• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Evolution: the Facts.

Anyone know of any resources regarding non-biological evolution, such as the evolution that occurs in culture/societies/ideas?

BTW why do my replies always have a huge empty box instead of something that fits the text I write?
 
Last edited:
rocketdodger said:
Anyone know of any resources regarding non-biological evolution, such as the evolution that occurs in culture/societies/ideas?

BTW why do my replies always have a huge empty box instead of something that fits the text I write?
Click to expand...

Good question, dodger.

Musical instruments is a good one. We have hundreds of years of well-documented history that I'm sure you can find in abundance on the interweb.

The big difference between the intelligent design of, say, "wooden boxes strung with silver wires" and biological evolution is that biological evolution results in strictly nested hierarchies with no "borrowing" from one line of descent across to another.

In fact, if even a single instance of such borrowing were to be observed anywhere in the whole biological world of many millions of different species, the whole theory of evolution would be consigned to the rubbish heap within 5 minutes.
 
Henners said:
The big difference between the intelligent design of, say, "wooden boxes strung with silver wires" and biological evolution is that biological evolution results in strictly nested hierarchies with no "borrowing" from one line of descent across to another.

In fact, if even a single instance of such borrowing were to be observed anywhere in the whole biological world of many millions of different species, the whole theory of evolution would be consigned to the rubbish heap within 5 minutes.
Click to expand...
This is not strictly true.

Does anyone want to write an article on lateral gene transfer?
 
Dr Adequate said:
Henners said:
The big difference between the intelligent design of, say, "wooden boxes strung with silver wires" and biological evolution is that biological evolution results in strictly nested hierarchies with no "borrowing" from one line of descent across to another.

In fact, if even a single instance of such borrowing were to be observed anywhere in the whole biological world of many millions of different species, the whole theory of evolution would be consigned to the rubbish heap within 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

This is not strictly true.

Does anyone want to write an article on lateral gene transfer?
Click to expand...

Not me, I'm afraid.

The biggest difference between evolutionary-led design and intelligently led designs, is that evolution can only "learn" what is successfull. It can not learn from a failure, other than the fact that it is a failure.

Human-led development can investigate why particular designs failed, and attempt to remedy the particular defect. They can also learn from partial experiments, where the whole system would "fail", but useful information can still be extracted by analysis.

Sorry to bang on about this, but in common language people* talk about the "evolution" of the aircraft from the biplane to the space shuttle, or talk about other engineering systems "evolving" when I would argue that they "were developed". It is a metaphor that can be a hinderance.

I also think this is asking IDiots to muddy the waters further by saying that if aircraft "evolved", yet they had designers, why not humans.


*When I am not talking precisely, that includes me, although I tend to talk about "development" if I think about it in time.
 
Dr Adequate said:
This is not strictly true.

Does anyone want to write an article on lateral gene transfer?
Click to expand...


You are quite correct, Dr. Ad.

I have to say that I was thinking specifically of the anatomical features that one would regard as analogous to the constructional characteristics of musical instruments.

Thank you for the clarification. Of course, I expect to see round-up-resistant groundsel appear any day, now. As do we all.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps creationists should tell us how this designer did the job and why things are badly designed, ie Decay , mortality , illness .Did this designer design itself or is there another designer who designed the designer and then another.........
Any IDiot can find gaps in evolution ,indeed if there were no gaps then the science would be complete and nobody would need to do any more research .
 
I once heard that the Miller-Urey experiment was a "crock". From what I understand, it demonstrated that amino acids are capable of being produced from non-biological material.

Anyone have an opinion here? (Did I ask this already? I don't think I did...)
 
Lonewulf said:
I once heard that the Miller-Urey experiment was a "crock". From what I understand, it demonstrated that amino acids are capable of being produced from non-biological material.

Anyone have an opinion here? (Did I ask this already? I don't think I did...)
Click to expand...

My own opinion is that it has diddly-squat to to with evolution.
 
Lonewulf said:
I once heard that the Miller-Urey experiment was a "crock". From what I understand, it demonstrated that amino acids are capable of being produced from non-biological material.

Anyone have an opinion here? (Did I ask this already? I don't think I did...)
Click to expand...

Miller and Urey attempted to demonstrate that amino acids could form from what they presumed were the gases that made up the pre-biotic atmosphere of Earth, when subjected to lightning-like electrical discharges.

Their experiment DID produce amino acids. The problem today, though, is that we no longer think the Earth's pre-biotic atmosphere was composed of the same gases that Miller and Urey used. Attempts to reproduce the Miller-Urey experiment with our current best guess as to what the pre-biotic atmosphere of Earth was like have been failures.
 
Henners said:
My own opinion is that it has diddly-squat to to with evolution.
Click to expand...

According to Carl Sagan, from the TV show, Cosmos, it has plenty to do with evolution.

From what I understand, it demonstrated that amino acids could be created, which when combined with other various processes (Taffer helped me on this, but we have miscommunicated on this), can lead to the construct of abiogenesis. If you factor in the environment of the Earth as it once was, and other processes that would have been going on. I'm hazy on the details.

Or am I wrong on this?
 
Last edited:
No, you have a basic grasp of the experiments. Creationists frequently claim that the experiment was an attempt to create life, which it clearly wasn't. As far as the parameters of the experiment go - to produce biological molecules from a non-biological substrate - it was a roaring success. Since then we have discovered that it's actually really easy to produce amino acids, and we've even found them in space.

So it lends support to the abiogenesis hypothesis without being an actual smoking gun. The creationists demand a smoking gun though, and discount the experiment as achieving anything at all useful.
 
Okay. So, unless this has been covered already, what other processes would be necessary for the beginning of the very beginnings of life, in mono cellular form?
 
Lonewulf said:
According to Carl Sagan, from the TV show, Cosmos, it has plenty to do with evolution.
Click to expand...

Abiogenesis is a seperate area of study, more under biochemistry than biology per se like evolution is. Also Cosmos, despite the fact that very few updates have been needed, was produced over 25 years ago and some things have changed.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
Abiogenesis is a seperate area of study, more under biochemistry than biology per se like evolution is. Also Cosmos, despite the fact that very few updates have been needed, was produced over 25 years ago and some things have changed.
Click to expand...

But abiogenesis is still very important when discussing the origin of life, which is a very common thread of discussion, especially when considering what the OP is really about. "How did life arise" was brought up as a key point of discussion for this thread.

Please note here, what I said, and what the response was:

Lonewulf said:
I once heard that the Miller-Urey experiment was a "crock". From what I understand, it demonstrated that amino acids are capable of being produced from non-biological material.
Click to expand...

Note I didn't ever mention "evolution". Then, Henners comes in to save the day.

Henners said:
My own opinion is that it has diddly-squat to to with evolution.
Click to expand...

I didn't bring up "evolution", he did. He then dismissed the entire line of discussion by saying that it had nothing to do with evolution.

I'm confused here. The OP brought up the origin of life and ways to tell the age of the Earth, but it seems like we can only discuss species-ation?
 
Last edited:
However abiogenesis occures, evoloutionary pressures would have to have shaped how the replicating collections of chemicals arose.

The division between "life" and "non-life" is probably fuzzy. Viruses being the classic example of non-living replicators. Prions too...
 
Lonewulf said:
I didn't bring up "evolution", he did. He then dismissed the entire line of discussion by saying that it had nothing to do with evolution.

I'm confused here. The OP brought up the origin of life and ways to tell the age of the Earth, but it seems like we can only discuss species-ation?
Click to expand...

Sorry, Lonewulf, I probably got confused by the thread title, I get confused a lot.

What I could have said, in a more helpful manner is to have a look at complexity. Life will have started as a self-catalysing set of chemicals, probably with a cell membrane.

Now, some of the components, like the membrane, say, are self-organising. So they are not as complex as they first appear.

In order to know how likely such an arrangement is to arise, you need to know how many diferent chemicals it takes to make such an arrangement, and also how many different arrangements there are that would be auto-catalysing.

Now, if you are going to model that, you need to model the shapes of the molecules and their distribution of electric charge. Then you can get a measure of their specificity acting as catalysts in particular reactions involving other molecules in the mix.

It's not easy, but it's not impossible either.

Once you have the basic set-up, natural selection kicks in.

Have I missed anything?

How could I forget. It took me a week to read Kauffman's book on the subject.

The trouble with the science is that it's bloody hard, and some IDiot with a simple tag-line can always deliver a more meaningful message to the educationally-deprived (kitchen-table educated) faithful, than Atheist will ever be able to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom