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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 11, 2015 - 10:47am PT
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The glaring difference between objective (brain) and subjective (experience) is not a difference in measurements (quantity), but a difference in quality, that is, what a phenomenon IS.
This is a characterization. It certainly helps if you can measure something, but we can't measure evolution in the fossil record. All we can do is dig up fossils, date them, and place their taxonomy correctly.
We DO see change in the fossil record. We see species come and go, explosions of diversity and vast extinctions. The fossil record raises so many questions, but evolution isn't one of them. Evolution is all over the fossil record. I can see that a 2 day field trip might be in order for Cosmic and BB. Werner wouldn't come.
Cosmic brought up punctuated equilibrium. In geology, this is an important idea. A stream can flow for a hundred years and change little. It is in an equilibrium state. Then you see a high flow event. A big flood, for example. That brief event does more to mold the stratigraphy than the periods of quiet equilibrium.
We see it in many depositional environments. That is another thing that I have to do: describe the depositional environments of rocks. It is an amazing history. Most of you don't know that during the Cretaceous, North America was split in two, with a vast sea running north-south through the Rocky Mountains region. We know this because there is a massively thick marine Cretaceous section left over. It has long been mapped and understood. It was called the Cretaceous Interior Seaway. Look it up on Wiki.
Another thing that I understand, and notice that others don't really grasp, is deep time. Change over 10's or 100's of million years. Most people can't really get their noggins around deep time, but I've been doing this for so long that it comes easy to me. 50 million years is nothing. A blink of the eye. The Earth is very old. The history of life is almost as old. The scroll that is the history of life is beautiful to me. Some amazing creatures have lived on this planet.
It is a fact that life changed constantly since it was created. It really took off during the Cambrian Explosion (which happened nigh yesterday), but it always changed. Critters with hard body parts left evidence behind. Lots of evidence. What do you Christians want me to do? Put on a blindfold and pretend that I haven't seen it?
Do you say that Satan planted fossils and evidence of an old Earth (and Universe) just to tempt us? Sometimes it sounds like it.
Do you guys read books? Ever?
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 11, 2015 - 10:51am PT
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Did Noah bring every animal who ever lived on the Ark with him?
I've heard that some Creationists have said as much. Given the number and size of terrestrial animals....all of them over all time, it is remarkable that Noah brought them along on his voyage.
Do you guys believe that?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 11, 2015 - 10:51am PT
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inconceivable complexity and uniqueness.
you have a definition for both "complexity" and for "uniqueness," beyond the refrain "I know it when I see it"?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 11, 2015 - 10:59am PT
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What makes you think some of the names are made up, Ed?
when I do a "Google Scholar" search on names I get to see what names are associated with what papers in the literature... and also the institutions that the names are associated with...
for instance, the name:
Dr Kimberly Berrine, Microbiology & Immunology
has absolutely no associated papers, and the only hits appear to be a reference to the list you cut and pasted into your post...
Whether or not there exists a Dr. Berrine, there are no papers even vaguely associated with the topics of evolution, or even biology.
A large number of the other ones I looked at have a variance with their stated field, and many are working in the medical area... not in biological research (though their work is certainly related to biology).
When a list like this gets put up it is at least interesting to check just what the people actually do, and whether or not they are "practicing biologists" can be easily checked by looking at the work they produce.
I can come up with a list of scientists who do not believe the Theory of Relativity, it doesn't mean that their specific criticism is at all relevant to whether or not Relativity is "correct."
It usually means that they are cranks.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Sep 11, 2015 - 11:16am PT
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Of course technology as savior has never panned out and never will.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Sep 11, 2015 - 11:28am PT
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Jan, I think that article answers your questions better than I.
A recent Nova eps. drew scientific ideas as to how Homids(?) sprang up not only in Africa, but possibly inAisa with the " slimmer eyed group" and Europe with the "red heads" National Geographic this month has a finding of even another Homid, estimating age at 2-3 million yrs. Same chromosome count as us. But still different from every other species. Homids have destinctively different bone shapes. Primarily the pelvis which allows uprightness a d forward mobility. Seems like it would take many many generations of monkeys trying to walk upright for them to evolve a new pelvic bone. It s intringing that we haven't found one fossil of an "inermediate" pelvic bone that would prove even the minutest step in the transition??
From that article, even IF a Homid were to mate with a monkey. Their different chromosome count would leave their offspring sterile. That's been proven today through experience, not just theory;)
Again, I'm not worried about the truth in evolution will affect my relationship with God. So I'm not condemning the theory. I am only keeping an open mind for truth as the facts come in :)
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 11, 2015 - 11:59am PT
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From that article, even IF a Homid were to mate with a monkey. Their different chromosome count would leave their offspring sterile. That's been proven today through experience, not just theory;)
WTF? Did you screw a monkey?
If you follow human evolution from H Erectus, the fossil record is filled with transitional forms.
Slowly the pronounced brow ridge and sloping (not pronounced) jaw changed.
So what is this fossil you are talking about with a chromosome count? DNA was recovered? As far as I know, the oldest human remains with DNA came from a legbone found in Siberia that was about 45,000 years old. Permafrost is great for this. The bones aren't fossils; they are real bones. Permafrost even preserves soft body parts of mammoths in Russia.
And I have that mammoth tooth 18 inches away from my keyboard. Yes, I found an elephant like tooth in the Arctic. What? There are no elephant like creatures in North America. We all know that.
Fossils are clues, and there is a lot of chemistry that you can do with fossils. You can get an idea of paleoclimate using oxygen isotope ratios.
Look. Think of the fossil record like a library. The fossils cannot be denied. Many of them were dated by independent means. Others were dated using the age of the rock in which they were found. It is a long, huge library of species that have lived on Earth.
I don't worry about the mechanism of speciation. I look at the actual speciation. Life has evolved since it began. I know that. I've visited the library of fossils. I urge you do it as well.
You can't argue with the fossils. You can't even argue with the dating methods these days. There are many independent dating methods, and when they all agree, the case is pretty much settled. Dating methods might change in the future, and the library may have to be revisited to place each species in its correct place.
Fossil hunting was huge back in the 1800's. The planet has been scoured. Certainly more evidence will be found, but right now, the evolution of man is pretty straightforward, if you stick to the genus Homo.
BB, when you say that your skepticism isn't a result of your faith, you are just making yourself look foolish. Religion can't bear to look in that library of life. They can't bear to look at the physical evidence.
They hang their beliefs on fringe scientists, as Ed just pointed out.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Sep 11, 2015 - 12:34pm PT
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So what is this fossil you are talking about with a chromosome count?
Didn't mean to confuse you on that. I was referring to the cross species pollination we've attempted today, like with a donkey and a horse. Or a horse and a zebra, etc, etc
They always produce sterile offspring!
There are no elephant like creatures in North America. We all know that.
Are you joking here? Have you heard of LA's tar pits? And they've found Mammouths from Mt Diablo to San Gorgonia. Even here in JTNP!
I don't worry about the mechanism of speciation
Well maybe you should! It's a process that science is saying more and more can't happen..
And it might better help you understand the "transitional fossil" term your so loosely throwing around ; )
Dating methods might change in the future,
Yes. Have you heard the speed of light may in fact be slowing down?
If so, it reasons it was faster. Up to a billion times faster during the BB.
BB, when you say that your skepticism isn't a result of your faith, you are just making yourself look foolish. Religion can't bear to look in that library of life. They can't bear to look at the physical evidence.
Oh shawnt claire, I am by no means affraid of the truth. Bring'em on! I don't mean facts derived by proximity either ; )
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Sep 11, 2015 - 01:02pm PT
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All this talk of evolution, I wonder what everyone thinks of Jeremy England's notion of life as a natural and inevitable outgrowth of physical laws... pretty fascinating stuff.
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Norton
Social climber
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Sep 11, 2015 - 01:27pm PT
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Religion can't bear to look in that library of life. They can't bear to look at the physical evidence.
actually, the Catholic Church has looked closely at the fossil evidence and has concluded
that human evolution IS the correct explanation for us being here, but that the soul
was added by god
In the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII confirmed that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, provided that Christians believe that the individual soul is a direct creation by God and not the product of purely material forces.[1] Today, the Church supports theistic evolution(ism), also known as evolutionary creation,[2] although Catholics are free not to believe in any part of evolutionary theory.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Sep 11, 2015 - 01:44pm PT
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All this talk of evolution, I wonder what everyone thinks of Jeremy England's notion of life as a natural and inevitable outgrowth of physical laws... pretty fascinating stuff.
Sheesh, Paul! You make me feel that we are doomed as a species. It seems like willful ignorance to me.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Sep 11, 2015 - 01:48pm PT
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How so? Willful ignorance? I wonder who's really being ignorant here? Don't think it's me.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Sep 11, 2015 - 01:52pm PT
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Maybe a model for complexity would be an acorn, or a fetus?
An acorn, or any seed has the potential and information to bust out into a full grown tree. Once mature it continues on its prescibed life span. After which it starts a dying process until it decays into worm food.
Same with a fetus. It starts growing/living merely 2 minutes after conception and continues growing until around +\- 20yro. Then it cruises till around 40. After which it starts its downward spiral of decay until death, then worm food ; )
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Sep 11, 2015 - 01:53pm PT
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The fact that evolution underpins the whole discipline of Biology. It is consistent with millions of the day-to-day observations of everyone.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Sep 11, 2015 - 02:18pm PT
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Bluey, while I'm not against this kind of personal metaphor - I mean, it's pretty much how we all tackle these problems, one with a more-scientific mind-bent will be skeptical of these personal ties to anecdotes. That's what gives science the edge in this debate. For something to pass for a scientific observation it (should) be reproducible and not based on one's own personal remembrances.
Frankly, there's been a lot of press lately of scientists circumventing the process for personal prestige or monetary gain. The thing about the scientific process is that this kind of thing gets found out in the end. As it turns out, double-blind experiments, the ones that really give you the answers, are expensive. That provides the motive for the rogue scientists. Their "rogueness" is entirely understandable within the scientific world view.
Now, take somebody "deciding" whether Christianity or Islam or Mormonism or Jim JonesIsm or ... is the "correct" world view with respect to religion. Of course, almost nobody just decides this. It is already decided for a large part of the world's population.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 11, 2015 - 03:01pm PT
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Is there a physical law of complexity waiting for us to 'tease it out?'
Yes, Dingus, there is a physical law.
It is natural selection itself that was teased out by Darwin / Wallace 150 years ago - after thousands of years of others failing to connect the dots to identify a mechanism (or principle or law).
I believe that's your answer. Dawkins wrote an entire book on the very subject: complexity (via darwinian evolution, in other words, natural selection). It is The Blind Watchmaker.
Natural selection is the blind watchmaker. The blind watchmaker is your complexity agent. (A metaphor, Paul R!)
Also helpful. A couple of conceptual tools talked about by Dawkins and Dennett: cranes vs skyhooks.
Natural selection is a crane. (Another metaphor, Paul R!)
No time. But cranes and skyhooks in the context of evolution and complexity and life are easily researched.
.....
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqxlzHJrU0
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Sep 11, 2015 - 03:40pm PT
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DMT: check out Jeremy England in Scientific American for some fascinating and reasonable answers. What he proposes is an underpinning of Darwin but from an unexpected direction that discusses exactly the notions of complexity and entropy.
"Why does life exist?
Popular hypotheses credit a primordial soup, a bolt of lightning and a colossal stroke of luck. But if a provocative new theory is correct, luck may have little to do with it. Instead, according to the physicist proposing the idea, the origin and subsequent evolution of life follow from the fundamental laws of nature and “should be as unsurprising as rocks rolling downhill.”
From the standpoint of physics, there is one essential difference between living things and inanimate clumps of carbon atoms: The former tend to be much better at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat. Jeremy England, a 31-year-old assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has derived a mathematical formula that he believes explains this capacity. The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.
“You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant,” England said."
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