Posted on 11/30/2004 3:53:55 PM PST by shubi
Thank you for the compliment about my IQ anyway, to be within 40 points of Einstein is rare praise indeed....
One possible scenario follows. The ancestral yuccas were plagued with small moth caterpillars that fed inside plants shoots. As with modern moths, there is some variation in each generation, and a few eggs are laid beyond the stems on blades and flower parts. Eggs laid in fertilized flowers discovered an untapped developing supply of seeds rich in protein, and their young survived in high numbers and reinforced this population of flower-inhabiting larval moths. The variant larval moths that ate seeds added a burden to the plant, but moths that moved from flower to flower also carried pollen with more accuracy than casting pollen to the wind. Such a tradeoff, perhaps only slightly in the plant's favor at first, became even greater as moth variants became more skillful at transfer of pollen, especially by selection for palps and behavior to comb the yucca pollen from anthers. Meanwhile, the yucca could save much energy by forming pollen that is gummy rather than fine and wind dispersed. To evolutionary biologists, confirming this sequence remains an exciting problem.
Biologists haven't proved that this happened, as the article says, but it is a plausible scenario of how symbiosis could arise. What puzzles me is why you have a big problem with symbiosis and evolution? Species can start out accidentally co-operating a little and over time because of the benefits of the co-operation increasing the "fitness" of both tend to need each other more and more. Why should that not happen?
Well there you are, you've got an answer now. Perhaps the difficulty people had was understanding why you had a problem with symbiosis and evolution. That's the question I asked you when you raised the issue before in this thread.
No anticipation is required by nature; just a succession of slight changes over many generations, perhaps millions, with an increasing reproductive reward for both species in the nascent symbiosis for co-operation the tighter it gets. But nature didn't have to know where things were going. That is how symbiosis evolves. No magic needed. Just differential reproductive success rewarding those individuals best adapted to current circumstances.
The vehemence with which you reject the possibility betrays your fear that it could be true and the fear of what that would mean to your faith, which you have nailed to the falsity of ToE.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/quote_popper.html
Why does all life scream, purpose, goal, design, teleology?
On the contrary, it screams randomness. Why would a designer put a defective copy of a enzyme essential for the biosynthesis of vitamin C in the human genome? Why put defective retroviruses there? Why is our genome a junk heap of non-functional bits of genetic information?
Why are all the physical constants of the universe finely tuned for the existence of carbon based lif
Because, in all the universes where they are not, you aren't around to ask that question.
And spare us the Bible bashing.
Nice rant.
Merry Christmas!
Jehu said, "I do not have a clue".
Thanks for the honesty.
Merry Christmas.
Paragraphs are our friends.
"Prove IT!"
I=2/T
IT=2
:-)
"especially when this crazed biological theory is applied to social issues."
Science never would apply the ToE to social issues. That was done by the Nazis and eugenicists. They were misguided.
There are a lot of misguided people in this world.
Newton and numerous other brilliant scientists prior to 1800 had no opportunity to formulate the Theory of Evolution because science and our knowledge of the world had not advanced to that point.
What are you saying? That prior to Darwin there weren't any fossils? There weren't layers of dirt holding different kinds of rocks?
B: You'll forgive me if I keep comming back to this point as Reuben isn't too swift, and I continually have to repeat myself. Nobody is claiming that the evidence for evolution didn't exist in Newton's time. However, nobody knew about it. Geology as a science, didn't get underway until Nicolas Steno formulated the superposition principle in the late 1600's. Newton didn't study geology. Therefore it is comical to use Newton as an example of a luminary who didn't accept the theory of evolution. I think most people with half a brain will understand this.
What kind of unique scientific technology did Darwin haul out with him to the Galápagos Islands that was crucial in the formation of his so-called "theory"?
B: Darwin was trained in Geology by Lyelle, Sedgewick and in Biology by Robert Grant at Cambridge.
Newton had no training in either.
So new and cutting edge that man had to wait until the 19th century before he could possibly have a grasp on his origins?
B: Same reason we had to wait until the middle of the 20th century for man to have a grasp of computers. After all, are you trying to tell me that silicon didn't exist before the 1960's?
B: I hope people reading this thread relize just how damaged the thought processes of creationists really are. Its not pretty.
Come on, you're really a troll aren't you... (you can admit it)
Reuben, I'm sure the precious few thoughtful creationists out there are hoping you are indeed a troll.
I would add to the prof's answer that only a vanishingly tiny portion of our universe appears to be "fine-tuned" for life. The rest of it is utterly inimical to life. Couldn't an omnipotent being have been just a bit less wasteful if the purpose of the whole shebang was to get us?
And another slur of yours that I wanted to clear up.
Newton among other things, was also an alchemist.
B: It wasn't a slur. Newton was indeed an alchemist. And second this wasn't intended to be a putdown of Newton. It does show that even Newton had some ideas that did not bear any fruit.
Alchemy has a rich history starting in ancient Egypt and later simultaneously flourishing in China and the Greek world. There were two directions that alchemy went in the 4th Century BC, one went the way of empirical sciences, and the other went the way of magic, astrology and fraud (of the latter path none of these things are part of monotheistic religion).
B: Alchemy went nowhere. Its only value was that as people tried in vain to turn ordinary things into gold, they discovered alot of things about different substances. And later on the early chemists tried to systematize that knowledge, culminating in Mendeleyev's periodic table.
I guess while you are trying to insult Newton, you might as well insult the Catholic scientist Antoine Lavoisier and Albertus Magnus who was sainted by the Catholic Church for his mastery in chemistry.
B: Lavoisier is considered to be on of the first "chemists". I really have no idea what you're on about. I think you're so muddle headed that neither do you.
( SNIP )
WHAT meaning what CAUSE and EFFECT, or in the case of creationism, WHO.
My point is that no one has all the answers. Science is an investigation and attempted explanation of the universe.
B: Science is a self-correcting methodology which interrogates nature to understand how it works. That no one has all the answers is irrelevant. Science is the only means with a proven track record at obtaining answers about nature.
The Bible is very limited, but mainly faith-based conceptualism of GOD and his creation of that universe.
Why there is the assumption that scientists are all atheists, I don't know.
B: Beats me. I suppose it makes the creationist feel better.
Every form of life has a 'purpose'. This alone should give rise to something more than the atheistic concept that chaos randomly (....chaos/random) turned into order.
Thank you for taking the time to answer the posed questions. You may find them silly, but the answers given by each person tell me a lot about their education, history, and state of mind.
Accept this as a compliment. I usually find that those that take the time to answer, even if they find out their answer rebuked, are more intelligent, and better educated than those whom find it easier to call others ignorant and wrong without a bit of proof to back it up.
I learn much more from discussing subjects with people like yourself, and consider those kind of people to be the real stronghold of Free Republic.
I don't think there should be a rift between evolution and creationism. There is no doubt that species evolve.
B: There needn't be a rift between science and creation. But creationism, IMHO, is not only not science, its bad religion too.
Survival of the fittest is a widely demonstrable concept.
Were we to be creatures governed by instinct, living only by the law of the jungle, then I would say that atheists are correct. But we are not. We have a conscious. We have the ability to reason above and beyond our physical needs.
That alone should make one give credence to a higher power.
B: Or not :-). But we do have instincts, and we also have civilization. Human beings learned cooperation, as those that did cooperate for purposes of protection, food gathering were more successful than those who kept to themselves.
But, everyone believes what they want to, in the end.
BELIEF, and TRUTH. Two poles that do not necessarily coincide.
B: For sure.
B: I took it for granted he meant Corona, but I could be wrong.
It's ok. You can call me a dumbass.
B: We all make mistakes. I can think of plenty of reasons to call someone a dumbass, making a typo or a simple mistake is not of them. Of all the questions you asked, this issure of Coronal heating is perhaps the most vexing, although its been sometime since I looked into it.
Be careful here. Science at any moment is embodied in the practicing scientists of the time, just as religion is embodied in its preachers.
You are correct in saying "science" is morally neutral, but incorrect if you are implying that all scientific organizations are innocent.
The early proponents of evolution did get heavily into "Social Darwinism".
Paragraphs are our friends.
B: LOL! I agree. I think what happened is that somewhere in the post I had an angle bracket or two, and the website interpreted it as an HTML command. I will try to avoid that in the future..
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