Darwinism

[Kyuuketsuki]

First, what is Darwinism?

Darwinism is a creationist invention intended (as far as I can tell) to make those who accept the theory of evolution look like they are following some cult of personality or religion. In reality there's no such thing (well there might be but I guarantee most, if not all, evolutionists are not part of such a cult/religion) because whilst we respect/admire/acknowledge Darwin as "the father of evolution" he is not a god (and besides Wallace would likely have got it if he didn't) and an awful lot more work has been done since (far more than Darwin ever did).

Second, I read somewhere, can't remember where, that apparently the earliest forms of life may date to as far back as 4 billion years! Which means it only took around 700 million years for abiogensis to occur. That would certainly put the chances of humans encountering alien life into the realm of possibility.

I have read that too but there is no evidence that aliens even exist let alone have visited this world (though I concede it does increase the possibility of such a visitation if they did).

Kyu

[Anto Kennedy]

to make those who accept the theory of evolution look like they are following some cult of personality or religion.

Oddly enough, evolution forms a core part of my religion. I suppose I'm the only proper Darwinist here.

Let me show you an example,

1Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. 2He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3"Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."

9Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

(4 Mark 1-9)

Most of you should be familiar with this parable, it describes how Jesus' message is "sown". Now look closer, and picture Dawkins in your mind, in particular when he describes religion is a meme virus...

Jesus' message is a meme package, "The farmer sows the word", and it evolves by natural selection; some falls along the path and the birds eat it up, those seeds don't get to replicate, some falls on rocky places, not enough soil to feed the seeds, they don't replicate, others in thorns etc. but some seeds fall in good soil, tro replicate thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.

What's probably most important in this passage is the use of the word "seed". And it not only describes the evolution of "the Word" but it describes the process of evolution clearly. Substitute seed for deer and you have a pretty good description of natural selection.

A doe goes out into the woods and has 4 cubs. One of the cubs lingered to long in the plains and got eaten by a lion. Another cub was climbing on a rocky cliff and slipped, fell, and broke it's neck. Another was drinking water by the river but got pulled in by the powerful stream, eventually drowning. But one, just one of the cubs survived childhood, grew up big and strong and found a mate, and had a litter of it's own.

Wheither Jesus existed or not is neither here nor there, whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark was a genius.

The concept of natural selection was known quite early in human history, and it, ironically, was bound up in cosmology rather than biology, they talk about how the universe evolves, from a state of chaos, into a state of order, through natural selection. So, it is in Creationism, that we find...Darwinism!

I have read that too but there is no evidence that aliens even exist let alone have visited this world

I'm not saying visiting this world, I believe sapient creatures such as ourself may be a one off, and if there are other species, they'd be so rare we wouldn't be able to ever meet them. Still, I'm sure there'd be some alien worms or plantlife just around the next solar system.

[Kyuuketsuki]

to make those who accept the theory of evolution look like they are following some cult of personality or religion.

The concept of natural selection was known quite early in human history, and it, ironically, was bound up in cosmology rather than biology, they talk about how the universe evolves, from a state of chaos, into a state of order, through natural selection. So, it is in Creationism, that we find...Darwinism!

Wikipedia:
Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

IOW you're talking bollocks!

I have read that too but there is no evidence that aliens even exist let alone have visited this world

I'm not saying visiting this world, I believe sapient creatures such as ourself may be a one off, and if there are other species, they'd be so rare we wouldn't be able to ever meet them. Still, I'm sure there'd be some alien worms or plantlife just around the next solar system.

Why do you believer we may be the only creatures that exhibit sapience? I shouldn't be surprised though should I since bigiotry seems to be a key part of your character?

Kyu

[Anto Kennedy]

Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

That's only a wikipedia definition which refers to biological evolution and the natural selection of species, individuals and genes for extinction.

Natural selection is also in the beginning stages of being applied to the evolution of other phenomena such as cosmology. Indeed, in The God Delusion Richard Dawkins hints at this; perhaps there was more than one universe, many unstable universes that were blinked out of existence as soon as they became manifest, others last longer but still don't make the cut. And our universe could be that one universe whose physical laws were so finely tuned allowing for a bunch of monkeys, sorry apes, like us to be considering the nature of reality. Interesting stuff.

As for memes, well again it's Dawkins who hints at the evolution through natural selection of packages of information.

The concept of a tournament itself displays natural selection as it's core component. We start of with say a group of 16 participants, with each round the weaker participants are eliminated until eventually there is only one winner.

Natural selection is a part of everyday life, it isn't something that only appeared in the 19th Century when Darwin called it into existence. Darwin started off with the theory that animals share a common ancestry, there would have to be an evolutionary mechanism for this. The mechanism he proposed was natural selection, yet many biologist disagreed with this. It was until the early 20th Century that natural selection became accepted as the mechanism by which the evolution of species occurs.

There's the history lesson, now let's get down to the bollox you claim I spout. Let's exchange organism for meme.

Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for a meme to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations.

Or a universe

Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for a universe to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations.

Different generations of universes, interesting stuff. For such a stable universe as our own, lasting 14 billion years isn't bad going, we may be quite a number of generations down the line. Who knows...

Let's try the Word of God

Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for the Word of God to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations.

Don't take my word for it, I'm just a bigot, here's what Dawkins has to say about it,

many people have not had their consciousness raised, as biologists have, by natural selection and it's power to tame imporabability....

.....Another theoretical physicist, Lee Smolin, has developed a tantalizingly Darwinian variant on the multiverse theory, including both serial and parallel elements. Smolins idea, expounded in The Life of the Cosmos, hinges on the theory that daughter universes are born of parent universes. Smolin adds a form of heredity: the fundamental constants of a daughter universe are slightly 'mutated' variants of the constants of it's parent. Heredity is the essential ingredient of Darwinian natural selection, and the rest Smolin's theory follows naturally. Those universes that have what it takes to 'survive' and 'reproduce' come to predominate in the multiverse.

(The God Delusion, p174 - 175, The Anthropic Principle, Cosmological version)

IOW he's talking bollox.

Heredity is the essential ingredient of Darwinian natural selection

still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."

Why do you believer we may be the only creatures that exhibit sapience?

Homo Sapiens are very unlikely. If complex organisms were to evolve on another planet, they would most likely be cold blooded reptiles like the dinosaurs, who are superior than mammals in perhaps every way in terms of survivability. The mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs was a BIG fluke. Of course, the alien dinosaurs may be wiped out in a similar fashion, but this is highly unlikely, there may be just several planets were this does occur in the entire universe, or none at all.

Now mammals are warm blooded, and as such suffer a severe disability; they harbour viruses. Cold blooded animals like the dinosaurs don't suffer this same disability, and without a mass extinction event, weak mammals cannot grow to dominate an ecosystem. And, my guess is, only mammals exhibit the kind of consciousness that could grow into a sapient consciousness capable of space travel.

But sure, I'm just a bigot. BTW, why was Fr0do banned? If you don't mind me asking.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

That's only a wikipedia definition which refers to biological evolution and the natural selection of species, individuals and genes for extinction.

I agree it's only Wikipedia but in this case they got it right.

Natural selection doesn't really apply to cosmology because there is no real competition for resource, no struggle to survive within changing environmental conditions ...if Dawkins or anyone else said that they were waxing poetic. An NS like process may apply to cosmology in some sense I agree.

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? 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.

Let's try the Word of God

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.

[Homo Sapiens are very unlikely. If complex organisms were to evolve on another planet, they would most likely be cold blooded reptiles like the dinosaurs, who are superior than mammals in perhaps every way in terms of survivability. The mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs was a BIG fluke. Of course, the alien dinosaurs may be wiped out in a similar fashion, but this is highly unlikely, there may be just several planets were this does occur in the entire universe, or none at all.

Justify your claim that Homo sapiens is unlikely please!
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).

Now mammals are warm blooded, and as such suffer a severe disability; they harbour viruses. Cold blooded animals like the dinosaurs don't suffer this same disability, and without a mass extinction event, weak mammals cannot grow to dominate an ecosystem. And, my guess is, only mammals exhibit the kind of consciousness that could grow into a sapient consciousness capable of space travel.

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

But sure, I'm just a bigot. BTW, why was Fr0do banned? If you don't mind me asking.

You are a bigot and I do!

Kyu

[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?

[theVOID]

From an email debate i was having with someone:

Published Scientists have tried to speak their minds against Darwin's theories and got tomatoes thrown at them... so to speak. I have a list of these Scientists if you are interested in who is saying there MIGHT BE another explanation.

I could find you a list of scientists that say the world is hollow, that homoeopathy is real, the world is 6000 years old etc, but that doesn't change the fact that their ideas are unsubstantiated drivel. Until they have a clear framework and empirical evidence that not only proves their own theory, but disproves evolution completely at the same time then they don't have a theory, they have an argument.

Your insistence on calling it Darwin's theory simply illustrates the problem with people who insist there is some kind of academic conspiracy. This is NOT Darwin's theory any more, he was the first to publish a paper on it and that is why he is given admiration, but if he was to see this theory today he would not recognise most of it. Darwin was a man of the Victorian times, his ideas were noble and many were confirmed today, but he was also wrong in a fair number of his predictions, none of which matter because the theory is NOT dependant at all on Darwin being completely correct. Darwin simply drew a conclusion from the empirical evidence that was available to him at the time, the fact that the premise of the idea is now considered scientific fact and is supported by the summation millions of individual pieces of evidence, including types of evidence that Darwin knew nothing of at the time (RNA, DNA, Embryology) is testament not to Darwin but to the evidence it's self.

When you consider the millions of individual pieces of data that support evolution from many different and completely independent fields of study, including chemistry, biology, embryology, radioisotope dating, archaeology, anthropology etc compared to the frankly pathetically weak cases presented by opposing theories it is no wonder that Evolution is accepted by almost every scientist

[Anto Kennedy]

Interesting developments I've been keeping tabs on recently. Epigenetic evolution, interesting stuff (taking natural selection and combining it with a semi-Lamarckian inheiritance)

[dry land fish]

Hello again Chatpilot, (and the rest of y'all) As stated in the bible thread I would love to defend my Bible and I would like to hear your defenses for Darwinism.

Here is my question-- In the earth's crust are many layers of strata,the lowest level of strata that scientists have found with fossil remains is the Cambrian Strata. The fossil remains in this strata compare to todays animals. If evolution is genuine-where are their ancestors???-

Here is Charles Darwins answer to my question-- [to the question why we do not find rich fossilferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian System I can give no satisfactory answer..the case at present must remain inexplicable;and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained] Origin of the Species Pg.39

Since Charles Darwin cannot defend Darwinism and evolution I'd like to hear what you have to say about it. Icthus

Those are their ancestors. That is why they are similar. NO animals are found in Cambrian strata that compare enough to the animals today to even suggest evolution didn't happen. They are similar because they are ancestors...they are not extremely alike. Darwin started the ball rolling on evolution. He was one of the first scientists to suggest that animals could have Evolved publicly. He was not 100% accurate on all of his research. He just opened the door for other scientists to take what he discovered and actually work with it to find out what we know today. Science is a changing field of study because our technology changes so rapidly and you can't expect a scientist from the 1800's to be accurate according to research today.

Science is not the Bible. We don't just write one book and make it law. We write what we know today...and maybe we can change it tomorrow if we learn something new. We aren't about trying to tell a story and stick with it no matter how retarded it sounds 100 years later.

Does evolution happen? YES. Is Charles Darwin important to science today? YES. He was wonderful and brilliant and yes I display a Darwin fish on my car. He is one of my favorite scientists because he made such a contribution to Geology.

[fr0d0]

We aren't about trying to tell a story and stick with it no matter how retarded it sounds 100 years later.

LOL ..a fact whore I see