Was It Designed?

reply to post by Agree2Disagree

What I should have said is why does evolution "work" as a survival tool for some organisms while it seemingly "failed" as a survival mechanism for many other organisms....

I see you've already been talking about this with Phage. I don't know if I can make things clearer than he has, but I'll try.

The first thing you have to understand is that organisms don't adapt. Species adapt.

Evolutionary events, as Phage explained, are caused by a change in the environment that affects different members of a species in the same way, but to different degrees. When a change like this comes along, the individuals who will survive it and thrive on it are already adapted. The rest, who can't cope with the change and will be weeded out, lack the adaptation. Earlier, the ones who lacked the adaptation may have been in the majority. Afterwards, they will be in a minority, or may have died out altogether. The species as a whole has adapted to the new environment. It has evolved.

An example will make it clear. Imagine a species of grazing animal that evolved under cloudy skies. Since solar radiation is not excessive in their habitat, they are mostly light-skinned, although some are darker than others and a few are very dark. The population thrives and its range begins to widen. Some groups travel southwards, to where the skies are clearer. The grazing is good there, the predators are not (yet) interested in them, and everything would be great if only they didn't die like flies from skin cancer.

But a few grazers, the darker-skinned ones, are more resistant to the solar radiation than their paler brethren. They will survive and reproduce while the pale ones die out. In a few generations, the southern grazers are nearly all dark-skinned (there are a few albinos, which fail to thrive and rarely reproduce). What has happened? The population has adapted and evolved. But no individual member of the population started out pale-skinned and picked up a serious tan. No individual adapted.

I hope that was of use.

reply to post by Agree2Disagree

.I'd like to focus on how evolution allows for extinctions if it is life's survival mechanism

God would allow for extinction. Evolution is scientific concept and is an explaination of how life on the planet ended up now and why god would allow for extinction.

In the grand scheme of things, evolution has not failed at all considering all life having a common origin. Failure would be no life existing.

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by Agree2Disagree

 

.I'd like to focus on how evolution allows for extinctions if it is life's survival mechanism

God would allow for extinction. Evolution is scientific concept and is an explaination of how life on the planet ended up now and why god would allow for extinction.

In the grand scheme of things, evolution has not failed at all considering all life having a common origin. Failure would be no life existing.

Evolution can't occur unless there is first life to evolve....Therefore the failure of evolution would not necessarily be no life existing...but it would most likely be a less diverse variation of species...

A2D

reply to post by Agree2Disagree

Evolution can't occur unless there is first life to evolve....

The most widely accepted hypothesis about the origins of life begins with organic molecules in a substrate containing other matter. These molecules have the property that they attract other, simpler molecules floating in the substrate and assemble them into copies of themselves, which then float freely away to repeat the process.

Most of us would hesitate to call these molecular 'replicators' life. They can survive and reproduce, but that's about all. Still, here's the thing: wherever copying processes occur, copying errors are statistically inevitable. So it won't be long before there are two or more ever-so-slightly different kinds of replicating molecule floating in the substrate and competing with each other for the organic resources it contains — competing, in a word, for 'food'.

Some kinds of molecule will be better at exploiting the existing food supply than others. After a while, they will come to dominate the substrate while the others die out. Of course, the story doesn't end there; copying errors continue to be made, and will occasionally give rise to molecules that are even better at attracting resources than their precursors. Life as we understand it has not yet come onto the stage, but evolution by natural selection is already taking place.

reply to post by Astyanax


forgive my typing i have a cat on my lap...

but ive heard of this theory,,,

my only real question is what brought scientists to this conclusion? is there any evidence for this particular kind of "replication"? Or is it more of a "dark matter" type hypothesis that is the best conclusion we can make to fill in what we don't currently understand?

A2D

reply to post by Agree2Disagree

my only real question is what brought scientists to this conclusion?

DNA and RNA are replicators of a similar but more sophisticated kind.

Agree2Disagree
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

No I'm merely saying that of the existing species that we can observe today...that only represents a very very small fraction of the overall picture...In a way I'm simply asking why evolution allows for extinction....Rather than focus on ELE's, which also represent a very small fraction of extinctions...I'd like to focus on how evolution allows for extinctions if it is life's survival mechanism....Again, no agenda, nothing to push here...just a serious and honest question....I don't know the answer and the many people I have asked didn't have much to offer either, other than sheer speculation....

A2D

The whole idea about evolution is exactly survival of more adaptive species - one unable to adopt to change (change can be anything from climate, natural cataclysm to virus infections, change in food pyramid or introduction of new predators etc.) will get extinct unless able to adopt or escape change. (for example migration)

Don't forget, some species change through time, slowly. Now, with not having all steps in change fossilized, it is easy to see that at one point one of those species got extinct, where in reality it might adopt and change into new species.

The facts shown in this post really makes one, who is observant, and is thinking, stop and think about things.