Pheobe Debates The Theory of Evolution

Original scene from the show... Friends. ^ | NA | NA

[Mr.Atos]

I was just lisening to Medved debating Creationism with Athiests on the air. I found it interesting that while Medved argued his side quite effectively from the standpoint of faith, his opponents resorted to condescension and beliitled him with statements like, "when it rains, is that God crying?" I was reminded of the best (at least most amusing)debate that I have ever heard on the subject of Creationism vs Evolution, albeit a fictional setting. It occurred on the show, Friends of all places between the characters Pheobe (The Hippy) and Ross (The Paleontologist). It went like this...

Pheebs: Okay...it's very faint, but I can still sense him in the building...GO INTO THE LIGHT MR. HECKLES!!

Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: Nah. Not really. Ross: You don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: I don't know. It's just, ya know, monkeys, Darwin, ya know, it's a, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy.

Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, the air we breathe, like gravity... Pheebs: Uh, okay, don't get me started on gravity.

Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity? Pheebs: Well, it's not so much that ya know, like I don't *believe* in it, ya know. It's just...I don't know. Lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down, as I am being pushed.

Ross: How can you NOT BELIEVE in evolution? Pheebs: [shrugs] I unh-huh...Look at this funky shirt!!

Ross: Well, there ya go. Pheebs: Huh. So now, the REAL question is: who put those fossils there, and why...?

Ross: OPPOSABLE THUMBS!! Without evolution, how do YOU explain OPPOSABLE THUMBS?!? Pheebs: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts!

Pheebs: Uh-oh! Scary Scientist Man!

Pheebs: Okay, Ross? Could you just open your mind like, *this* much?? Okay? Now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat? And up until what, like, fifty years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess o' crap came out! Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?!?

Pheebs: I can't believe you caved. Ross: What? Pheebs: You just ABANDONED your whole belief system! I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Ross: But uh.. Pheebs: Yeah...how...how are you gonna go in to work tomorrow? How...how are you gonna face the other science guys? How...how are you gonna face yourself? Oh! [Ross runs away dejected] Pheebs: That was fun. So who's hungry?

[jennyp]

If any scientist tries to tell you that A or B don't exist, he's blowing smoke.

Well... I'd say "he's not speaking as a scientist, but a philosopher".

[AndrewC]

Well, just because a system is stable doesn't mean it cannot change. Depending on it's flexibility it accomodates faster or slower to changing conditions.

But that is a point I made. The stable configuration does change, but it remains stable. That means that everyone is dragged along and follows the stable point.

[VadeRetro]

That means that everyone is dragged along and follows the stable point.

Which could well mean that a longer-than-average jaw will work that teensy bit better.

[AndrewC]

Which could well mean that a longer-than-average jaw will work that teensy bit better.

It might, but then we'd all be crocodiles.

[VadeRetro]

It might, but then we'd all be crocodiles.

They have their optimum, we have ours, the Kennedys have theirs.

[general_re]

Depends on the rate of mutation, and the rate of environmental change, I expect. Not to mention that organisms don't start with a blank slate every time - there are still previous structures that form a foundation to build off of.

[BMCDA]

D'oh! Of course you did say that.

That means that everyone is dragged along and follows the stable point.

Exactly, it's like a swarm of insects following a light bulb. But this doesn't mean the swarm cannot split up.
If a part of a population is separated from the rest and especially if this this particular sub-population is under a different selective pressure, they drift appart.

[Junior]

Not necessarily. For instance, if you have a population covering a large area, say a super continent, and then the area is split into one or more smaller areas, each of those populations becomes isolated. If the environment changes in any of those new areas, the population will change to adapt to that change. And, if any of the new environments remains stable with regard to the previous environment, the populations therein will remain stable. This ain't rocket science.

[Junior]

That song used to be my lifesong. I related to it quite well. Without God, Life is short, meaningless, leads nowhere, amounts to futility, and ends in total oblivion, which is nothing more than black nothingness forever.

It's just an update to sentiments that have been expressed by humanity since long before Darwin came on the scene.

Ozymandius

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

[AndrewC]

But this doesn't mean the swarm cannot split up. If a part of a population is separated from the rest and especially if this this particular sub-population is under a different selective pressure, they drift appart.

All nice analogies, but it is precisely the conditions that we are discussing. Swarms of bugs around a light do not spell out "Eat At Joe's". They might attract a predator or so, but they remain a swarm or swarms of bugs.

[AndrewC]

If the environment changes in any of those new areas, the population will change to adapt to that change.

Of course, it ain't rocket science. That is its problem. Why go to all of the problem of restating what I stated. A stable population remains stable unless a change occurs. The more stable the population, the bigger the change required to make it something else.

[balrog666]

Of course we have sunspot cycles, minor and major ice age cycles, meteor impacts, super-volcano eruptions, earthquakes, plate tectonics producing subduction and uplift, and, of course, weather pattern changes to supply all that environmental pressure.

And then there's all those evolving predator-prey relationships, bird/insect plant symbiotic relationships, foliage changes, the arising of grasslands and the spread of deciduous trees, and that's only the tip of an enormous iceberg of other environmental changes.

[BMCDA]

All nice analogies, but it is precisely the conditions that we are discussing. Swarms of bugs around a light do not spell out "Eat At Joe's". They might attract a predator or so, but they remain a swarm or swarms of bugs.

And I don't see why they have to. These bugs represent the individual members of a certain population and their position in the fitness landscape (so of course they don't move around like ordinary bugs): some of them are closer to a local maximum (light bulb) and some are further away. And those that are closer to the "light bulb" are more likely to survive.
New "bugs" are constantly generated by already existing "bugs" whereas the position of the new "bugs" is determined by the position of the parent "bug(s)" (offspring is somewhere in between). So in this new generation there are again some that are closer to the local maximum and some that are futher away. And this is the way this "swarm" moves around and follows a "light bulb".

[AndrewC]

And then there's all those evolving predator-prey relationships, bird/insect plant symbiotic relationships, foliage changes, the arising of grasslands and the spread of deciduous trees, and that's only the tip of an enormous iceberg of other environmental changes.

Makes you wonder why ants still look like ants and cyanobacteria still don't have legs.

[gore3000]

Any offer on the table to declare pax if the "Christian bashing" ceases is worthless so long as there are posters for whom the mere act of challenging them is labeled "Christian bashing".

Excuse me, but I fail to see what need there is to bring religion into any kind of scientific discussion. So if the discussion is about evolution, I do not see why religion even has to be mentioned.

[AndrewC]

And I don't see why they have to. These bugs represent the individual members of a certain population and their position in the fitness landscape (so of course they don't move around like ordinary bugs): some of them are closer to a local maximum (light bulb) and some are further away. And those that are closer to the "light bulb" are more likely to survive.

Why does the earth orbit the Sun and not go flying off hither and yon? Why did Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter? Hint: One has a stable orbit and the other does not wrt the major planets and the sun.

Plus your analogy with bugs surviving closer to the bulb will result in bugs fried on the light, glued on the light, etc with no other bugs elsewhere. You have provided no mechanism for the bugs to go elsewhere.

[gore3000]

Will the Creationists cease and desist from "Science Bashing"? (Things such as calling scientists, liars, marxists, etc.)

You mean that anyone that calls himself a scientist has a license to lie and not be called on it? Lying is very destructive to those seeking the truth, it is very destructive of discussions whose purpose is supposedly to seek the truth. Such lying needs to be shown to be a falsehood when it is encountered.

Were we supposed to call X42 and his cronies honest men for the sake of civility? Were we supposed to honor him even though he was trying to totally destroy truth and our country? I don't think so.

[gore3000]

To the point of ALS' proposal, while a step in the right direction, it smells like a trap. It reads like a trap. It looks like a trap. Conclusion: it's a trap.

Civility and honest discussion is a trap? Thanks for letting us know where you are coming from!

Gore's obsession with Junior's Catholicism.

I am not obsessed with anyone's religion. I am obsessed with people who dishonestly claim to be religious in order to bash religion which is what he does. I am obsessed with disruptors and fifth columnists that try to pass themselves off as someone from the other side. This is the lowest kind of tactic and yes, I am unwilling to let such chicanery go unnoticed.

Further, as I mentioned to general_re, I fail to see why religion even has to be mentioned in what is supposedly a scientific discussion.

[gore3000]

Its partly a matter of patience.

No, it is partly a matter of my coming right to the point. Evolutionists do not like to be asked to back things up, and seldom do.

A matter of assembling the sources and arguments before posting.

Aaah, but I do. I doubt that there is any poster here that provides more sources for his statements than myself.

The problem is in fact, just the opposite. The evolutionists know that I can back up my statements so they are reduced to insults and character assassination. You can go through most threads and just click on my posts and see either 'no reply' or an insult to the vast majority of them.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

1) General agreement in biological micro-evolution,

2) Vehement flame wars concerning the theory of macro evolution, particularly in the origin of man question, generally in speciation, and

3) An Atheist-Christian food fight over the existence of God, the inerrancy of scripture, and the incompatibillity of any naturalism with religious faith...

And I'll add,

4) Christian infighting over whether their particular brand of Christianity allows for the compatibility of the Bible with science.

Don't want to leave anybody out.