Running 'key to human evolution'(body evolved to support long distance running)

BBC NEWS ^ | 11/18/04 | n/a

[jrestrepo]

I wonder why poor eye sight still exists? Following the logic that evolution only changes species if it happens after they have offspring, why do so many people require vision correction? That gene should have been factored out long ago because those people can see too hunt, they can't see dangers well (even more when running), etc. That gene should have been eliminated, but I know many children (5-6 yrs old) with horrible vision.

[almcbean]

I can't wait for next month's issue of Nature. I hear it has a "scientific" article that "proves" that we evolved to an upright stance in order to reach the food items on the top shelf of the supermarket.

[smcmike]

That's a good question. I've heard that poor eyesight is primarily a modern problem: too much sitting in front of our computer I suppose!

[megatherium]

Boar, elephants, rhinos, etc. have very little hair, but yaks, gnus, bison, etc. have a lot of hair.

Yaks and bison are cold-climate animals. Elephants and rhinos are warm-weather animals. Some animals rely on subcutaneous layers of fat for warmth.

[jrestrepo]

I'll give you the yaks, but I am pretty sure that bison go fairly far south in the US. So then let me swap yaks for buffalo.

If you want to discuss cold-climate, the polar bear has to be the most awesome example out there. A white furred, black skinned animal where the fur is fiber optic in nature. The black skin is highly effective at absorbing radiation and the fiber optic fur transfer heat down to the animal...

Whales can swim in temperature that would a freeze a human in seconds, yet they have now fur. Their skin does not get frost bite and the blubber is an exceptional insulator.

Ridge vent worms along the bottom of the ocean withstand temperatures that kill everything else out there and have biological processes which seems alien to us.

I still stand by what I have been saying. Without knowing where the evolution was going these changes would have never occurred. Climate change is rapidly occurring event (relatively and not like that stupid movie) and there is not enough time to change for extreme heat or cold, yet there are animals that are dialed in to extremes. Evolution as it is taught, required millions of years to make changes, not thousands.

I appreciate the arguments you have presented, but I start from a basis where I need the theory to be proved to me and I do not take it for granted. From that perspective there are too many holes. Simply enough, life violates the universal law of entropy, yet it flourishes here in extreme places. Consider how many mistakes, evolution-wise, there had to be and how many coincidences there had to be to get ridge vent worms. Just consider that, no response is required.

It is not evolution if knowledge of the outcome is required to direct the changes.

"God does not play dice." - Einstein

[jrestrepo]

What about the millions of poor children around the world who get donated used frames from the US. Poor children (not US poor that is) do not have TVs, video games, computers, etc. so that argument is a bust.

[smcmike]

You might be right. I had just heard that somewhere, I don't have anything to back it up. I'm sure there have been studies done though.

[megatherium]

I appreciate the arguments you have presented, but I start from a basis where I need the theory to be proved to me and I do not take it for granted. From that perspective there are too many holes.

I'll grant you that explanations in evolution often read like "just so stories".

But it might help to understand that the theory of evolution makes several different claims.

The first claim is that the Earth is old, many millions of years old. The evidence for this was already persuasive by 1800. The second claim is that all creatures on Earth descended from a common ancestor. This idea predates Darwin, indeed his own grandfather Erasmus published these ideas. The evidence for this by now is extremely strong: the relationships between species visible in their anatomy are now observed to be mirrored in their genes (where related species even share harmless mutations or "spelling errors" in the genome). It must be emphasized that these two ideas have essentially no opposition in biology.

But the third claim of evolution is the mechanism for the formation of new species: natural selection, where chance and necessity sculpt life. This is where there is debate, and exactly where you point out. The controversial theory of punctuated equilibrium was introduced to why evolution appears to happen in relatively rapid spurts separated by long periods of little change.

The weakest points in evolution is agreed to be the lack of credible explanations for the origin of life itself (3.8 billions years ago, the date of the oldest fossil-bearing rocks). It certainly wouldn't surprise me if there was "intelligent design" involved. But I am confortable with the idea that God used evolution to sculpt life; life capable of evolutionary change would be resiliant and adaptable, and I can imagine God taking pleasure in the unexpected and beautiful outcomes of evolution. This is as the Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant Churches teach (I am Episcopalian). (It also wouldn't surprise me if intelligent design, God's active intervention in evolution, was also behind the very rapid rise of modern humans.)

By the way, life does not violate the law of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics). This law states that closed systems cannot tend towards greater complexity. But the Earth is not a closed system: it receives a huge amount of energy input from the Sun. And, to the point, most life is powered by the Sun (through photosynthesis by plants). (Except for those ridge vent worms, which live off the bacterial communities that feed on the chemicals and heat from the vents.)

[jrestrepo]

Good discussion.

To your last point, the universe is a closed system. No known energy enters or leaves the universe. Picking a planet (i.e. Earth) is not a sufficient argument. That would mean that the universe would have to know that it would take up the rest of the slack to compensate for the increased organization and would further need to know the quantity to compensate for it.

To the point of God, it is not evolution if it is written in our genetic code, it is adaptation. Last month (or the previous month) of Scientific American, there was an article that talked about how our DNA was structured in a way that foster evolution. Again, an instances of an argument where knowledge of the end result was required.

Last point, God does not have any unexpected outcomes. If it were unexpected, he would not be God.

BTW, I just looked up your name...extinct ground sloth?

[megatherium]

Yep, giant ground sloth.

[megatherium]

Another thought: your argument about the entropy of the entire universe suggests another interesting issue, evidence of design in cosmology. The "cosmic anthropic principle" says that there are far too many coincidences in physics that all enable life to exist. E.g., if the charge on the electron were slightly different, or if the force of gravity were a little different, than we'd end up with a universe filled with nothing but neutrinos, or black holes, etc. The odds are very very long that we could end up in a universe of the kind we actually inhabit. Non-theists speculate that this is one of a vast number of different universes (most of which do not support life); theists respond that it's rather more logical to assume there is design in the cosmos. (A more traditional argument to design in the universe is the observation that the universe can be described using a few very simple, mathematical laws -- we would expect a rational Creator to so arrange things.)

So one can argue that life can evolve because God set things up with great care at the beginning to make it possible.

[Dick Holmes]

"God does not play dice." - Einstein

That's an interesting quote, for at least two reasons. First, it was triggered by Einstein's revulsion at contemplating quantum theory. He thought a better, more elegant particle theory could be devised that would be more in tune with his notions of how the universe's laws should work. So far, nobody has come up with one.

Second, when Einstein mentions God, he doesn't mean what most folks think of as God:

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

So, you could say Einstein was wrong about God on both counts!

[jrestrepo]

From what I have read about Einstein then he contradicts himself here. If ethics were created by man, why was he such a pacifist after helping create the bomb? If life an death are arbitrary, then he should support Darwin's survival of the fittest. I really think that Einstein believed in God and had a huge dilemma trying to balance it with his intellect, because for guy that did not believe in God, he sure reference Him a lot. For example;
"I want to know God's thoughts, everything else are just details" - Einstein

[Dick Holmes]

From what I have read about Einstein then he contradicts himself here. If ethics were created by man, why was he such a pacifist after helping create the bomb? If life an death are arbitrary, then he should support Darwin's survival of the fittest.

Maybe being a pacifist after urging the creation of the a-bomb is contradicting himself, but there's no contradiction inherent in being an ethical person and not believing in a personal God or the afterlife.

I really think that Einstein believed in God and had a huge dilemma trying to balance it with his intellect, because for guy that did not believe in God, he sure reference Him a lot.

Here are some collected Einstein quotes on religion.

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

I think he was perhaps a bit conflicted about God and religion, searching for some mystical, cosmic organizing presence in the natural world, but he stuck to his guns.

[Tamar1973]

AiG has written an excellent creationist rebuttal.

Evolutionists claim that running made us human by Dr. David Menton, AiG–USA

[jrestrepo]

To me, there is no point of being moral for sake of being moral. If we are just animals then morality is useless. Animals kill one-another for territory and females, lone male apes rape female apes, animals steal for sake of having stuff (not just food).

We all know the basics of what is good or bad, we do not have to be taught that...that is the moral center which I believe is inspired by God.