 2005 15:39

50E6 bases/organism * 1 error/10E7 bases = 50% chance of base change per cell division.

8 weeks of gestation before germline matures and enters the first meiosis * 1 cell division per 1/7 weeks.

So, with each ovulation, women produce an egg that has undergone approximately 8 divisions with a chance of passing on unchanged DNA of 1/( 2^^8 ) = 1/256 = 0.0039

Thus, we can conclude that the observable cause of evolution is not much greater than 1e50. In fact, 99.7% of all eggs carry mutations in their DNA.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 03 May 2005 19:11

I think Ben, you've missed the point entirely - and maybe Colin too.

The theory mentioned by Ben means it's impossible for you to write out the results of 169 coin tosses - and then toss the coin 169 times and get that result.

However the fact is that you would still get a result from 169 tosses and if you worked out the odds of getting that result it would be apparantly impossible.

Nature is not aiming anywhere - it's not trying to the exact same result as was written somewhere else. Nature is you just tossing the coin and seeing what happens - so any result is bound to happen, and considering how many times nature is "tossing the coin" the results are bound to be very unlikely. Any result from evolution is ultimatly going to very unlikely. However it's exactly the same as tossing a coin 169 times - you are going to get a result no matter what!

crazydwarf · Post by **crazydwarf** » 03 May 2005 20:31

Well, assuming humans live long enough anyways, which we wont, we're to removed from nature to continue evolving. We have no reason to need evolution. Evolution only occurs as a result of necesity, it doesn't just happen because it happens.

Just because there are no preditors or anything that doesn't mean evolution just stops. I think it's pretty safe to say that 100% of the population does no reproduce and those percentage that do not reproduce probably have at least some traits in commen more then the overall population. For example, maybe short people are less likely to reproduce simply because they are not as attractive to the opposite sex. This would mean that the taller people are having more offspring, thus eventually our population will get taller. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, because I have apsolutely no facts to back up these claims

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 04 May 2005 07:05

I think that sounds more like preference than selection.

Selection would be like this.

In the human population, a subset of the people have a defect in processing chemical A. Most everyone can process chemical A, but a few people have a genetic defect. It doesn't appear to effect their lives at all.

One day, Corporation Q gets a bright idea and contaminates the water supply with chemical B. Chemical B is a derivative of chemical A that creates toxic compounds when processed by the body.

As a result, most of the population dies off, and only those having the defect in processing chemical A survive.
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james · Post by **james** » 04 May 2005 07:31

I'm just here to defend poor Lamarck, because somebody has to.

Brad, it was actually Darwin that gave the explanation for the giraffe's neck as such, not Lamarck, though most textbooks also make this mistake.
There is a lot that is missing from modern evolutionary theory, we know next to nothing on one of the most complex processes in the universe.
Keeps it exciting I guess.
Ya I'm actually studying to become an evolutionary biologist, funny evolution should come up.

In general: If you have to ask someone if they 'believe' in evolution or not, you might as well ask them if they are an idiot or not.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 04 May 2005 07:49

james wrote: In general: If you have to ask someone if they 'believe' in evolution or not, you might as well ask them if they are an idiot or not.

Sums up the arguement so eloquently!!

It's true too! It's funny and true!

ted · Post by **ted** » 04 May 2005 14:54

james wrote:Ya I'm actually studying to become an evolutionary biologist

Meeee tooooo.

james wrote:In general: If you have to ask someone if they 'believe' in evolution or not, you might as well ask them if they are an idiot or not.

Additionally, you should ask them if they have the capacity to reason. The evidence is there; challenges to the theory are always misunderstandings of ideas or misapplication of theories.

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 04 May 2005 22:48

i just saw a video in a class about this one dudes theory of how we are evolving. it was somthing like this- it took ballpark figure of around 10 billion atoms to evolve into the first cell, it later took to around 10 billion cells to form the first human brain, and now the earth is approaching the ballpark of 10 billion human brains. like the cells within the brain all the humans are linking together over time and sharing and exchanging information with new technologies like postal services, telephone, the internet, and so on. His point i think is that humans arent going to necessarily evolve to have bigger feet, or disapearing hands or whatever but its gonna be like a mental evolution. I couldnt understand it really but im just throwing it out there.