(March 28, 2013 at 7:53 pm)Aractus Wrote:

(March 26, 2013 at 4:18 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: He thinks that evolution has a direction!

Evolution does have a direction. Simple --> More Complicated. It doesn't go the other way...

It can do.
If simpler holds a survival advantage then that is exactly what it would do.

(March 29, 2013 at 2:11 am)Sagasa Wrote: But it's not equal. It's not a 50/50 chance that a species would evolve to be either more complex or simpler, it depends on the pressures that the environment puts on the species and thus, only the ones that are able to adapt best will be able reproduce.

Kind of like how the snakes lost their legs when they didn't need them anymore, or other examples of unneeded appendages withering away.

No. What your say makes about as much sense as theorizing that entropy has a 50% chance of creating randomness when crystallization occurs. Crystallization ignores entropy, it is ordered - order is created from chaos. The rules that might normally apply outside of it don't apply to it. The same is true for evolution. Evolution is about "building". You can't build something big if you're always expending all your resources rebuilding your structure. Thus while it may play a *role* in evolution it isn't the process and it is only minor compared to the overall process.

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(March 29, 2013 at 4:52 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Define complicated.

Animals that take to living in caves tend to lose there eyes. Is that more or less complicated? Please refer to the definition you have provided in answering.

If you're referring to bats you're wrong. Bats can see during the day, and could see quite well if not for the fact that they're nocturnal. Thus their poor eyesight is an environmental result - not an evolutionary one. Their eyes don't fully develop because they live in the dark. It has nothing to do with the fact that evolution took their eyesight away.

(March 30, 2013 at 3:57 am)Aractus Wrote:

(March 29, 2013 at 4:52 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Define complicated.

Animals that take to living in caves tend to lose there eyes. Is that more or less complicated? Please refer to the definition you have provided in answering.

If you're referring to bats you're wrong. Bats can see during the day, and could see quite well if not for the fact that they're nocturnal. Thus their poor eyesight is an environmental result - not an evolutionary one. Their eyes don't fully develop because they live in the dark. It has nothing to do with the fact that evolution took their eyesight away.

Bats sleep in caves not live in them. Plain English.

Define complicated. If you cannot define complicated then your claim is bullshit as you use a word which you cannot define.

I don't know why your arguing with me. Evolution is a developmental process. It requires "building" and "growing" generation to generation. It is organized. It creates order. It isn't a swap-and-change process, it's a building process, a growing process, a process that requires that complexity arises from simplicity. You start with a simple organism and through evolution you get a complicated organism with organized features. In fact - you get many complicated, organized organisms.

Your definition of evolution is meaningless, it's futile, if it's not directional - if it doesn't go anywhere - if it doesn't result in slowly but surely building large complicated creatures with many features - rather than simple organisms with no features - then it isn't evolution, is it? What side are you on? The creationist side?

(March 30, 2013 at 7:30 am)Aractus Wrote: I don't know why your arguing with me. Evolution is a developmental process. It requires "building" and "growing" generation to generation. It is organized. It creates order. It isn't a swap-and-change process, it's a building process, a growing process, a process that requires that complexity arises from simplicity.

I can see from this statement that you have a basic missunderstanding of evolution.

Quote: You start with a simple organism and through evolution you get a complicated organism with organized features. In fact - you get many complicated, organized organisms.

You can do, Evolution is the only mechanism in nature that can achieve that BUT evolution does not have to go from less complex to more complex. Birds lose the power of flight fish in darkness lose eyes. If it doesn't impart a survival advantage then those complex features can and do wither and disappear.

The process of natural selection cares not for the improvement into more complex forms, just for what imparts an advantage at the time.
Sometimes this means better eyes, sometimes it means simpler is better.

Quote:Your definition of evolution is meaningless, it's futile, if it's not directional - if it doesn't go anywhere - if it doesn't result in slowly but surely building large complicated creatures with many features - rather than simple organisms with no features - then it isn't evolution, is it?

I'm afraid that you are completely wrong, evolution cares not for the advancement of the species it only operates on works at the time and that means adapting to current conditions whatever they may be. Nothing more, it is a simple system that has complex results but HAS NO DIRECTION.

You seem to think that there is some sort of intelligence behind evolution that wants life to "get better" sorry to disalusion you but that is not what happens.

(March 30, 2013 at 8:07 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: I can see from this statement that you have a basic misunderstanding of evolution.

Absolute nonsense and I reject that ...

Quote:You can do, Evolution is the only mechanism in nature that can achieve that BUT evolution does not have to go from less complex to more complex. Birds lose the power of flight fish in darkness lose eyes. If it doesn't impart a survival advantage then those complex features can and do wither and disappear.

You are incorrect. Perhaps you've heard of the "Panda Principle". The idea that once something has developed to the point of being "good enough" in an environment where competition is lax, evolution gets lazy and doesn't improve the feature. This is not only true for Pandas, but often Cuckoo birds as well. While some Cuckoos lay eggs that are pretty close match in appearance to the host that they're fooling - others lay eggs that look nothing like the eggs that the host birds lay, but Cuckoos get away with those eggs in fact more than the "more evolved" ones simply because they're "good enough". This doesn't mean that a feature will necessarily wither away - and in fact, it certainly means the feature shouldn't wither away.

But this is besides the point. You are looking only at microevolution. You need to look at the big picture, it is the big picture where we see clear patterns form. And what the big picture tells us is that Evolution drives towards - not away from - more complicated organisms with more features.

Quote:I'm afraid that you are completely wrong, evolution cares not for the advancement of the species it only operates on works at the time and that means adapting to current conditions whatever they may be. Nothing more, it is a simple system that has complex results but HAS NO DIRECTION.

No, that's totally wrong. You've been taught incorrectly I'm afraid. You are moving away from the observation of Evolution and into the theoretical side of it. What your presenting is a theory on how evolution works. And guess what? The theory has been tested, and has not had confirming evidence. Evolution requires a strong driving force, not a weak one. One that is in fact resilient to change, even though it adopts it where it's beneficial.

Most DNA mutations, for instance, are unhelpful. They play no role in evolution - they can't because they're unhelpful!

Quote:You seem to think that there is some sort of intelligence behind evolution that wants life to "get better" sorry to disillusion you but that is not what happens.

Don't put words into my mouth. Did you hear me claim that there is intelligence behind crystallography? Crystals are a non-organic structure. Evolution is a biological structure. You have the theory backwards, out of date, disproven I'm afraid.

(March 30, 2013 at 3:57 am)Aractus Wrote: If you're referring to bats you're wrong. Bats can see during the day, and could see quite well if not for the fact that they're nocturnal. Thus their poor eyesight is an environmental result - not an evolutionary one. Their eyes don't fully develop because they live in the dark. It has nothing to do with the fact that evolution took their eyesight away.

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(March 30, 2013 at 3:57 am)Aractus Wrote: No. What your say makes about as much sense as theorizing that entropy has a 50% chance of creating randomness when crystallization occurs. Crystallization ignores entropy, it is ordered - order is created from chaos. The rules that might normally apply outside of it don't apply to it. The same is true for evolution. Evolution is about "building". You can't build something big if you're always expending all your resources rebuilding your structure. Thus while it may play a *role* in evolution it isn't the process and it is only minor compared to the overall process.

But I'm not saying that it's a 50 percent chance.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your point here, but it seems to me that what you're saying is that every time a species evolves, something gets added to them that increases their complexity; they evolve eyes, more complex means of locomotion, intelligence, etc. Is that right?

But evolution is just change. An organism suddenly mutates in a small way; maybe it's beneficial, maybe it's harmful, maybe it's benign. Maybe a small burrowing rodent is born with a defect: non-functioning eyes. Since it lives by burrowing into the ground, it doesn't need its eyes that much in order to survive and propagate, and may even derive a small benefit from them. Thus, succeeding generations from that rat will also have a tendency to be born with non-functioning eyes until the organ withers away. That's still evolution, even though it prunes away unneeded appendages and reduces the complexity of the organism.

Unless of course you have a different definition of complexity.