itt: evolution and trolling

[Cops]

and i wonder if you know what it means, what it means, and I wonder if you know what it means, what it means, and i wonder if you know what it means to find your dreams.

[Jeenyuss]

bete means stupid
noire means black

[Vykromond]

sheep

[Epinephrine]

Okay, one last thing:

By 'beneficial mutation' I simply mean a mutation that helped the organism to survive. If all of life's organization is to be concluded by mutations whether beneficial or not, then every single factor of order within the biosphere occurred because of chance at one time or another. The chance of that mutation occurring and being beneficial to the organisms ability to survive coupled the the probability that no freak accidents like a predator, volcano, meteor, ice age, or the bottom of an animal's foot killed that particular special offspring occuring over huge amounts of times multiplied by billions of levels of order, not mentioning that the initial spontaneous existence of the first organism is highly improbable, seems completely improbable and insane. How can we explain probabilities lower than 1 to the mol or greater even with infinite time? It simply does not make sense to me. The "probability problem" is really a problem for me. It's not the idea of one shot in a million that bothers me; it's the idea of one shot in a million a trillion times.

Why is it so hard to believe? Your problem, and the problem with most people who try so hard to 'not believe' in evolution is that you think that there is 'supposed' to be some kind of end point that we've arrived at. For instance, that humans were supposed to exist, so how did it happen? Or frogs are supposed to exist so how did they survive? Or the heart is a perfectly created organ, how could we possibly have developed it without someone designing it?

In reality, things survived because they survived. Things exist now because it happened to be the best way to do things. Things are the way they are, because that's how it turned out. Frogs exist because they have a niche within the ecosystem that has allowed them to survive for hundreds of millions of years. The heart is the way it is now, because either it's a pretty well developed organ, or in a higher sense, the organisms of which it belongs to managed to survive (you can imagine that some other creature with hearts that were even better designed so say it would be harder to have heart attacks for instance but did not survive so we cannot compare and contrast) for whatever number of reasons which may or may not had to do with the heart.

You can take a look at non-biological systems. In 1980, IBM was 'supposed' to be the biggest PC manufacturer in the world by a longshot. Today IBM doesn't even make PCs anymore.

Technologies predicted in the 1960s (flying cars? robot butlers?) generally don't exist now, and things that we couldn't even dream of back then (internet?) exist now. No matter how smartly designed products were (webvan.com?), or how well thought out the visions of the future by extremely smart people (driverless cars?), the EVOLUTION of products has created what we have today in unpredictable and fast changing ways. Many products have survived not because they are the BEST (american car companies?) but because of any number of other factors which allowed their survival over competing products.

My point is, even in designed systems such as products that we make, in a very short time the endpoint can change rather rapidly. Lifecycles in consumer products may advance at much faster rates than the ecosystem, but change happens just the same.

Similarly life ends up proceeding at unpredictable and fast changing ways. Experiments in forced evolution have created changes in specific organisms in as little as 50 generations. By simply looking at the evolution of bacteria, we have seen the spread of antibiotic resistance to any number of antibiotics thanks to the power of evolution.

Spread over a billion years, with millions of factors independently acting it is not hard to believe that we could arrive at ever more complex systems.

The biggest fallacy is to believe that what we have now is some ideal and that things have worked so hard to have what we have today. Even today is always changing, and evolution is always working. Look closely at any particular system now (look at ecosystems we've destroyed, look at how some animals have adapted to living with us better than others like racoons and squirrels, look at bacteria and disease), and you will see that evolution is happening all around us. Look closely at any particular organism including humans, and you will see that we are nowhere near perfectly designed and that many things could be better if there was actually an intelligent designer.



Here's another way to look at it. You may ask yourself why am I the way I am? You can start then calculating. What are the chances that my parents would meet eachother out of the other billions of people in this world? What are the chances that exactly that one sperm out of hundreds of millions would meet with that one egg, and combine exactly the way it did so that I look the way I do and am the I way I am and not like my siblings? Why did my grandparents meet in the first place and not anyone else?

If you just take even those probabilities, you start getting into infinitely small numbers, and eventually once you go up a few more generations, the probability of everything happening the way it did becomes close to zero.

Yet... it happened.


Here's another way to phrase it. Why are you sitting exactly the way you are sitting now, and take the exact route you did to your chair? There are literally trillions of atoms that you walked by. Even small imperceptable changes in how you walked would have altered your path, however minor so that you wouldn't have taken the EXACT path you did towards your chair. When you calculate out the possibility of you taking that path to your chair and sitting down exactly the way that you are, the probability of it goes to such small numbers it might as well be zero.

So really did you even walk to where you are and are you even sitting down at the moment? Because it can't have happened.

Yet... it did.

[castromarx]

Yet... it did.

Exactly. He designed it that way.

[Fluffz]

Exactly. She designed it that way.

fixed

[milosh]

Why is it so hard to believe? Your problem, and the problem with most people who try so hard to 'not believe' in evolution is that you think that there is 'supposed' to be some kind of end point that we've arrived at. For instance, that humans were supposed to exist, so how did it happen? Or frogs are supposed to exist so how did they survive? Or the heart is a perfectly created organ, how could we possibly have developed it without someone designing it?

My point is not in its purpose. Purpose for life comes from my belief; it does not develop my belief. I have not said anything is "supposed" to be one way or another; I am speaking towards the mere fact that it is a certain way and that the particular way it is is incredible. It has order, beauty, and is intricately in motion. The fact that not only life occurred, but that it developed into a organism with the ability to discover, which just so happens to be on a particular planet in the right place in the galaxy where discovery can occur, is highly improbable. The issue of probability cannot be discredited by just restating randomness. I haven't asked the question 'how could the heart possibly have developed without someone designing it?'; the question I'm asking is how could the heart, lungs, brain, liver, kidneys, spleen, gall bladder, small intestine, large intestine, skin, ears, nose, envy, hate, love, justice, conditions of our galaxy needed to sustain life, conditions of our planet needed to sustain life, conditions needed for the spontaneous assimilation of life, conditions needed for exploration of the universe, and the human eye happen just 'because it happened'? It's not as if every other possible answer to the probabilities involved would have ended up with an equally ordered existence.

Spread over a billion years, with millions of factors independently acting it is not hard to believe that we could arrive at ever more complex systems.

What!?

Similarly life ends up proceeding at unpredictable and fast changing ways. Experiments in forced evolution have created changes in specific organisms in as little as 50 generations. By simply looking at the evolution of bacteria, we have seen the spread of antibiotic resistance to any number of antibiotics thanks to the power of evolution.

This is micro-evolution not macro-evolution. I whole heartedly believe in evolution; I just don't believe in the evolution of apes to humans and wolves to whales.

In reality, things survived because they survived. Things exist now because it happened to be the best way to do things.

The biggest fallacy is to believe that what we have now is some ideal and that things have worked so hard to have what we have today. Look closely at any particular organism including humans, and you will see that we are nowhere near perfectly designed and that many things could be better if there was actually an intelligent designer.

Obviously, I disagree, but here is why. I believe in the need for parasites, infections, diseases, and disasters. Just pretend for a moment that you were an omnipotent being with the power to do anything. What purpose would you have for a perfectly working and perfectly orderly system where there is no hunger, disease, or disaster? Everything just goes completely smooth and its just like an aquarium you can look at now and then and say "Ha, look what I did; I guess it's pretty cool even though I can do much more". That makes no sense to me, so arguing that nature isn't "perfect"(though still amazing) in the sense that you expect I expect it to be is not an argument. If I was a supreme omnipotent being I would conjure up a much better plan than that.

Here's another way to look at it. You may ask yourself why am I the way I am? You can start then calculating. What are the chances that my parents would meet eachother out of the other billions of people in this world? What are the chances that exactly that one sperm out of hundreds of millions would meet with that one egg, and combine exactly the way it did so that I look the way I do and am the I way I am and not like my siblings? Why did my grandparents meet in the first place and not anyone else?

If you just take even those probabilities, you start getting into infinitely small numbers, and eventually once you go up a few more generations, the probability of everything happening the way it did becomes close to zero.

Yet... it happened.

Yes, but there is nothing more special and unique and amazing and wonderful about exactly the way I am than the person next to me. The probability that I would exist was indeed slim, but the alternate possibilities do not create anything less amazing unless for some reason there was an abortion or SIDS or something, which granted though the probability for a disruptive occurrence may be relatively large is nowhere near to the numbers we are considering by accepting evolution.

Here's another way to phrase it. Why are you sitting exactly the way you are sitting now, and take the exact route you did to your chair? There are literally trillions of atoms that you walked by. Even small imperceptable changes in how you walked would have altered your path, however minor so that you wouldn't have taken the EXACT path you did towards your chair. When you calculate out the possibility of you taking that path to your chair and sitting down exactly the way that you are, the probability of it goes to such small numbers it might as well be zero.

So really did you even walk to where you are and are you even sitting down at the moment? Because it can't have happened.

Yet... it did.

There are millions of paths for a man to walk to a chair. How many paths are there for life to spontaneously assimilate?

[milosh]

bete means stupid
noire means black

http://www.reference.com/search?r=13&q=Bete%20noire
This misunderstanding is the reason I changed my username to milosh.

Exactly. He designed it that way.

I really appreciate you making it clear that I am being prejudiced before I speak by putting words into my mouth. It really shows how nonsensical your side of this discussion is becoming. Though quoted numerous times, I have never once in this thread said "God did it", "He did it that way", "God can do anything" or any other glossy dismissing statement that steers away from science. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Fluffz]

following your logic noone could ever win a lottery because the odds are against him.

[Vykromond]

Scientists have already begun to accumulate evidence of macroevolution. Please see "Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of E. coli" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, abstract available here.

[milosh]

following your logic noone could ever win a lottery because the odds are against him.

The very nature of the lottery infers it must have a winner. The probability being discussed is not congruent with the odds of winning the lottery. It's more along the lines of winning the lottery a million times in a row.

Scientists have already begun to accumulate evidence of macroevolution. Please see "Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of E. coli" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, abstract available here.

This article still speaks of organisms presented with a substance capable of use that is then adapted to by mutations of several thousands of generations. There is a difference between say a eukaryote over millions of generations learning to digest cellulose and a eukaryote growing arms, legs, a heart, a brain, or an eye.

EDIT: Though I admit, the ability to be able to use Cit+ in E. coli or hypothetically if the possibility of cellulose digestion arose, it is or would be extremely fascinating and impressive.

[Fluffz]

The probability being discussed is not congruent with the odds of winning the lottery. It's more along the lines of winning the lottery a million times in a row.

You do not seem to grasp the basic concept. If an event of one second delay has a 1:1000 chance of happening, when it happens it doesnt take 1000 seconds, it only takes one. There is enough time, but it is unlikely to happen how it did happen. No contradiction here, your argument is null and void.

[Squeezer]

Yes (if you mean humor), yes, and trimmed (think futurama fry, less curls, but black).

I would love to tell you more, but I'm saving it for my book in the current works (Unfortunately, the idea for writing a book you gave me in the last thread was null cause I already wrote a book, and I was already in the process of this second one; not like it's going to get published anyways or if anyone will read it)

I'll read it. Seriously I'd love to read it. I've been writing a few things too and attempting a couple of novels, but nothing I'm ready to share. Just playing with ideas. I have plenty of poems to trade if you want though.

[milosh]

Look, I really don't like or approve of the way this man delivers his message, lives his life, or treats his verbal opponents, but he delivers some very interesting questions about our planet. Whether he is right, wrong, or even insane these questions are still questions and these evidences must still be explained. Please just take the time to watch this video discarding whatever he quotes from the Bible or Christian faith.

http://drdino.plaingospel.com/seminar2.wmv

EDIT: By the way I think he is wrong on a lot of points. So much so that I specifically want to add an addendum that says I do not endorse or believe this man's views on Christianity and am skeptical or in disbelief of many of his "scientific" points.

[gran guerrero]

I'll read it. Seriously I'd love to read it. I've been writing a few things too and attempting a couple of novels, but nothing I'm ready to share. Just playing with ideas. I have plenty of poems to trade if you want though.

sure dude, my e-mail is anooshf@gmail.com