Well, the action to say that God doesn't exist because theres no scientific proof is insulting our ability to believe. Dont' know where that was going.
In a severe case of non-existance, nothing would have happened.
Also, Evolution needs a reason. You can't say that nothing happens for a reason. Everything has reason, or we wouldn't need to wonder about things. We would just say they exist or happen.
Well, it's how you look at "good." These mutations were chaotic - so that means there was no reason by the mutations or specific things about the cause of the mutations. With all of the mutations, only a few would actually help the little critter - meaning perhaps a little better chance of surviving and bearing children who would have a similar mutation. We tend to see evolution as forward progress, but that's natural selection. And even natural selection isn't really "forward" it just so happens that certain things are better in certain places. Take being tall, for example. If there are a lot of trees then being tall is "good" since you can reach up, but in a plain being tall is "bad" because you'll stick out and be hunted down. That's why evolution shouldn't be called "forward moving" since it's not really directional. It just is what it is.
I really don't think that everything needs a reason. There are plenty of chaotic things that happen around us every day - just look at the stock market. We can try to retrospectively attach reason to certain events, but really that's a fallacy of false cause. We just try to use words like cause and reason to help us understand things better - especially in cases like that, where cause can't be determined since there's no way to predict events.
Lmao. He made a murderous rant earlier, but, It was a bit too long so I couldn't hit all of his points.
Anyway, If the "theory" evolves over time it'll always be a theory until some scientific breakthrough. I get where your coming from with the reason thing, but the fact is if everything came out of evolutionism then we'd need some sort of proof. Sure, the stock market went down, but then again, someone born 1 minuite ago miraculously could say its always been like this, and it just is this way. Obviously it hasn't seen a GOOD stock market.
So, if we evolved from "Homo Erectus" [Whatever that may be] then please tell me how we instantly stopped. The theory itself is sort of corrupt, sure it could be true, but I doubt thats possible since theres no evidence leading to it besides DNA scans. Its like me saying Unicorns exist because we found a horse with a bump on its head.
Well, I think there's good evidence that we're still evolving. As a species, we're much taller now than we once were, our appendixes don't do anything anymore (except get inflamed and have to be removed) and this is just from a few hundred years ago. Some argue that since we alter our environment that our environment cannot alter us - thus a reason for us having "stopped evolving." But if the mutations are chaotic, then we should just mutate whenever, which certainly happens to some babies. I think another part of the process is that we have really artificially spread ourselves out and increased our numbers, which is going to have a lot more to do with how a mutation would be propagated to children. But I do think we're still evolving, it's just a very very long process and our environmental "self-corrections" aren't really facilitating the process.
Argh, I leave for half a day and the thread blows up again.
I'm going to expand on Moe's point, by taking an example of how this non-purposeful evolution in recent times applies to humans, and how human behavior and evolution are mutually interdependent. I'm going to cite the congenital condition of thalassaemia.
(Link is to Wikipedia; since medical articles on the Wiki are usually peer-reviewed by other medical students and professionals, they are generally far more reliable than other types of Wiki article. But I am doing the following off the top of my head as I have a point to make.)
Thalassaemia, broadly speaking, is the group of conditions which stem from a mutation in the code for the production of haemoglobin proteins. In short, it's a genetic mutation, and it affects the effectiveness of red blood cells to take up oxygen.
Seeing as there are several proteins in a RBC haemoglobin and 3 types of proteins that make it up, there are a range of mutations, depending on the type and magnitude of the mutation. These have a range of consequences and pathologies, from just about nothing (as is the case with Pete Sampras), to having to undergo blood transfusions every few months, to dying before birth.
That's the background. As you can see, this is a genetic mutation (just like the evolutionary theories mainly deal with), which is inheritable, which affects one's functioning in a way that we see it as deviant from the norm.
Now, note the prevalence: Thalassaemia is so called because it is more common in the Mediterranean, and also African and Asian regions. Long story short, it's more prevalent in areas that have a high incidence of malaria, and it just so happens that thalassaemia makes people less susceptible to being infected by the most deadly strain of malaria, plasmodium falciparum.
Now, I'll walk you through the reasoning: Does this mean that thalassaemia was created in order to ward off malaria? No, since the mutation happens elsewhere as well, it is better explained by saying that the mutation happened and the people who didn't die from it were more likely to survive and propagate their genes, hence the increased prevalence in relevant areas.
Here's where I talk about human behavior and environmental "self-corrections" and how they affect the course of evolution. We now have treatment for malaria, as we have treatments for varying forms of thalassaemia, which also affects the prevalence. On the other hand, treatment availability varies (it's harder to access in areas such as rural India, where infrastructure for such doesn't exist), and different people have different knowledge (again, in rural India, there is no such thing as genetic counselling so people there would not consider such things as passing along genetic conditions in reproducing).
Also, the spread of people is such that ethnicity no longer strictly correlates to geographical location, which means that the implications for prevalence and treatment is also altered. Evolution as a principle doesn't apply in a homogeneous manner to the entire species, it applies to populations thereof and interactions between population groups must be taken into account, hence we express this by saying that the specific manners in which evolutionary principles manifest have changed.
Finally, I'm not sure I can spell tonight. I can't tell whether it's "revalent" or "revalant". Come to think of it, the latter looks wrong.
"I really don't think that everything needs a reason." I disagree, as not having a reason is arbitrary, and (In my view) arbitrariness of any sort leads to difficulty, be it pain, hardship, or suffering, as stated here: http://www.pfhorums.com/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=33&showentry=225
I can connect every source of pain to an arbitrary action. I really can. So, in my view, it needs a reason, otherwise we build something up on false science, and then we'll end up doing something wrong, I don't know what, but it could end up hurting people. So, a reason for everything before we proceed.
"I really don't think that everything needs a reason."
When we say reason, this implies causation, which can be problematic. In certain scopes, such as behavior, I believe rationalisation would be a more appropriate term to use generally, and reason be something restricted to behaviors in rational domains.
I can't remember why I used reason now, although I think it was because I was responding to someone else who used the term. I think many people see reason and cause as equivalent, and for concepts like causation it doesn't really hurt my argument to adopt a different term. But causation more or less breaks down when considering the chaotic nature of evolution, which is the point for which I was striving. Clearly I missed, but now everything should be cleared up.
Wow, I have no idea what to respond to on this thread... so many different topics all in one, kindof a mind-blower when visiting this for the first time.
Personally, I believe everything happens for a reason, although not in the same sense that Moegreche might hold to. But anyways, on the topic of chaotic mutations leading to evolution, that is an utterly flawed statement. First of all, mutations are never, I say never helpful, always harmful. Those cute little two-headed turtles? Yeah, they die extremely fast because having two heads, well, is not as helpful as you would think. Sheep with a couple extra legs? Even something as simple as that, often leads to that animal dying far younger than it would if it was 'normal'.
Secondly, in Darwin's age people assumed that the simple cell was just that - simple. Oh, how they were wrong. One cell is one of the most complex mechanisms in the universe, something that man shall most likely never duplicate. The chance that this superbly well-designed cell came about from an accident, some chemicals connecting together or electricity striking at just the right time, is, well.... let's just say it takes much faith to believe in evolution, if you are an intelligent person.
And finally, nothing in this world is really chaotic, in the traditional sense of the word. Yes, some things that humans do (terrorists for example) are very chaotic, but I do not deem it natural to perform a suicide mission. If you look at animals, although some of their behaviors may seem brash and violent at some points, they have a definite way of doing what they do. In fact, if you look at just the world of plants/animals, and exclude humans, this world would seem like a rather well-put-together place, not 'chaotic'.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "traditional sense of the word" chaotic. The idea of chaos theory is barely over 100 years old and is applied to many many things today: weather patterns, ecological growth, atomic motion, and certain motions of celestial bodies. Oh... I just realized that you meant chaotic like anarchy or something. I think that's what you meant, at least. But I'm using chaotic in a different sense - I should have made that more clear. The idea behind something chaotic like evolution is that there is no way to predict certain outcomes. So you could say that this mutation was caused by certain chromosomes responding in certain way, but you never would have been able to predict that. Just like the stock market, we can see what happens to certain stock and then go back and explain why it might have happened that way, but we can't be sure of the cause (if there is one) and we certainly couldn't have predicted it. Your point on mutations is well taken, but two-headed turtles are just one example of a mutation. An example I could offer up would be the HIV virus. The reason we can't kill it is because is mutates at an incredibly rapid rate - it doesn't have any means of genetic self-correction like we do. That's why we treat it with a "cocktail" of drugs that is ever-changing to try and combat this rapidly changing virus. It's ability to mutate is actually an intrinsically worthwhile advantage for the virus. Now, certainly many many mutations don't end up helping an organism at all - remember the mutations are chaotic. But odds are eventually something will happen that might help the survivability rate of the organism. Certainly having two heads is not a beneficial thing to an organism, but other mutations like color change or sensitivity to certain environmental factors can help an organism to survive.
