i fucking love science

[smat]

So... Organisms have reacted to pressures in their environment by adapting via minute changes from generation to generation to generation to the extent that they are now winning in an 'arms race' against another organism which is hunting them.

Anyone want to argue against Evolution again?

No. Creationists don't post in here. Try Reddit.

 

[blade1889]

Very few people disagree that evolution occurs, I think even the Pope has admitted that recently. We can observe evolution occurring right now and that study is just one of many.

However we cant visualise what has happened in the past. We have fossils and we have DNA sequences that evolve/mutate at a standard rate so can predict time scales etc. which match up...so in my opinion it is incredibly likely that we have a fairly accurate picture if human evolution. But without direct observations via a Time Machine there will always be doubt and cause for debate which I believe is the main issue.

The second issue is evolution 'by natural selection'. Again, it makes sense for it to occur and I haven't seen a compelling argument against it. But again we cant prove it. Evolution has no conscience so we can't sit an organism down and ask why it evolved. We can only hypothesise.

But yeah evolution occurs...that cant be debated

 

[silkyman]

But without direct observations via a Time Machine there will always be doubt and cause for debate which I believe is the main issue.

But without direct observations via a Time Machine there will always be doubt and cause for debate which I believe is the main issue.

The second issue is evolution 'by natural selection'. Again, it makes sense for it to occur and I haven't seen a compelling argument against it. But again we cant prove it. Evolution has no conscience so we can't sit an organism down and ask why it evolved. We can only hypothesise.

Well, you can directly observe it. ie bacteria evolving to become resistant to antibiotics.

And you don't need to be able to go back in time to watch to say it happened. You can look at the evidence we have, from the fossil record, DNA comparisons, other similarities and differences between creatures etc. The best metaphor I've seen is thinking of it as a crime scene. No one was there to witness the murder, but you can find clues, and enough clues adds up to an unarguable position.

I don't get the second bit. There is no consciousness to evolution because it spans hundreds of generations.

 

[blade1889]

But without direct observations via a Time Machine there will always be doubt and cause for debate which I believe is the main issue.



Well, you can directly observe it. ie bacteria evolving to become resistant to antibiotics.

And you don't need to be able to go back in time to watch to say it happened. You can look at the evidence we have, from the fossil record, DNA comparisons, other similarities and differences between creatures etc. The best metaphor I've seen is thinking of it as a crime scene. No one was there to witness the murder, but you can find clues, and enough clues adds up to an unarguable position.

I don't get the second bit. There is no consciousness to evolution because it spans hundreds of generations.

You can observe evolution but you can only hypothesise the reasons for it. - that's the consciousness part. We can hypothesise the reasons for certain evolutionary characteristics but its essentially impossible to prove...instead just finding very probable reasons.

As I said there is a lot of evidence for human evolution, how it happened etc. And I am not debating the scientific explanations for human evolution. However the reasons for human evolution being debated by creationists are that we cant observe our ancestors. We only have fossil records and the molecular clock...which provide fantastic evidence but can and are debated as we don't know previous conditions etc. which may have been different.

I am semi playing devils advocate here as I am firmly in the atheist camp and would argue for humans evolution from a single cell till I'm blue in the face...but there are reasons why it s debated that I cant see ever being solved.

 

[silkyman]

We also have DNA analasys that shows the whole 'family tree' and shows how closesy related different animals are to other similar ones.

There's layer upon layer of evidence. So much that it's impossible for it not to be a true representation. The fact that we can't whiz back in time and actually watch the moment when humans broke away from other primates, doesn't make any difference (partly because even that took generations and generations)

Using the crime scene analogy, you can prove someone is guilty even if the only witnesses were the murderer and the victim. And that's what's great about science. It is always looking for more information, even when something has been proved to be a fact. (People still research the nature of gravity, and I'm fairly sure we can all agree that Gravity is a thing that exists. Despite it still being 'newton's theory of gravity')

 

[blade1889]

Reading back I have really not explained myself at all well...so apologies I'm also normally arguing your side haha

The family tree debate does rely on some assumptions and previous environments. I'm trying to get into the Ham v Nye debate but erm...messing it up...it's an interesting watch though and on youtube. Some assumptions mainly being early life and switches to DNA life from RNA, multi-celled life and to an extent reproduction asexual and sexual.

What I should've drawn out more was the Natural Selection side. We can observe evolution and we can make fairly accurate inferences on past evolution. But its very hard to prove in eukaryotes (plants and animals) either ast or present. Mainly as it takes generations but also you cant control all variables. So asking the question of why things evolved will always remain a hypothesis.

 

[silkyman]

Why things evolve isn't even a question.

If there are two similar but mildly different organisms, the one which is better at surviving in its environment will eventually dominate and outlive the other.

The gazelle who is best equipped to avoid the cheetah is most likely to breed, as is the cheetah who is fast enough to catch that gazelle. Which is why we have big cats who can run fast enough to get stopped for speeding on the motorway, and gazelles who can leap and dodge to avoid them. It's an arms race.

 

[blade1889]

Why they evolve and the mechanisms is actually a big question and far more complex than an arms race.

There are pro's and con's to many mutations. Genetic drift can lead to poor mutations being kept in the population, for example Cystic Fibrosis. And it can lead to good mutations being removed from a population/species.

Why did the peacock evolve its patterns?

Natural selection is clearly an obvious cause in many cases. Proving it is very different. All we really generate are correlations without causations. Again our past being more difficult than the observable present as we lack information on environment.

Edit: sod it I'm clutching at straws here. No idea how creationists argue this. As an aside I do remember a first year lecture where the guy passionately argued that evolution is a fact but evolution by natural selection is theory as it isn't falsifiable just highly probable. Personally I go with Dawkins' description of a fact as being something with so much evidence you'd be stupid to disagree with it.

 

[silkyman]

http://m.livescience.com/5066-peacocks-colorful-tails.html

They use them in displays to earn the right to mate. Sexual selection like that is the easiest to see leading to evolution because of only the peacocks with the largest tails get to mate, then their offspring will inherit that trait. Same as why deer and moose developed antlers. Beneficial in winning Alpha Male status so more likely to be passed on.

 

[silkyman]

Genetic mutations and diseases, and other various fuckups help to give evidence away from any 'designer' as well as nodding at the 'why' by way of the 'why not'. An evolutionary shift needs a specific pressure to occur (a slightly faster cheetah for example) DNA is fallible so will occasionally mess up. The evolutionary pressure needed to rewrite the building blocks of life itself is a little bit higher than the pressure exerted by a few offspring not reaching maturity due to a genetic disease. If we were designed by a perfect being, it wouldn't happen.

There are a couple of other great examples. If you've ever suffered from sinus pain, you can thank evolution. Our skull is designed more for a quadruped than a biped, so they don't drain right. But again, the evolutionary pressure needed to re-jig the skull is less than the problems caused by a few annoying headaches from time to time.

And then there's this

If the giraffe, or indeed humans, were 'designed' then we wouldn't have internal plumbing that works best in fish. But with evolution, you can see how that bizarre bit of biology can occur.

 

[silkyman]

https://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/ten-consequences-of-human-evolution/

 

[JimJams]

... we have big cats who can run fast enough to get stopped for speeding on the motorway, and gazelles who can leap and dodge to avoid them. It's an arms race.

Fucking hell they've got arms now as well? Evolution is getting quicker!

 

[silkyman]

Well, If they did, I'd hope they got some feline lemsip to sort those sinus problems.

 

[blade1889]

http://m.livescience.com/5066-peacocks-colorful-tails.html

They use them in displays to earn the right to mate. Sexual selection like that is the easiest to see leading to evolution because of only the peacocks with the largest tails get to mate, then their offspring will inherit that trait. Same as why deer and moose developed antlers. Beneficial in winning Alpha Male status so more likely to be passed on.

Except the larger tails also make them easier prey which is kinda fucked up...dont think that's the same in moose. The leading theory being that if a peacock can survive and still have that disadvantage then it's clearly a healthy peacock with good genes. Whereas the moose uses them to fight for a mate...i assume!? So some people argue sexual selection is just a subset of natural selection anyway.

There are loads of examples. Evolutionary constraints are quite common. Giraffes have the same number of vertebrae in their necks as all mammals, they also have left recurrent laryngeal nerve whose route down the neck to come back up around the heart can only be explained by evolution which I'm guessing that video explains (my phone fucks up and wont play them). Also if you ever watch lizards run you see that they stop often, because they use the same muscles to run that fish used to breath and move (sideways movement) which compresses their lungs...or sumat like that. Inner Fish is an interesting read (by Neil Shubin who discovered Tiktalik) on our evolution from fish and the clues that still remain in the human body. As well as evolutionary constraints genetic drift helps to fix bad mutations in a population...especially things like CF which dont show a phenotype when you don't have two copies of them.

 

[SALTIRE]

Saw a doc last night about colour and how animals and flowers use colour for their gain, it was fascinating.

 

[blade1889]

No idea where to post this but found it on IFLS.

What the ####!?
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/why-japan-finding-ghost-ships-full-dead-bodies

 

[slaphead]

I have nothing to add to this thread other than I don't understand a word of it, but it makes compulsive reading.

As you were....

 

[blade1889]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35009455

Just cos giraffes got a mention earlier.

 

[silkyman]

Don't be daft. The world's only 10,000 years old...

 

[silkyman]

I have nothing to add to this thread other than I don't understand a word of it, but it makes compulsive reading.

As you were....

You can find most of my stuff on Wikipedia...

Meanwhile...

Stonehenge may have been first erected in Wales, 'amazing' finds suggest | UK news | The Guardian - www.theguardian.com
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/07/stonehenge-first-erected-in-wales-secondhand-monument

Archaeology is cool.

 

[voltage]

Just read about the development of a biological powered chip which is based on the same process of human energy transportation. It was produced by CMOS technology and it holds a membrane that is fed by the same nucleotides responsible for energy storage in living beings cells. I don't know exactly for what function it will be used but the developers said there's vast possibilities of applying these chips for new specific functions. And they pointed the possibility of attempt the chip "to feel" tastes and smells in the future.

(The article's name I refer is Hybrid integrated biological solid-state system powered with adenosine triphosphate published at Nature Communications and the authors are Jared M. Roseman, Jianxun Lin, Siddharth Ramakrishnan, Jacob K. Rosenstein and Kenneth L. Shepard)

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Man walks into bar and says I'll have a pint of adenosine triphosphate please. Barman says that'll be 80p mate.

 

[silkyman]

Heisenberg gets pulled over by the police.

'Excuse me sir, do you know how fast you were going?'

'Yes... But I'm lost.'

 

[silkyman]

Schroedinger is pulled over by the police.

'Excuse me sir, do you know you have a dead can in this box?'

'I do now....'

 

[silkyman]

A neutron walked into a bar and asked, "How much for a gin and tonic?" The bartender smiled wryly and replied, "For you, no charge."

 

[silkyman]

Did you hear about the physicist who was accidentally chilled to -273.15C.... He's 0K now...

 

[silkyman]

What did the hipster dog say to his owner?
"My favorite frequency is 50,000 hertz but you've probably never heard of that."

 

[blade1889]

Cos who doesn't love optical illusions?

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/melt-bending-optical-illusion-will-mess-your-sense-perspective

 

[johnnytodd]

Saw a doc last night about colour and how animals and flowers use colour for their gain, it was fascinating.

sounds shit tbh

 

[SALTIRE]

sounds shit tbh

Stick with yer x factor toddles.