How can evolution be responsible for a universe of complexity?

[torpid]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable.

First off, I don't accept the premise that we are more diseased or ill than past generations. I believe the opposite is true.

Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

The diseases themselves are evolving. Nature is not some sentient force that acts upon the world.

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

Yes.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: ducci
See, this is the problem with evolution - it's too complicated for the common person to understand. I mean, I get the gist, but it's not tangible - it's not a basic concept you can simply wrap your head around.

Intelligent design is simple, tangible, and precise - and that is why I think it will remain a prominent concept for the foreseeable future.

The good old AOL method: "So easy to use, no wonder it's #1."
:laugh:

 

[Arkitech]

Originally posted by: DosadiX
The theory that sold me on evolution had to do with RNA being the foundation of life. Because nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen are highly reactive, there was a good change that they would combine. In this combination a strand of RNA happened to form. I could look up the probabilities of these reactions occurring, but in the scheme of things, it?s fairly probably. Anyway, RNA has both structural and chemical properties that can catalyze self replication. That?s where the evolution starts. Colonies of RNA will form, mutate and migrated. Different colonies will have different sequences and will starts "competing" for hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. Its not true competition, but they are still trying to react with the available materials to replicate.

Over the course of their mutations, they started catalyzing the creations of new substances, amino acids that can and will form proteins. However, the RNA can also shape the proteins both physically and chemically. From there the RNA and proteins messed up on an RNA synthesis and catalyzed a different sugar which created an inert form of RNA called DNA.

I could go into how cell membranes and organelles formed, however it?s essentially the same process. Simple, favorable chemical reactions that are catalyzed by structure (RNA, DNA and proteins) that happen to self replicate. Furthermore, if there is no self replication, there is not possibility of a system growing in complexity. But with self replication, the systems becomes a stable control system that attempts to maintain a steady state and error can propagate the system and either send it into an unstable region (it dies) or into a new stable state (essentially evolution). Ok, now I'm jumping well beyond of the scope of this discussion and boring everyone.

No that was'nt boring at all, I thought it was a good read. However based on what you just wrote would'nt evolution continue to make lifeforms more and more complex. Should'nt mammals and other forms of life continue to get stronger and more resilient? In some cases it seems like the exact opposite.

 

[Arkitech]

Originally posted by: DosadiX
The theory that sold me on evolution had to do with RNA being the foundation of life. Because nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen are highly reactive, there was a good change that they would combine. In this combination a strand of RNA happened to form. I could look up the probabilities of these reactions occurring, but in the scheme of things, it?s fairly probably. Anyway, RNA has both structural and chemical properties that can catalyze self replication. That?s where the evolution starts. Colonies of RNA will form, mutate and migrated. Different colonies will have different sequences and will starts "competing" for hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. Its not true competition, but they are still trying to react with the available materials to replicate.

Over the course of their mutations, they started catalyzing the creations of new substances, amino acids that can and will form proteins. However, the RNA can also shape the proteins both physically and chemically. From there the RNA and proteins messed up on an RNA synthesis and catalyzed a different sugar which created an inert form of RNA called DNA.

I could go into how cell membranes and organelles formed, however it?s essentially the same process. Simple, favorable chemical reactions that are catalyzed by structure (RNA, DNA and proteins) that happen to self replicate. Furthermore, if there is no self replication, there is not possibility of a system growing in complexity. But with self replication, the systems becomes a stable control system that attempts to maintain a steady state and error can propagate the system and either send it into an unstable region (it dies) or into a new stable state (essentially evolution). Ok, now I'm jumping well beyond of the scope of this discussion and boring everyone.

No that was'nt boring at all, I thought it was a good read. However based on what you just wrote would'nt evolution continue to make lifeforms more and more complex. Should'nt mammals and other forms of life continue to get stronger and more resilient? In some cases it seems like the exact opposite.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
The problem is that we're looking at the world after billions of years of evolution and change. Many plants and animals did die out because they couldn't adapt to their surroundings quickly enough. There have been many great extinctions. I've always thought of macroevolution as a series of microevolutions. If you look at plant breeding, the genetic traits and quirks come out in different generations, and new traits can be formed. It just happens over such a long time that we don't really see it.

Many animals and plants died out not necessarily because they could not adapt, but competition. A lot of the weaker animals, or not as well adapted would be taken over by a species more fit for the environment.
That's what natural selection is.

 

[thecrecarc]

Originally posted by: Arkitech

Originally posted by: DosadiX
The theory that sold me on evolution had to do with RNA being the foundation of life. Because nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen are highly reactive, there was a good change that they would combine. In this combination a strand of RNA happened to form. I could look up the probabilities of these reactions occurring, but in the scheme of things, it?s fairly probably. Anyway, RNA has both structural and chemical properties that can catalyze self replication. That?s where the evolution starts. Colonies of RNA will form, mutate and migrated. Different colonies will have different sequences and will starts "competing" for hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. Its not true competition, but they are still trying to react with the available materials to replicate.

Over the course of their mutations, they started catalyzing the creations of new substances, amino acids that can and will form proteins. However, the RNA can also shape the proteins both physically and chemically. From there the RNA and proteins messed up on an RNA synthesis and catalyzed a different sugar which created an inert form of RNA called DNA.

I could go into how cell membranes and organelles formed, however it?s essentially the same process. Simple, favorable chemical reactions that are catalyzed by structure (RNA, DNA and proteins) that happen to self replicate. Furthermore, if there is no self replication, there is not possibility of a system growing in complexity. But with self replication, the systems becomes a stable control system that attempts to maintain a steady state and error can propagate the system and either send it into an unstable region (it dies) or into a new stable state (essentially evolution). Ok, now I'm jumping well beyond of the scope of this discussion and boring everyone.

No that was'nt boring at all, I thought it was a good read. However based on what you just wrote would'nt evolution continue to make lifeforms more and more complex. Should'nt mammals and other forms of life continue to get stronger and more resilient? In some cases it seems like the exact opposite.

What is stronger? Evolution has no goal, nothing its trying to "attain". Merely whoever survives better. If there was a disease or reason that every smart and buff animal was targeted and killed, eventually evolution would create weaker and dumber animals.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Lots of replies and comments and almost no bashing

I can't reply to each and every post but I have read through them all. I would like to change directions just a bit though and just see how people feel about this observation.

If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

What you're talking about IS evolution. Why are antibiotics less effective today than fifty years ago? Because bacteria are evolving immunity.

As humans, we have mitigated a lot of evolution. After all, people who are born with genetic defects are not left out in the cold to die anymore. In fact, many of them can go on to produce children and pass those defects on. Hence, we are to a small degree interfering with natural selection, the mechanism of evolution.

 

[oznerol]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Lots of replies and comments and almost no bashing

I can't reply to each and every post but I have read through them all. I would like to change directions just a bit though and just see how people feel about this observation.

If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

You are mixing physical and social evolution.

Physically, humans are still evolving - men and women now have a more similar physique than they have since the dawn mankind - primarily because the gender roles are changing. Humans are also taller.

I don't think the amount of disease and illnesses today is unprecedented. I will go so far as to say that in America, the poor live better than the "wealthy" did 1000 years ago - not to mention the average lifespan has increased from the early 30s to the late 70s.

As for your politics discussion - that is more of a social evolution. The principle of evolutionary psychology is that every living species on this planet first and foremost wants to survive and proliferate. Every organism is inherently selfish and greedy. Humans are no different. Humans discovered long ago that to survive, groups can achieve far more than the sum of the individual. Societies formed - and with them hierarchies. This occurs with the majority of other animals as well.

Problem is, humans proliferated so well that they ultimately ended up competing with each other for resources. Not much has changed in that regard today than it has during the caveman era, however societies have grown far more complex.

 

[Chronoshock]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Lots of replies and comments and almost no bashing

I can't reply to each and every post but I have read through them all. I would like to change directions just a bit though and just see how people feel about this observation.

If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

I would say that human beings aren't being affected by the classical definition of evolution. Evolution is, generally speaking, the changes life undergoes as a result of its form/makeup and its interactions with the environment. Humans have control of their environment and to some extent, their form. If one were to squeeze contemporary humans into the framework of evolution, I would say humanity and it's constructs are representative of the organism--that is, our technology can be considered as part of our being and that, more than anything else, will be what will shape and change to survive our current condition.
Again, as someone else pointed out, you shouldn't anthropomorphize nature. Evolution, nature, etc. do not have a goal or purpose.
I would consider the current state of politics and economics the effects/nature of technology (technology referred to in the anthropological sense, not the colloquial). Our environment has shaped what technologies have arisen, so in a sense, the current state of the human world is our evolutionary state.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Lots of replies and comments and almost no bashing

I can't reply to each and every post but I have read through them all. I would like to change directions just a bit though and just see how people feel about this observation.

If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

Well, let's start by abandoning the idea that evolution is always leading "up," so to speak, to better species. Evolution is merely the process of natural selection where certain mutations may be favorable adaptations to continued survival and reproduction within an environment. There is no endgame to evolution; it is not a quest for a bigger, better, faster, stronger animal (if this were true, evolution would have stopped with the dinosaurs). So the idea that evolution has hit an end is not really the correct way to view it; it's a process, and it has no end. Even an animal that is perfectly adapted for survival in its environment undergoes mutations; they may not prove useful, and will not be selected for, but it happens. Sharks have existed for hundreds of millions of years; they have undergone minor evolutionary advances in that time, but nothing as radical as what has happened to mammals.

In your disease question, evolution is still happening, it just isn't necessarily happening to us. With the advent of antibiotics such as penicillin, we became efficient and killing bacteria. But some bacteria had a natural immunity to the antibiotics. These bacteria survived while those without immunity were killed. As these antibiotic-resistant bacteria reproduced, they passed on the genes that were responsible for their resistance. Now, several decades later, penicillin, while still used, has been largely replaced with other antibiotics because many colonies of bacteria enjoy resistance to this antibiotic. This is perfectly sensible given the tenets of natural selection; favorable adapatations that allow an organism greater opportunity to reproduce are selected for and passed on to future generations. The bacteria are evolving. That said, we enjoy lower rates of disease than at any point in history, and have the longest average life span that's been seen in human history, largely due to our advances in medicine.

As for your second point... One could say that evolution has brought us to this point, but to blame evolution for the actions of humans is akin to blaming natural selection for why that bird shat on your head last week. It's meaningless. Evolution is a process; it has no goal, no priorities, no logic or reason. The process of natural selection led to larger brains in human, which inadvertently gave us the capacity for rational thought, such as designing weapons, as well as irrational thought, such as the paranoia that everyone is out to get us (so we better get them first with our weapons). So yes, this is a link in the chain of evolution; perhaps if we die out, there won't be another species whose brain evolves the capacity for complex thought (though some scientists will argue that dolphins and pigs are already there). There certainly haven't been any species following the evolutionary course of the dinosaurs, despite a 65 million year stretch where a species could have evolved to be gigantic in size. Evolution is random, though, and impossible to predict. That's what makes it so exciting.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: thecrecarc
What is stronger? Evolution has no goal, nothing its trying to "attain". Merely whoever survives better. If there was a disease or reason that every smart and buff animal was targeted and killed, eventually evolution would create weaker and dumber animals.

Indeed.
And there are always niches to fill. Maybe you've got a lot of huge, insanely strong and resilient animals. But they're also going to create some insanely huge droppings, and some kind of creature will be able to metabolize them. So you've got your huge, strong animals, and then some little critters going around as their pooper-scoopers. It's just like in a free market economy - if a market exists for something, eventually someone or something is going to come along to take advantage of it.

Originally posted by: Arkitech
If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

I look at cancer as a "luxury disease." There are some main reasons I see for the "increasing" rates:
1) We have medical science that is drastically better than anytime before in history. We don't die of an infection when we get a small cut. We don't eat parasite-ridden food. We have inoculations against common illnesses. As a result, we don't die of the little things that used to kill people at young ages. Now we have the "luxury" of being able to live long enough to die of other things nature has in store, such as DNA that doesn't always replicate properly, and then the cells multiply without killing themselves like they're supposed to, ultimately killing the entire organism. (How's that for intelligent design?)

2) That enhanced medical science also enables the proper diagnosis. A few hundred years ago, how do you diagnose a tumor? You probably decide that it's some kind of demon, and you hire an exorcist, and maybe bleed the person to get the "bad blood" out. Then eventually the person dies. Darn those evil spirits! So back then, it wasn't "cancer" because there wasn't any knowledge of cells, or DNA, nor were there MRI machines to simply have a gander at what's inside.

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

It's more of a logistics problem. Parts of the "organism" - humanity as a whole - are not being provided with sufficient nutrients. In some cases, it's because of environment, but in many cases, it's because of idiot leaders who will cause an entire region to atrophy. Kind of like having a blood clot blocking off an artery to a limb or organ. If the block is removed, the blood can flow again, bringing critical resources back, allowing for healing to begin.

 

[Aikouka]

It sounds to me like someone was reading up on Intelligent Design and their idea of "Irreducible Complexity." Did they tell you about how evolution has the same chance of occurring as a [edit]twister[/edit] traveling through a junkyard and assembling a working 747?

I heard that one during college, heh.

 

[0roo0roo]

its "hard to believe" aka my intelligence is not quite up to it isn't really good justification for doubting most things. its "hard to believe" quantum mechanics for instance. go read some books on it, evolution grows stronger every year because multiple branches of science support it. no post is going to sufficiently explain evolution.

as for illness and starvation. illness is the result of competitive evolution, you evolve immune defenses, they evolve more ways of doing you in. starvation is social evolution. it doesnt matter if theres technically enough land to feed everyone, everyone isn't working to keep everyone elses genes intact. you only really care about your family as they are related to you. and perhaps tribe, and country is nothing more than an extension of tribe/family. so if someone is starving across the globe you probably aren't going to pay for their food instead of buying a new ps3 as those people probably didn't give a f*ck about you either before they were in need.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Lots of replies and comments and almost no bashing

I can't reply to each and every post but I have read through them all. I would like to change directions just a bit though and just see how people feel about this observation.

If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

:roll: So many misstatements in this its hard to know where to start. Unprecednted plethora of disease and illness? Go look at the average human lifespan over time and then revisit your whole hypothesis.

 

[Zeeky Boogy Doog]

First, I'd like to address one issue, I'm surprised someone else didn't mention this earlier, or maybe I missed it? Natural Selection and Evolution have no relation on how life started, just how it changed since it got here, there are numerous possibilities being explored that address how life started, but the validity of any of those has no impact on the validity of evolution, it is an observable fact.

Second, I find that there are essentially two mindsets that contribute to whether or not a person readily accepts evolution, and was touched on before, and is perfectly summed up in the Douglas Adams quote earlier in the thread. An evolutionist sees the location of Earth, the elements that were available when life began and all the other parameters followed by a long chain reaction that lead to us being here today, if any of these things had been different we would not be here today. I think a creationist rejects the idea that not being here was a possibility, and therefore thinks everything is as it is for the reason of us being here today.

I must admit that I have done very little reading about intelligent design, but was fairly confident until the last month or two that this was the theory of science because of god, god set the big bang in motion, god set the laws of physics, god made the mechanics of evolution etc. It seems that after the big uproar from expelled and other reading I've been doing that this is not the case and I am actually kind of curious as to what it actually is. At any rate, I do not see the problem with this belief, there is no contradiction, science is only revealing the mechanisms of god. Science today makes no mention of god because there is no proof, but most importantly, there is no necessity, but that does not mean that a god does not exist.

Imagine this scenario, I write a program to add two numbers together. Now imagine you "live in my computer" and are examining this program. If you're a creationist, you'd likely be saying "Zeeky Boogy Doog wrote that program and therefore should be credited!" If you're a scientist you'd be saying "The two numbers come from somewhere, we're not sure if it's one of the files on the hard drive or an external input, but the CPU processes the requested action, sends the two numbers through an ALU and arrives at the concrete answer you now see." Both are correct, I did write the program, but the cpu and alu did the work, the scientists simply see no reason to recognize the programmer because it has no relevance to the outcome of the addition.

Just for reference, I am an atheist. Also, I just did a refresh and this thread is dieing it seems, but it took me a while to type out because I kept getting up to do things at work, but it's long and I do love reading these discussions, so I'll go ahead and bump it.

 

[Chronoshock]

Originally posted by: Zeeky Boogy Doog
First, I'd like to address one issue, I'm surprised someone else didn't mention this earlier, or maybe I missed it? Natural Selection and Evolution have no relation on how life started, just how it changed since it got here, there are numerous possibilities being explored that address how life started, but the validity of any of those has no impact on the validity of evolution, it is an observable fact.

I mentioned Abiogenesis and two possible theories

 

[thecrecarc]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock

Originally posted by: Zeeky Boogy Doog
First, I'd like to address one issue, I'm surprised someone else didn't mention this earlier, or maybe I missed it? Natural Selection and Evolution have no relation on how life started, just how it changed since it got here, there are numerous possibilities being explored that address how life started, but the validity of any of those has no impact on the validity of evolution, it is an observable fact.

I mentioned Abiogenesis and two possible theories

Well, I mentioned abiogenesis but barley touched it

 

[jonks]

The universe is too organized and complex for it to have developed out of chaos, so it must have been designed. But such a being able to create the universe would have to be such an organized and complex entity that IT must have had a designer. And the being who designed the designer must be even more complex...those crazy turtles!

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

Um, yes? Animals are dieing out because there too weak to stand against humans. Guess what does survive in a human-ruled world? Bacteria of course. Yes, it's just evolution starting to work against us.

 

[shocksyde]

Anyone who simply claims "someone must have designed it" is weak-minded, in my opinion.

There was a mention of disease earlier. I know of a mental disease that billions of people have that is seemingly incurable.

 

[Leafy]

What disturbs me even more about evolutionary theory is that there is no concrete evidence of life currently evolving that can be studied or used as a reference. I've mentioned this before in previous discussions and the common answer is that it takes millions of years for changes to take place. But this always bugged me because if it takes that amount of time to evolve or adapt to an environment then life would perish before it had a chance to acclimate to its current surroundings.

Life doesn't enter a state of "evolving" - nothing starts evolving when it turns a certain age. Do you even know what evolution is? How can you debate something you don't understand? How can our public education have failed you so badly?

Evolution - The process by which all forms of plant and animal life change slowly over time because of slight variations in the genes that one generation passes down to the next.

Plants give off life sustaining oxygen, they provide food, nutrients and vitamins which help sustain the animal life. In turn animals breathe out carbon dioxide which the plants need, animal waste also nourishes the soil which plants use for survival.

Do you know how plants evolved? Also, who is to say that all irreducibly complex systems (read: symbiosis) evolved at the same time? Consider this:

Organism A produces Material X.
Organism B evolves to take advantage of Material X and produces Material Y.
Organism A evolves to take advantage of Material Y since Organism B is dependent on it.

Would this not result in this irreducibly complex relationship that you see today? Just because they are all tightly woven doesn't mean they evolved all at once.

Did all life on Earth evolve at the same time?

No.

Did all current mammals living today evolve from the same source?

Read the cell theory.

What about insects, reptiles, trees, bacteria, etc..? There is a staggering amount of unique life forms on the Earth, did they all come into existence by sheer chance?

Yes? Is this so hard for you to understand: Of the near-infinite number of possible branches that evolution could have taken, it took this one?

Originally posted by: antyler
Just think of something like the human eye ball.!!! does it really seem like something like that, that complex with that many layers and different working parts can really be an accident, or part of a genetic mutation? really?

What a perfect example as the evolution of the eye has been mapped already.

 

[Zeeky Boogy Doog]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock

Originally posted by: Zeeky Boogy Doog
First, I'd like to address one issue, I'm surprised someone else didn't mention this earlier, or maybe I missed it? Natural Selection and Evolution have no relation on how life started, just how it changed since it got here, there are numerous possibilities being explored that address how life started, but the validity of any of those has no impact on the validity of evolution, it is an observable fact.

I mentioned Abiogenesis and two possible theories

Touche Chronoshock :beer:

I had forgotten about that, I think I still would have mentioned it though, simply because many times, unless explicitly stated, those that do not understand what evolution is assume that evolution explains the origin of life, not the origin of species (Abiogenesis = evolution). That's what finally made it all make sense to me, when I was able to make that distinction. Until about 9th or 10th grade I couldn't figure out how evolution explained how nothing equaled something, then I finally had a teacher that could teach, and fortunately he taught bio and it clicked. I went back and forth while reading trying to decide if the OP knew, but never made up my mind, so I had to make sure.

 

[Arkitech]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Lots of replies and comments and almost no bashing

I can't reply to each and every post but I have read through them all. I would like to change directions just a bit though and just see how people feel about this observation.

If evolution is a system or process of describing how lifeforms better adapt and survive in it's environment how should we look at our current situation as a whole. At the moment humans are facing an unprecedented plethora of disease and illnesses. Cancer rates are climbing, infectious diseases are increasing and in many cases they are incurable. Medical science has been able to contain some of these illnesses so that they are'nt killing it's victims outright, but the problems persist. Is this a stage of evolution? Is nature weeding out the weak so that the strong will prevail? Or is evolution nearing its final stages or hit a proverbial deadend?

As with illnesses has evolution brought man to the point where it must destroy the planet to assert his dominance? By this I mean look at the state of politics and economics, the Earth has the ability to produce enough food to sustain every man, woman and child but because of politics people are literally are starving to death on a daily basis by the thousands. Would this be considered a link in the chain of evolution?

:roll: So many misstatements in this its hard to know where to start. Unprecednted plethora of disease and illness? Go look at the average human lifespan over time and then revisit your whole hypothesis.

Not really. In early human history (this is debateable if you don't believe in the bible) the lifespan for people were much longer than what it is today. This changed obviously over time and the lifespan for people was much shorter due to lack of knowledge in medicine and science.

As far as illnesses go again this is a point that can be argued since many diseases in centuries past were undocumented. However with such a large population of people on the planet right now, one can logically assume that the breeding ground for new and unusual diseases is fertile. Also since people can easily move from one part of the earth to another it's easier to spread infections than ever before.

 

[dennilfloss]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
What disturbs me even more about evolutionary theory is that there is no concrete evidence of life currently evolving that can be studied or used as a reference.

http://www.newscientist.com/ch...-shift-in-the-lab.html

 

[PieIsAwesome]

What is complex?

Things are not complex or simple. We think they are complex or simple. Whether something is complex or not is relative. Something of far less intellectual ability may see what we see as simple as very complex. Something of far greater intellectual ability may see what we see as very complex as very simple.

If the universe or universes are infinite, then how could anything less than the infinite not occur?