Evolution: The Scientific Evidence

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Jwb52z

I just have a few things to say along with a question or two, so bare with me. First of all, I think the whole ID vs IC argument can be settled by one statement. At least, I hope so. That statement is simply this, "You cannot prove a negative".

But the latter is not the logical equivalent of the ID/IC argument. There's a lot more to it than to proving a negative, so can't be settled that way.

Is it possible that there are two, at least almost, equally dominant genes for a trait that would fight with each other or in some way combine as when someone has two different colored eyes?

Yes. There are several cases already known where more than one gene contributes to what we might think of as a single-dimensional phenomenon.

Does a scientist, let alone regular people, get a little creeped out by the idea that cell biology evolution basically means that the human cell as we have it is basically a bunch of once separate creatures who just happened not to be digested by being enveloped?

That's an oversimplification. It's not a matter of just happening not to be digested! There are many other factors that Ernst did not mention! Once one gets the idea of what else is involved, it's not at all creepy.

it essentially would mean that humans are gestalt entities, but with the downside of no direct access to the supposed informational knowledge that the bits and pieces we are apparently made of have had through biology when they were separate organisms.

Once again, that's an oversimplification.

it's sorta depressing to believe that humans are actually just a collection of lower life forms who just happened to join together for no reason and just happened not to hurt each other to the point of complete distruction of one or both of them.

Lots of things can be depressing when oversimplified like that.

Humans are not "just" a collection of lower life forms who "just happened" to join together "for no reason" etc. Creationists may love to claim that that is what evolution implies, but that is an incorrect claim.

The theory of evolution plus its implications and consequences is more complicated than the theory of creationism plus its implications and consequences. That gives creationists a big advantage in equal-time debates, so they _love_ to challenge evolutionists to debates (understood to be equal-time). It also makes it easy for creationists to pose simple questions or challenges that require complicated answers from the evolution side. But that's all because reality is more complicated than what it would be if creationism were a complete explanation. The greater complexity of evolution is part of the price paid for getting a better approximation of truth than the simpler theory provides.

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Humans are not "just" a collection of lower life forms who "just happened" to join together "for no reason" etc. Creationists may love to claim that that is what evolution implies, but that is an incorrect claim.

Do you understand the way I meant "for no reason"? I'm not quite sure you do. I know you won't see it this way, but without intelligence behind things, there actually is no real reason as we know it. A reason or explanation requires a previous thought or a plan and only intelligence can think and plan. Everything just ultimately becomes pointless except for the arbitrary things humans think.

[jinydu]

Originally Posted by Jwb52z

Do you understand the way I meant "for no reason"? I'm not quite sure you do. I know you won't see it this way, but without intelligence behind things, there actually is no real reason as we know it. A reason or explanation requires a previous thought or a plan and only intelligence can think and plan. Everything just ultimately becomes pointless except for the arbitrary things humans think.

So apparently you're using a different definition of "reason" from cheesehead. Your definition of reason is "a purpose assigned by an intelligent entity" while his definition is "an explanation in terms of a known physical mechanism".

This raises the question: Why should the universe have a reason (according to your definition of reason)?

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by jinydu

This raises the question: Why should the universe have a reason (according to your definition of reason)?

Without a reason, the way I meant it, we might as well just blow up the planet right now and be done with it because it's all pointless crap that's not worth even bothering with at all. Well, we do that or all become nihilistic and lazy and die. I know it's not this way for you or the general scientist, but for many of us, without an ultimate purposeful reason for everything, it's just not worth it to bother with anything because nothing really matters because it's all arbitrary and just a bunch of, "Who cares in the first place?".

[jinydu]

Originally Posted by Jwb52z

Without a reason, the way I meant it, we might as well just blow up the planet right now and be done with it because it's all pointless crap that's not worth even bothering with at all. Well, we do that or all become nihilistic and lazy and die. I know it's not this way for you or the general scientist, but for many of us, without an ultimate purposeful reason for everything, it's just not worth it to bother with anything because nothing really matters because it's all arbitrary and just a bunch of, "Who cares in the first place?".

That seems like quite a non-sequiter. Even if there is no God-given purpose, that doesn't mean we can't invent human-given purposes. Besides, the universe is not "all arbitrary". It obeys physical laws like the Conservation of Energy.

In any case, a universe created by a God for some purpose is just as arbitrary. Why should God have one goal and not another? I don't see how beliefs like "God is like this" and "God is like that" are any less arbitrary than "The Milky Way is in such and such a position". I think that a Newtonian gravitational universe, for instance, is far less arbitrary because it is completely determined by a few simple equations and the initial conditions while a divinely created universe is subject at any instant to the arbitrary and potentially unpredictable whim of a god.

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by jinydu

That seems like quite a non-sequiter. Even if there is no God-given purpose, that doesn't mean we can't invent human-given purposes. Besides, the universe is not "all arbitrary". It obeys physical laws like the Conservation of Energy.

In any case, a universe created by a God for some purpose is just as arbitrary. Why should God have one goal and not another? I don't see how beliefs like "God is like this" and "God is like that" are any less arbitrary than "The Milky Way is in such and such a position". I think that a Newtonian gravitational universe, for instance, is far less arbitrary because it is completely determined by a few simple equations and the initial conditions while a divinely created universe is subject at any instant to the arbitrary and potentially unpredictable whim of a god.

Yes, we can have whatever we like as humans, but the fact that a human gives it a purpose makes it arbitrary by definition because humans are not absolute, perfect, or never wrong as God is supposed to be. By the very nature of God, who is supposed to be the ultimate authority for everything, as religous people see it, that's what makes God's purpose not arbitrary.

[jinydu]

But even if you were granted the assumption that the universe had been created by an intelligent God, how would you know that this God is perfect? How would you distinguish between a universe created by a perfect God and a universe created by an imperfect God?

In any case, what is your definition of "not arbitrary"? Is it "having a purpose assigned by an intelligent entity"? If so, then a universe that was created by a God has a purpose regardless of whether the God is perfect or not. If your definition of "not arbitrary" requires that the entity be perfect, as seems to be the case, then what is your definition of "perfect"? How is the Conservation of Energy, for instance, imperfect?

[mfgoode]

Originally Posted by jinydu

But even if you were granted the assumption that the universe had been created by an intelligent God, how would you know that this God is perfect? How would you distinguish between a universe created by a perfect God and a universe created by an imperfect God?

If your definition of "not arbitrary" requires that the entity be perfect, as seems to be the case, then what is your definition of "perfect"? How is the Conservation of Energy, for instance, imperfect?

Well Jinydu, how would you describe a circle as perfect?

If you can postulate what a number is then you can postulate God!

Mally

[xilman]

Originally Posted by mfgoode

Well Jinydu, how would you describe a circle as perfect?

If you can postulate what a number is then you can postulate God!

Mally

I can postulate that the moon is made of green cheese.


Paul

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by jinydu

what is your definition of "perfect"? How is the Conservation of Energy, for instance, imperfect?

Perhaps because it's really the conservation of mass/energy? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[ewmayer]

Interesting article on how the huge range in modern dog breed sizes appears to be caused by differences in a single gene in the Science section of Friday's New York Times. I was somewhat disappointed to see no discussion of gay-dog genetics, however. :(

Difference Between Mutts and Jeffs? A Gene

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: April 6, 2007


If it weren’t for the IGF-1 suppressor gene, Paris Hilton’s life would be a lot less elegant.

She’d be lugging around an Irish wolfhound in her purse.

Scientists have just discovered which gene fragment controls the size of dogs, the mammal with the greatest range in size: no other species produces adults with 100-fold differences, like that between a 2-pound Chihuahua and a 200-pound Newfoundland.

In a study to be published today in the journal Science, researchers analyzed 3,241 purebreds from 143 breeds. Genetically, the yapper arguing with your ankle is almost identical to the drooling behemoth bred to hunt bears, except for a tiny bit of DNA — universally present in small breeds and largely absent in big ones — that suppresses the “insulin-like growth factor 1” gene.

Dog owners have unwittingly been selecting for it since the last ice age. Dogs emerged from the wolf about 15,000 years ago, and as far back as 10,000 years ago domesticated dogs as big as mastiffs and as small as Jack Russells were trotting the earth.

The study’s lead author, Elaine A. Ostrander, chief of cancer genetics at the National Human Genome Research Institute, said she had visited a lot of dog shows, asking for blood.

“It became kind of a status symbol to participate, and we were inundated,” Dr. Ostrander said. “I only wanted one sample from any descendant of one grandfather, and owners would show up with five Scottish deerhounds, all of them siblings, and say, ‘Oh, absolutely, they all want to be in.’ ”

Making it “cool biology,” she said, is that the same gene suppressor is found in both mice and men, creating mini-mice and suspected in human dwarfism.

And because it controls growth gone awry, Dr. Ostrander said, it will help cancer research, and is to be manipulated in mice.

But carefully. A mouse the size of a Great Dane, she said, “would be a little scary, wouldn’t it?”