Darwinism

[Anto Kennedy]

Natural selection doesn't really apply to cosmology because there is no real competition for resource, no struggle to survive within changing environmental conditions

That was just an example how currently there is a trend amongst theorists in applying Darwinian concepts to natural phenomena other than biology. Good points though. Maybe there is competition for "breathing space" in string-based multiverse, with those universes which have harder "shells" i.e. being able to withstand a membrane collision, being able to give birth to daughter systems.

Why should I be interested in discussing memes with an idiot bigot? What has that got to do with your stupid claim that the bible already had natural selection in it?

Well Jesus is referring to the seeds as his teaching, a package of information, a meme. Dawkins also describes the spread of religious belief in similar terms.

Darwinian natural selection was combined with Mendelian inheritance to form the modern evolutionary synthesis,[12] which connected the units of evolution (genes) and the mechanism of evolution (natural selection).

The units in this instance are religious beliefs/instruction, the mechanism, however, is the same.

Actually natural selection was accepted by many scientists and academics almost as soon as it was proposed ... yes there was opposition but there is always opposition so your point is pretty much irrelevant.

There was no point, it was just a history lesson. I was supposed to add that natural selection had been discovered independantly by Alfred Wallace, the point to that, if I had posted (silly me) was to show that 'great minds think alike' i.e. Darwin's discovery of natural selection as the mechanism for evolution was not unique, fact, and most probably was preceded by other great thinkers, theory.

One such great thinker (apart from Jesus...or the author of Mark, depending on your preference) was Al-Jahiz, an Arabic biologist,

Al-Jāḥiẓ (in Arabic الجاحظ) (real name Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri) (born in Basra, c. 781 – December 868 or January 869) was a famous Afro-Arab scholar of East African descent,[4][5] the grandson of a Negro (Zanj) slave.[6][7] He was an Arabic prose writer and author of works on Arabic literature, biology, zoology, history, early Islamic philosophy, Islamic psychology, Mu'tazili theology, and politico-religious polemics.

In the Book of Animals, al-Jahiz first speculated on the influence of the environment on animals and developed an early theory of evolution. Al-Jahiz considered the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and first described the struggle for existence,[8] an ancestor of natural selection.[9] Al-Jahiz' ideas on the struggle for existence in the Book of Animals have been summarized as follows:

"Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahiz

Ignoring the rest of your argument (I'm only interested in opposing your claim that NS is in scripture) the quote you make is NOT recognition of natural selection, it is simple recognition that good soil produces good crop, bad soil the reverse ... just basic farming stuff.

Do you not have ears to hear? You don't even need ears, the parable is explained in the following passage,

10When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12so that,
" 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'[a]"

13Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14The farmer sows the word. 15Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."

(4 Mark 10 - 20)

Satan in this passage is named as competing, along with the pleasures of this world, and the fear of persecution, for the souls of man. Interesting stuff, spiritual evolution or depending on your outlook, memetic competition for attention.

Justify your claim that Homo sapiens is unlikely please!

Mammals are weak, mammals would never get the chance to evolve in such diverse paths in such a hostile environment as like our own 200-60 Mya. Even then it's hit or miss. We're only chatting on an internet forum, I'm not claiming definitively that no sapient like species could ever evolve again, I'm only saying I believe it's too improbable. In which case, it really depends on how big the universe is, the bigger the more likely.

Justify your assertion that the mass extinction of dinosaurs was a fluke, indeed justify that it actually happened (I understand there is significant opposition in the scientific community to the idea that a meteor falling 60MYA wiped out the dinosaurs).

The mass extinction did happen, there's no dinosaurs living in my backyard so I'm guessing they died out. And you're supposed to be the rational one. Just dig up some dirt...actually quite a bit of dirt untill you get to a level around 65 Mya and you'll find a lot of fossills there, and then look up....and they disapear. Strange that, did they move to another planet? What's your counter theory to the "extinction myth".

Justify your claim that the dinosaurs were cold blooded (here's a clue, they weren't).

I was assuming they were. Although you seem to have some knowledge that the scientific community doesn't have by stating, not assuming, that they were warm blooded. There's still a lot of debate over what kind of metabolism the dinosaurs had. I was assuming, based on observations of modern reptiles, that dinosaurs would have had it easy when it came to viruses, but I'm no paleontologist.

I think you're just opposing everything I say without considering what you're saying at all. What's crawled up your asshole?