Ask me any questions you have about evolution

reply to post by atlasastro


The origins of life are unrelated to evolution. I'm not here to tell you how life began, i'm just trying to tell you what happened after life began.

Originally posted by atlasastro

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
reply to post by atlasastro

 

Well, I can't speak for him, but I can still give you an answer.

Thank You.

The origin of life is not pertinent to evolution,

You believe Abiogenesis has no precise or logical relevance to the matter of Evolution?

simply because evolutionary study focuses on what life does.

Evolutionary study is the study of processes of change in inherited traits of a population of organic life over successive generations. At one point, there was the evolution of matter into organic life or the first generation, that would be origins, but we call the study of that Abiogenesis.

A field of Biology is evolutionary biology(although evolutionary biology is the foundation of all biology) which is concerned with the study of the origins of species, the change in that species over time, diversity and replication or multiplication from a common descent.
So why does this not include a concern with the origins of the first species of life, again this is labelled as Abiogenesis and distanced from Evolution.


But anyway, I understand your point. But Abiogenesis involves the evolution of non-organic material that "evolves" to become biological life. Abiogenesis is the very point at which Evolution began.
The origins of life are certainly pertinent to evolution. And this is critical to the foundations of the criticism that evolution suffers from.
I understand the concepts and the differences, but my question relates to whether these issues should be separate, given that Abiogenesis is used to create doubt about evolution.

We think life evolved from a state of non-life to biological life. That is why people are studying the evolution of chemical processes believed to be essential to all life in order to explain this. Papers I have read actually have the titles like "How did evolution start" etc and they deal with what is essentially abiogenesis.

If there is evolution to study, then life is already present; if there is no life, there's no evolution to study.

Really. That is an amazing observation.

If there is no life, then we don't have to worry about how it started or how it led to the processes we observe, like evolution!

You might as well be asking why Music theory does not discuss the origins of the universe.

Are you saying that Music theory is a process that explains the development or evolution of the Universe that we observe, after the universe was created?
You analogy is quite frankly ludicrous, if not asinine.

Evolution is a process, I am simply asking the OP if the very EVOLUTION of that process itself should be distanced from Evolution as a theory in general and I am also asking if the lack of our understanding is a valid criticism used by creationists. As it is a popular one yet rarely discussed with depth in many threads I read.

Of course I didn't mean that the origin of life is unrelated, its just that the lack of knoweldge on how life began doesn't invalidate the theory of evolution by natural selection.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


Thank you for the help answering questions. You appear to know quite a lot on the subject.

Originally posted by Serizawa
I always wondered why we are able to excavate dinosaur remains that are millions of years old, early mamals, primitive beings such as the neanderthal/homo erectus.....but have never been able to find the missing link, surely there must be millions of remainds scattered throughout the globe, at a relatively shallow depth? Since they are supposedly newer species than the listed.

We have found the missing link, several missing links to be exact. It's rather misleading to still be calling it a missing link.

reply to post by moosevernel


Well you have to understand the nature of genetic mutations. Mutations can destroy code, like you said, but they can also add and copy genetic code. If the addition, copying, or deletion of code is somehow beneficial to a species survival in the wild, it will be passed on to further generations. If it is harmful, the creature will likely not live long enough to mate. It's that simple really. Thanks for the question though.

Originally posted by nagabonar
My Question: If humans have evolved from monkeys ...i dont know 500 000 years ago? how will humans look and behave like, in the same time span since we evolved from monkeys,in the future?

[edit on 28-8-2010 by nagabonar]

That's rather unpredictable, but in my opinion humans lives are so much easier nowadays because of our technology that since the laws of natural selection no longer apply humans will either stay the same or kind of regress or devolve. If you've ever read "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells you'll have an idea of what i'm talking about.

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
My point of asking the questions I did, is to point out that there is no solid fact. You may have an educated guess to answer these questions, but no fact to back up your claim.

This entire thread is nothing more than an excersice in educated BELIEF. You believe it to be true, just as a creationist believes God made us. Who's right and who's wrong? I don't know. But I think that it's misleading to start a thread like this and not add a disclaimer that says..."Ask me, I'll give you my best guess but I can't prove it."

By the way, I am not a Christian.

Thanks again

I thought I kind of did have a disclaimer by saying I was no scientist in the OP.

Anyways, like I said I'm not going to try to change your beliefs. The purpose of this thread isn't to alter anyones opinions just to help educate them a little about evolution. I've found that believers in one idea do not usually know much about the other idea.

[color=414141]^star please?
reply to post by Nosred


"Ask me any questions you have about evolution"

how did two totally identical single cell life forms with no experience with interpersonal communications learn how to communicate with eachother?

when the first one split into two identical life forms, and tried to communicate with eachother, was there a problem in understanding if the message was sent from left to right, or from right to left, and how was this mirror imaging problem overcome by the macro-organism?

or.... was it...

boots [mirror] stood
beef [mirror] feed
shower [mirror] rewash

how did two identical single cell organisms learn without experience to communicate with eachother?

when i stand face to face with someone and we both raise our right hands we can see they are on opposite sides according to the macro-organism's point of view.

when i stand in front of a mirror and do the same, my right hand appears to be on the same side.

did the single cell organisms we evolved from have the same problems?

where in history did we overcome and evolve from this communication paradox?

thanks,
et


Eventual Coordination
Creation and Evolution
wordsmith.org...


[edit on 28-8-2010 by Esoteric Teacher]

reply to post by Esoteric Teacher


I'll admit, I have no idea about this. I'll try to figure this out with but until then.....

reply to post by Nosred


Thank you for sharing your knowledge. If there is one thing I have learned from this thread it is this: There is absolutely no consensus of facts in the theory of Evolution. We are no closer to learning the truth about life through Evolution than we are through religious belief. At least there is somewhat of a consensus that we were genetically engineered in the writings of ancient civilizations.

I think the truth will eventually be found in cultural facts, not scientific. No one can explain how man learned to write and form the written language. There is no evolution of writings or languages. They just popped up. Almost as if someone taught us, in which it is clear that the teacher already knew.

I do not disagree with evolutionary theory. In fact, i think its dead on. How can it not be? In a nutshell, its saying things change due to factors of its environment.

I think where a lot of people get kind of ignorant, it that they think evolution debunks "God", or a creator. Obviously, they did not think that hard about it, for if there were a creator, evolution would obviously be a concept that would be needed in a physical environment.

My question is: When a species evolves, is it possible for that same exact, or within very close similarities; of species to evolve on a different part of the planet?

reply to post by Nosred


i realize i posed some difficult questions, and curiously enough, i do not think the answers to those questions are retrievable without concepts raised by both creationists and evolutionists.

don't think about it too hard. perhaps they are just meant for the individual (soul) to consider, and are rhetorical questions in nature.

i do thank you for entertaining the ideas i put forth, though.

thank you,
et

[edit on 28-8-2010 by Esoteric Teacher]

reply to post by gandhi


Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you speak of is natural selection, not Evolution. Two completely different arena of theory, but possibly connected.

reply to post by gandhi


I'd like to introduce you to a bug and a bird.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9f74baa018f0.jpg[/atsimg]

Bird ? or Bug ?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/392a2155ad02.jpg[/atsimg]

Bird or bug ?

reply to post by gandhi


That's a good question. I'll do my best to answer it.

Let's use humans for an example. If the species that humans evolved from lived in several different parts of the planet then it's possible, but highly unlikely. The ancestors of humans would have had the same genome no matter what part of the world they lived in. This makes it possible for the mutations that occurred to create humans to be replicated somewhere else. With each generation after the mutation that started the divergence of humans though the chances of the same mutations being replicated astronomically slim, as I'm sure you can understand. The chances of the same species evolving from the same ancestor in different parts of the world has only a fraction of the chance of happening as you have of winning the lottery. Which means it's unlikely, but not entirely impossible.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


It's called a Hummingbird Hawkmoth. It goes through the same larval stages just like a bug.

Source

It is theorised that this resemblance is a result of convergent evolution.

Keyword...theorised, not fact

reply to post by sheepslayer247


Does fact (that is, as much as something can be true) first come from the belief of something?

So wouldn't it only make sense to take X amount of beliefs on the same subject, compare the events corresponding with each, and TRY to form a fact?

People use to think the world was flat. FACT of the time.
Then a couple people believed that the world was round. FACT.
Now, everyone believes the earth is round. FACT.

A belief to me is an idea that is not widely adopted by a very large percentage of people.

But as we can see, evolution is gaining ground and religion is losing ground.

So in my eyes, evolution is more true than creationism in regards to how life evolves. Like the OP said, origin is a whole different topic.

reply to post by sheepslayer247


I know. what they are and I'm aware how they theoretically came to be.
I replied it to Ghandi to show that these two animals ended up eating the same food in the same way, with the same propulsion and even the same looks.

What made you post your reply ?

Don't know too much about evolution.. I have 2 questions..
If we evolved from bacteria, how did that bacteria come into being?
How will we continue to evolve from the present onwards?

reply to post by mr.eccentric


The first living cells we know of were procaryotic and eucaryotic.

Read about them here : Link.

As for the future... There is no way for us to tell or know what will happen.
It all depends on future events.

Example:

Ice age. We could develop a big nose and more muscles maybe even a fur coat.

I explain it the wrong way. We will not develop anything. Some guy just gets born with a big nose making him able to loose more body heat breathing out. In an ice age this is important because when you are adjusted to the cold, a warm day or hard work will cause you to overheat much faster. So a bigger nose to loose more body heat can save your life which is an advantage and gets past on to your ofspring

Edit to add : The life saving part is because when you are getting hot you start to sweat and that is the last thing you want to be happening in an extremely cold environment. You are actually more at risk for hypothermia then you are from heatimg up. Go figure.

[edit on 8/28/2010 by Sinter Klaas]