Posted on 12/29/2001 12:09:43 AM PST by Starmaker
No, "more specialized version" is a necessary result of variation and selection.
How is a Granny Smith a "refinement" of another apple, or a "more specialized version" if you will. Did it turn green and crunchy in order to make better pies?
No, it just happened to turn green and crunchy, and because it makes better pies, that just happened to render it more fit for survival. There probably have been other mutations that have occurred that render the mutants insipid and prone to rot quickly, but these aren't picked up for breeding by pie-conscious humans. There's no direction to the mutations; it's just the luck of the draw.
Concerning various mammals, you wrote that All are still mammals, as will be all their descendants.
How can this be? And if it is, how did mammals evolve from non-mammalian creatures?
The features we use to distinguish mammals from other creatures aren't in conflict with what came before. Mammals are still vertebrates.
And why can't the descendants of mammals become non-mammalian greeblestorphs or colupbregs if they manage to find happiness in "variation," "selection" and become a "more specialized version?" Is there not a contradiction?
The defining characteristics of mammals are chosen by us humans for our own convenience. We could, for example, have chosen hair and four limbs as essential characteristics of mammals, by which standard whales would not be mammals. Nor would seals. We choose our criteria so as to comprise all the species we know descended from the earliest mammals, and that is the practical reason why their descendants will always be mammals.
If, however, all mammals, except for primates and cetaceans, had died out by the dawn of history, we probably wouldn't have come up with the concept of "mammals", and would consider whales and humans to be as different from each other as they are from reptiles, birds and amphibians. Had protomammals (such as pelycosaurs) survived, we would have expanded our definition of mammals to include those reptile-like beasts. As it is, we stretch the definition to include the egg-laying monotremes.
Our terminology is an artifact of what has, accidentally, happened to survive. There is no contradiction there.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can come up with a monosyllabic explanation for you.
But the theory and the argument seem to me to falter on the very flexible use of definitions to bounce away any potential counter arguments. For example, you mention that The defining characteristics of mammals are chosen by us humans for our own convenience and that Our terminology is an artifact of what has, accidentally, happened to survive. Bingo! You write that mammals will always be mammals. But then you skip around the claim that mammals were, according to the theory, not always mammals. To imply that once a mammal, always a mammal, even if mammals evolve into breastless bug-eyed jombpelwinks seems too weak to be a legitimate argument. It seems to be only a word game intended to cover up flaws with scientific jargon.
Forgive me but "convenient" definitions and "artifacts" based on accidents seem just that: artificial and convenient. Perhaps science should occasionally read Lewis Carroll: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said ... it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."
Should science call itself science on those all too frequent occasions when it alters definitions in order to explain away discrepancies or to squeeze just one more bit of stubborn data into its wobbly theory? Or should it be made to play by the same rules and employ the same strict definitions it demands of others?
"I reject creation because it cannot be scientifically proven. .... -snip-
I am quite willing to risk an eternity in hell, for intellectual freedom on earth. I think that hell and heavan are simply stories that men have created for two reasons: 1)They have unanswered questions such as "How did I get here? in their minds, make up an incredible story to explain it rather than accept that they may never know the answer. 2) They want to have power over others, so they claim that there is a great place in the afterlife (that can't be proven) ....
antienviormentalist... You say that you reject creationism because it can't be scientifically proven, moreover you say you are quite willing to risk an eternity in hell, for intellectual freedom on earth. Whew. I say to you, what if you're wrong ? That's a mighty heavy price to pay for the God given free will that you already possess. When you gentlemen come to understand, appreciate and accept the freedom that Faith brings to your life I'm certain that others will benefit from your spiritual and intellectual growth.
BTW, for the record, I'm not a wild-eyed Bible thumping fanatic. I'm an Episcopalian. I keep on my desk a quote from the acceptance speech President Bush gave at the convention. He said it so much better than I ever could:
"I believe in tolerance, not in spite of my faith, but because of it.
I believe in a God who calls us, not to judge our neighbors, but to love them.
I believe in grace, because I have seen it ... In peace, because I have felt it ... In forgiveness, because I have needed it."
Have a nice rest of the evening.
If one example was never going to cut any ice with you in the first place, why'd you bother asking for it?
I spend virtually every day outdoors in the forest and fields. Call me blind but surely you will concede that with all the evolution going on all around us, I should have seen just one example in all these years.
Plate techtonics is going on all around you. Surely you should have seen the continents drift by now, shouldn't you?
The process of evolution is a slow one. Most of the changes that go on aren't even visible as they happen; you need specialized techniques to just to see them. Every now and then there is an obvious event--the sudden appearance of AIDS or of the Granny Smith apple, the sudden extinction of the passenger pigeon--but the most important changes are only obvious at a molecular level. It takes a long time for the changes to add up to something you can detect with the naked and untrained eye.
If you had asked for an example of plate techtonics, I might have pointed out the San Francisco earthquake of a century ago. You might have responded--wrongly--that the mountains you knew as a boy have not changed.
Should science call itself science on those all too frequent occasions when it alters definitions in order to explain away discrepancies or to squeeze just one more bit of stubborn data into its wobbly theory?
The definitions don't change and there are no discrepancies. The difficulty with taxonomy comes from our Biblical prejudice to label organisms "according to their kind", when in reality, any two organisms you can name are at some level the same kind. Our naming schemes are irrelevant to the underlying science; it is the principle of evolution that ties everything together.
Perhaps I am not subtle enough--seems to me 'complexity' is sort of a given--like the number of chemicals present in an orangutan, or the number of gravitational forces working on the Moon. Or do you refer to 'complexity' as in James Joyce's prose, which is also indecipherable--(not progress, either.)
Plate techtonics is going on all around you. Surely you should have seen the continents drift by now, shouldn't you?Earthquakes and lava occur every day. I see them. I believe them. Not a valid point.
Most of the changes that go on aren't even visible as they happen; you need specialized techniques to just to see them.Wait! What happened to we do observe evolution going on all around us? Are you now falling back into a defensive position that contends only you possessing "specialized techniques" can discern them? I thought "we" meant "we." But there goes another definition, tossed out so that your theory and explanation can maintain their shaky stance. Sounds familiar.
The definitions don't change and there are no discrepancies. It has been fun but I think we are straying too far into fantasy land now. See you.
He starts with: "Ayn Rand...was a great advocate of free market capitalism and a significant anti-communist...". I wish conservatives were stronger advocates of free market capitalism. Why after two decades of mostly Republican controlled administrations are taxes the highest in peace-time history?
Methinks Charles should spend more time looking at his own parties' philosophy.
One of her better books is, Philosophy, Who Needs It?, I think that is the title, I read it years and years ago. As I recall it was a collection of essays and speeches she gave when she was in her prime. I recall one of the speeches was to a 1960's graduating class at West Point.
Regardless of opinions people have about her novels, she was an interesting philosopher and inspired many people.
That is the Title, I recently moved and still have many books in boxes so I couldn’t locate my copy. I believe that it was a collection put together by Leonard Peikoff after her death. I think that was the collection that contained her Playboy interview explaining why a rational woman would not want to be President and that an irrational woman would be unfit.
You said yourself you see earthquakes and lava flowing, and have no trouble extrapolating from there to entire continents moving around the globe. There are many obvious examples of small-scale evolution all around you, too. Why do you refuse to extrapolate them to the development of life on Earth, as you are willing to do from earthquakes to the motion of continents? Haven't you seen them? Perhaps you should ask for more examples.
Then there's your answer: evolution does not mean progress. The best it can give you is more complexity. (In certain cases, evolution can give you less complexity, but in general there are more ways for organisms to get more complex than there are for them to get less complex, so random mutations tend to lead to greater complexity.)
I'm not sure where you're going with murder rates and James Joyce.
I can accept the possibility that what seems to be a Slime-to-I'm-to-Sublime theory is correct. But I do not think that it is proven, nor do I believe that it can be. If it cannot be proven, then in scientific terms I do not see how it can be claimed to have any more validity than what is called "creationism."
I see no reason why evolution--if there is such a thing--would not be compatible with a Creator who is the force behind the mutation and variation and adaptation and selection that evolution requires and--most importantly--was the force behind the creation of life, one detail that science has failed to replicate.
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