helene_t Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Doesn't the information about "ring species" demonstrate nicely how new species evolve? Yes, that's a good point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 richard calls the distinction between macro- and micro-evolution "farcial" but is it really? I suspect that anyone with even remote familiarity with the scientific method would consider it farcical... Its useful to have some background information about just where the distinction between micro and macro evolution came from. One of the two creation myths included in Genesis includes the following And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Many creationists are willing to except so-called "micro-evolution" because it doesn't result in the emergence of a new species. They are unwilling to except "macro evolution" because it violates their interpretation of Genesis.They entire distinction comes about because creationists are trying to force their so-called "science" to conform to what's probably a mistranslation of a mistranslation... actually that isn't where the terms came from... from wiki "Russian entomologist Yuri Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration) first coined the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" in 1927 in his German language work, "Variabilität und Variation". Since the inception of the two terms, their meanings have been revised several times and even fallen into disfavour amongst scientists who prefer to speak of biological evolution as one process." i suspect the terms fell into disfavor amongst scientists for the reason richard gave that doesn't help me, helene... why are they not two separate processes? my understanding, which may be flawed, is that macroevolution is that which results in a new species while micro- is that which results in changes within a species... as i said, my understanding may be incorrect... i'm sure someone will correct me as needed Doesn't the information about "ring species" demonstrate nicely how new species evolve?i'll have to read the link provided, i haven't done so yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Darwin's theory, or breakthrough, is really natural selection, not evolution, isn't it? Good question. Today the term "Darwinism" refers to the theory of evolution by natural selection. The evidence for evolution is a bunch of facts collected by thousands of biologists, natural selection (in combination with the Mendelian* inheritance laws and mutations) is the theory that accounts for it. There has been (at least) one other theory accounting for evolution, namely the one of inheritance of acquired features, associated with Lamarch and Lysenko. While Darwin was not the first to propose evolution, he was the first to provide large amounts of evidence for it. He may also have been the first to propose the idea that different modern species may descent from the same ancestor, which is very important of course. The idea of evolution by natural selection has been proposed at least twice before Darwin (I am too lazy to find the refs, they are in Daniel Denett's "Darwin's dangerous idea"), but I think Darwin was the first to relate the idea to large amounts of evidence. The earlier two were just philosophizing. Maybe most importantly, Darwin was the first to write decent books about evolution and natural selection, and thereby to have large impact on the scientific community and even the general public. *This post-dates Darwin so when Darwin wrote his books, his theory had still a major hole. He recognized this himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOut Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 that doesn't help me, helene... why are they not two separate processes? my understanding, which may be flawed, is that macroevolution is that which results in a new species while micro- is that which results in changes within a species... as i said, my understanding may be incorrect... i'm sure someone will correct me as needed Doesn't the information about "ring species" demonstrate nicely how new species evolve?i'll have to read the link provided, i haven't done so yet Because you seem to have read some about evolution, I figured you'd probably given some thought to "ring species" before Richard posted that link. It's one of the more commonly discussed examples of how evolution works. I'm interested in whether this example affects your opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Even I learned in Biology:Ontogeny recapitulates phylogenyThat's not actually true. Early embryologists noticed some similarity between developing fetuses and ancestral forms (such as mammals fetuses having gills) and came up with this hypothesis. But as biologists have studied development more closely, they've found that there isn't really a strict correlation between ontogeny and phylogeny. We've inherited genes from all our ancestors, and some of them have active effects at various times during development, but not all of them and not necessarily in the historical order. I don't know if a supreme being exists or not. I'm not sure why it happening only once is any more or less likely than a supreme being.Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Because you seem to have read some about evolution, I figured you'd probably given some thought to "ring species" before Richard posted that link. It's one of the more commonly discussed examples of how evolution works. I'm interested in whether this example affects your opinion.no, i haven't read anything on it... the soonest i'll be able to is this weekend (i mean read it, not scan it)I don't know if a supreme being exists or not. I'm not sure why it happening only once is any more or less likely than a supreme being.Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once.peculiar... i'd think occam's razor more easily fits in with a creator rather than no creator... another peculiarity to me is how non-believers can see the same things believers see yet can not see intelligent design in them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdonn Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Lukewarm I'm curious, have you thought about Helene's paint analogy? I think it's a really good analogy despite being (or because it is?) very simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once.peculiar... i'd think occam's razor more easily fits in with a creator rather than no creator... That is true only because believers in supreme beings shut down their analytical faculties at the point where they state: God did this. God is, to a religious person, what a 'black box' is to an engineer... it is a device that does something important, but for current purposes, need not be analyzed. Of course, some would argue that, when we are looking at ultimate causes, the black box should be analyzed :) I admit that physics, as currently understood, only takes us so far... we can explain the universe from a very early time.. tiny fractions of a second after the big bang... all the way to star formation, planetary creation, and the beginnings of life... and string theory suggests that we may be able to intellectually envisage some form of existence beyond that currently susceptible to detection via technology... but no-one yet has any explanation, founded in physics, that answers the ultimate questions about why the universe or multiverses exist. It may well be that the question is meaningless. It may also be that minds that evolved as our did are incapable of ever comprehending the 'answers'. But calling the as-yet-unknown areas 'god' is not recourse to Occam's razor.. it is an intellectually lazy avoidance of thought. As for Skolnick's issues... I suspect that part of the problem may lie in terminology. When I was a student.. high school level... I never studied these areas in university... I learned that a species was a distinct grouping of individuals. Physics was also taught, at that time, in an analogous manner. We now understand that almost everything is a continuum of some kind. We have opened our intellectual eyes to the reality of a far more complex, interactive, messy, and glorious reality. A reality in which viruses can transfer genes from one creature to another.. a reality in which the ring species to which others have referred can exist. A reality in which new species have arisen in laboratories.. a reality in which chaos theory results in a much more subtle understanding of the world than was possible 50 years ago. And so on, and so on. We tend to lump entities into discreet blocks, presumably because the tendency to do so fostered reproductive success in our ancestors.. just as we presume that our tendency to see pattern in random dots (or the night sky) arose as an evolutionary adaptation. But, as we move from being primarily actors to being primarily thinkers, in terms of our interaction with the universe, these old tendencies can be counter-productive.. our common sense may be common, but it may no longer be sensible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 That is true only because believers in supreme beings shut down their analytical faculties at the point where they state: God did this. I think you are generalizing too much here. It appears to be possible for some to reconcile religion with scientific thought. I suppose it could go along the line of "we have to find out how God did it". Saying that God made the apple* hit Newton's head apparently doesn't necessarily stop one from accepting the law of gravity. Or one could insist of keeping religion and science apart as Elianna described. (Not that I quite understand it but Codo approved it :) ) In any case I know a few deeply religious (theist or otherwise) scientists and it seems to me that they don't think radically differently than I about scientific issues. There may or may not be differences with respect to "deep" philosophical thoughts about ultimative causes, but that could be true between two atheists as well (or between two theists, I suppose). *It may be an urban legend but that doesn't matter for this purpose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Occam's razor? one of my favourites. Non supreme being means universe and all the physic laws are there ad-oc, just appeared from nowhere, and have no purpose other than just exist. Beleiving in god is more simple. There is something that is playing with us as barbie dolls and might create things if it ever pays enough attention to our little world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Occam's razor? one of my favourites. Non supreme being means universe and all the physic laws are there ad-oc, just appeared from nowhere, and have no purpose other than just exist. Beleiving in god is more simple. There is something that is playing with us as barbie dolls and might create things if it ever pays enough attention to our little world. Well, to each his own. Occam's Razor was meant as a selection criterion for scientific ideas. The existence of God is not a scientific (testable) idea, unless one subscribes to a naive view of God as some physical being such as an old eremite who lives on Olympus. But of course, if Occam's Razor is one of your favorites it's fine to use it for the selection of religious ideas as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenrexford Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 If one cell, in a very short period of time, can diversify itself into a wildly complex matrix of multitudes of interrelated but completely different cells, then how hard is the next step of assuming that one wildly complex matrix of interrelated but completely different cells can tweak ever-so-slightly into a slightly different matrix of the essentiialy identical matrix, given thousands or millions of very short periods of time? Is this not simply that same one cell diversifying itself into a wildly complex super-matrix of different cells, interrelated in a more attentuated sense but nonetheless part of the same super-matrix? Of course, I cannot even figure out how one amoeba becomes two amoebae. Sure, I have heard a bit about the mechanics, but it still makes no sense to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Lukewarm I'm curious, have you thought about Helene's paint analogy? I think it's a really good analogy despite being (or because it is?) very simple.not much, but i will... i only have time for short reads/replies right now and i'm afraid my computer at home might have a virusThat is true only because believers in supreme beings shut down their analytical faculties at the point where they state: God did this.no we don'tI admit that physics, as currently understood, only takes us so far... we can explain the universe from a very early time.. tiny fractions of a second after the big bang... no "we" can't... "we" aren't even sure the BB is correct Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vuroth Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 I don't know if a supreme being exists or not. I'm not sure why it happening only once is any more or less likely than a supreme being.Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once.peculiar... i'd think occam's razor more easily fits in with a creator rather than no creator... another peculiarity to me is how non-believers can see the same things believers see yet can not see intelligent design in them As to the appliation of Occam's razor, it really depends, doesn't it? Scientists are trying to build a chain from the big band to the existence of all life on earth as we know it (as well as all physical phenomenon observable and reproducable via experiment in the universe). If you take the time to really try to read the theories, you'll find they have build some VERY impressive chains. But yes, there are still some gaps. And really, if you're interested in applying Occam's razor to the divine intervention question, then really, you need to reevaluate every time the biggest gap in the scientist's chain gets smaller. Of course, the gap size may reduce to zero, and it may not. It may also depend on whether a particular gap is bridged with solid scientific theory, or merely a "reasonable" hypothesis. 200 years ago, the gaps were vast. Now, the chains are vast, and the gaps are starting to be the exceptions. Whichever side of the coin you're on, I think, the endgame is going to be very interesting. Closing the chain would be amazing, but so would scientific proof that the chain can not be closed. V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Occam's razor? one of my favourites. Non supreme being means universe and all the physic laws are there ad-oc, just appeared from nowhere, and have no purpose other than just exist. Beleiving in god is more simple. There is something that is playing with us as barbie dolls and might create things if it ever pays enough attention to our little world.I think you miss a very important point. I assume that your idea of God is that it is some entity that existed before the universe came about... we needn't worry about whether it continued thereafter, for now. What does it mean to 'exist' in the absence of the universe? Does time exist before the universe? If so.. how does it pass... If time does exist before the universe, that implies an origin... a beginning... of what? Beginnings imply (to our meat brains) something 'before' the beginning. What was that? When did your God begin? What preceded your God? If your God began... why? Was it created? By what? And the questions about your God then arise about God's creator? If your answer is that God always existed and that these questions are meaningless.... consider.... I would argue that perhaps it is the universe that has always existed, in the sense that time did not exist BEFORE the universe came into existence (the Hawking no initial boundary condition proposal). Surely you can see that the argument that God always existed is equivalent to the argument that the universe always existed? Or that the argument that God somehow came into existence and that we cannot understand why or how is no more explanatory of anything than is the argument that the universe somehow came into existence without any divine act? All you have done, with your resort to God as the ultimate cause is to push the questioning one level further than is needed... or (and this is my suspicion about virtually all believers) you have decided that all thinking has to stop once you invoke the God explanation. That is not, regardless of how you may wish it to be, an application of Occam's razor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASkolnick Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Trust me, I am not a bible expert or even a creationist at all. My only point is that Creationism (if not taken literally) and Evolution can co-exist together as a theory. Also, let's assume through a series of mutations that a new "species" is born. Who gets to categorize it as a new species? Theoretically, if they started from the same population, couldn't they not be grouped based on their starting point and not their evolved form. I'm not saying they are, but somebody decided this is how they should be grouped. I can start with a horse and donkey coming up with a mule. Let's say the mules can then reproduce (yes, I know they can't). There is nothing to say you could not group together horses and donkeys as the same species. Call this group Hornkeys. If in the bible there were 100 (don't know the number off hand) groups listed, it is possible to use a different taxonomy then the one created to create those groups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 If in the bible there were 100 (don't know the number off hand) groups listed, it is possible to use a different taxonomy then the one created to create those groups. Good point, but there is probably only one group, then, since all life is probably related. Maybe some microorganisms are not related to us but it is beyond doubt that plants, animals and funghi are related (the group is called eucaryotes). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naresh301 Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 I find the application of Occam's razor to this discussion quite strange. Doesn't one have to believe in Occam's razor, similar to believing in Intelligent Design? Can someone scientifically justify why Occam's razor should be true at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Also, let's assume through a series of mutations that a new "species" is born. Who gets to categorize it as a new species? Theoretically, if they started from the same population, couldn't they not be grouped based on their starting point and not their evolved form. I'm not saying they are, but somebody decided this is how they should be grouped. What does it matter how "species" is defined? What is important is that living things evolve through natural selection. I think the example of a horse and a donkey misses the point by quite a bit. The evolution of species is not usually the result of inter-species breeding, but rather slow change through intra-species breeding. I also think that our conception of time is such that it is very hard for people to understand what millions of years mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Trust me, I am not a bible expert or even a creationist at all. My only point is that Creationism (if not taken literally) and Evolution can co-exist together as a theory. Also, let's assume through a series of mutations that a new "species" is born. Who gets to categorize it as a new species? Theoretically, if they started from the same population, couldn't they not be grouped based on their starting point and not their evolved form. I'm not saying they are, but somebody decided this is how they should be grouped. I can start with a horse and donkey coming up with a mule. Let's say the mules can then reproduce (yes, I know they can't). There is nothing to say you could not group together horses and donkeys as the same species. Call this group Hornkeys. If in the bible there were 100 (don't know the number off hand) groups listed, it is possible to use a different taxonomy then the one created to create those groups.The very concepts of species or taxonomy are man-made.. they are intellectual devices that were created in order to allow for some logical means of describing the world. And the placement of 'species' within families or clades was originally done based on macroscopic similarities, since macroscopic examination was all that was available, and, moreover, the general concepts still in use today were created before evolution through natural selection was developed as a theory. Genetic analysis has resulted in a number of reclassifications, and a much better understanding of variability within as well as between 'species'.. 'Nature', which is not a conscious entity, and 'evolution', which is a mechanism rather than a thinking entity, don't 'care' about species.. but we humans like to have neat categorizations... we tend to forget about the blurring that often occurs at the boundaries.. think about our perception of colour.. the visible spectrum is a continuum of wavelengths... yet we have distinct names for the primary colours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al_U_Card Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 AFAIK Occam's razor has to do with energetic conformances. The most stable equilibrium is the one that occupies the state of least potential energy (or thereabouts). Thus, the obvious answer is the real one IFF it meets the criteria associated with the inquiry (not Ben specifically but perhaps generally...lol) Kind of like asking: "How did we get here?" and answering; "It was in the direction that we were going..." :o Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 'Nature', which is not a conscious entity, and 'evolution', which is a mechanism rather than a thinking entity, don't 'care' about species.. Well, ring-species and other curiosities nonwithstanding, the clustering of contemporary, sexually reproducing organisms into "species" is generally a real phenomena. This is because as long as all the organisms in a group can reproduce mutually they will tend to do so and thereby prevent their genomes from drifting apart. Once they split into subgroups that are not mutually sexually compatible, they will drift apart. In an evolutionary context you are correct though, and for non-sexual organisms the concept of "species" is arbitrary. AFAIK Occam's razor has to do with energetic conformances. Lol, the chemist's interpretation :) As a statistician I would day that it is the idea that among equally well-fitting models one should chose the one with the fewest parameters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 There's almost never a moment when a new species is "born", that's simply not how evolution works. No offspring is ever in a different species than its parent. It takes an accumulation of mutations over a number of generations before you can declare that an organism is in a different species than its great-great-great-...-grandparents. That's why the ring species example is so useful. Each group is able to reproduce with its immediate neighbors, although they generally prefer not to, which keeps them distinct. But as you go further around the ring, compatibility drops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al_U_Card Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 AFAIK Occam's razor has to do with energetic conformances. Lol, the chemist's interpretation :) As a statistician I would day that it is the idea that among equally well-fitting models one should chose the one with the fewest parameters. Well, at least my university degree served a useful purpose...(3rd time this life...lol). The cross pollination of our disciplines (physical chemistry) might be somewhere in the middle... :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 If your answer is that God always existed and that these questions are meaningless.... consider.... I would argue that perhaps it is the universe that has always existed, in the sense that time did not exist BEFORE the universe came into existence. I remember this discussion before, if universe always existed, the only thing that makes sense to me is that time is cyclic, and at some point the universe will return to every state it has. The idea of having to live my life making the same stupid mistakes infinite times is not very appealing, but gladly Gerben told me that this is not true, there is randomness in the universe, and not everything is predictable (I don't understand this. It looks contradictory with the way I see time, but Gerben knows more than me, and it also makes a kind of sense, since otherwise after big bang I would had bet the universe would be symetric). If god has left us after creating the universe, I don't know. Maybe. When I see my sister playing SIMs, I feel like she is the God of that micro universe. There are many questions with no answer, why not 5 dimensional space?, why gravitatios attracts and not the contrary?, why these sets of physic laws and not some others?, are they arbitrary?, designed?. But anyway the strongest one to make me believe something is out-there still is: why the universe exists?. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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