• Gregory
    4.6k
    This is a thread in which we can discuss evolution, probability, and God. Species, or its members, change in themselves and in their offspring. The future we will discover but the past is remembered only by the sciences. Mutations happen only to individuals. A species doesn't exist. So if, just for example, a cat was to evolve into a dog through a long line of other individuals descended from the cat, each mutation would happen randomly to one or more of the group. And what are the odds that this mutation would happen across the group? So we have a mutation and this individual(s) has to survive and and reproduce, keeping the mutation alive. This new feature of the group is kept for the same reason it saved the first member: survival. But then the process has to happen again latter to one or more of the group where a mutation is advantageous and these members, although with the new mutation, are still not a large group (because how can random mutations happen across a group at once) and they have to survive just as the first mutated members were in the first example. So getting from a single cell to the human race by evolution seems hugely unlikely. Every mutation happens at a point and must survive (lots of small groups along the long long way). So the historical dice was thrown on the planet and an unlikely result occurred. Its no wonder that people think a person (God) was the dice thrower and the game was rigged. There is a large group, then a small that becomes large, then a small again, and onward. Who protected all those small groups from extinction? Now I don't believe this is an argument for God, but I understand how it can be for other people. I realize that if humans do not have real value then one can argue another species could have evolved instead of our unlikely scenario. But if we are just matter, what does it matter what form the matter took for 13 billion years? It's all the same thing. Unless you think humans are unique...
  • Vera Mont
    3.1k
    So getting from a single cell to the human race by evolution seems hugely unlikely.Gregory

    Only because those people do not comprehend the time-scale, the rate of reproduction and mutation in one-celled organisms and the reproductive advantage of beneficial mutation.
    (And, of course, cats don't evolve into dogs; dogs and cats both evolved from https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/science/343965/cats-and-dogs-had-a-common-ancestor-and-here-it-is/story/ and so did a whole bunch of other animal species. It took 40+million years. )
  • punos
    440
    Only because those people do not comprehend the time-scale, the rate of reproduction and mutation in one-celled organisms and the reproductive advantage of beneficial mutation.
    (And, of course, cats don't evolve into dogs; dogs and cats both evolved from https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/science/343965/cats-and-dogs-had-a-common-ancestor-and-here-it-is/story/ and so did a whole bunch of other animal species. It took 40+million years. )
    Vera Mont

    I am punos and i endorse this message.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    The longer ago it goes the more unlikely it was
  • Vera Mont
    3.1k
    The longer ago it goes the more unlikely it wasGregory

    Now there is an unanswerable argument!
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    The older the alleged evolutionary line is the less likely its real because it's just a greater amount of time the living beings didn't go extinct. If you understand this and the OP, state my argument in your own words before you try to answer it
  • Vera Mont
    3.1k
    The older the alleged evolutionary line is the less likely its real because it's just a greater amount of time the living beings didn't go extinct.Gregory

    Living beings didn't go extinct for 3.7 billion years. That may be unlikely, but if it hadn't happened, you would not be here to question that it happened. Evolution is a continuous - which is to say uninterrupted, unbroken - line of descent from pond-scum to whales, redwoods, humans, daffodils, ants, bluebirds, wolverines and everything else that's alive today. The longer ago an evolutionary line branched off from the descendants of pond-scum, the fewer relatives we had.
    If you understand any of this, blink twice.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    Evolution is discrete because there are individuals involved. It can't be continuous
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    How does a species start to shape? How so you get from one group to another by step by step evolution, noting how each member can mate with the ones before and after it. I really would like to know. Dont just say "it was slow". That's a cop-out. Evolution may have happened, it's not very important anyway. What it tries to replace may be far more important
  • Vera Mont
    3.1k
    If you really want to know, information is readily and freely available.
    Here is a start:
  • Vera Mont
    3.1k
    What it tries to replace may be far more importantGregory

    What it tried to replace?
    IT = evolution doesn't try anything. It is a process whereby organisms adapt to environments and circumstances.
    REPLACE = to take the place of some thing or process that existed previously. In this case, the absence of life.
    How was the absence of life more important than the process whereby life is perpetuated?
  • T Clark
    13k
    a cat was to evolve into a dog through a long line of other individuals descended from the cat, each mutation would happen randomly to one or more of the group. And what are the odds that this mutation would happen across the group?Gregory

    This shows a misunderstanding of how speciation is understood to take place. Most changes take place in small, isolated populations separated geographically or genetically. Darwin was struck by the diversity of species in the Galapagos Islands apparently similar to, but distinct from, species on the mainland. The Galapagos are very isolated from the nearest mainland in South America. South America itself was very isolated from the northern hemisphere for millions of years so that species there were significantly different from North America, including a large proportion of marsupials. When a land bridge formed between the continents, many species in the south were unable to compete with placental mammals and went extinct.

    Single cell organisms are believed to have first developed about 3.5 billion years ago, but multicellular life didn't evolve till about 500 or 600 million years ago. As soon as multicellular life evolved, the rate of evolution became much more rapid.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    Why did you go get a video (which I've seen) instead of doing the chore yourself? Lame
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    Who does the first member of a species mate with?
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    You are trying to make it continuous, when individuals and organs, all that, are all discrete. If there is a cat then there was a first cat. Your theory is just a blur
  • Vera Mont
    3.1k
    Who does the first member of a species mate with?Gregory

    There is no first member of a species.
    https://www.cbd.int/gti/taxonomy.shtml
    I'm not giving a course in elementary biology.
  • Vera Mont
    3.1k
    Why did you go get a video (which I've seen) instead of doing the chore yourself?Gregory

    Because you are not my child to educate.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    So we have a cat. No first just like it?
  • Moliere
    4k
    I like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True

    It's an easy introduction to the theory that covers the physical evidence.

    Now, probability or God -- that you will not find in the book. But evolution -- yes.

    And I think, even if you disagree with evolution, it'd be useful for you to know what those who do believe in it believe and why they believe.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    This is a philosophy forum.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    We debate from the point of philosophy and if philosophy finds evolution impossible then science is wrong
  • Moliere
    4k
    I agree.

    I didn't, for instance, say that it's a true book. I just said I like it, and it'd be useful for you to read because it'd develop your philosophy better -- you'd be better able to appeal to people who disagree with you.

    Now, to be honest, I believe evolution is true. But that shouldn't matter for all the points I'm making.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    Why not address my arguments at least. We have a dog. What is the first member of its ancestor that is just like it such that our perception recognizes it as a dog.?Now that dog came from non-dog parents? That's not possible my friend. Who did it mate with? If you know how this works then explain it. This is all about philosophy and has nothing to do with how scientists see the world.
  • Moliere
    4k
    Fair point.

    I'll address the actual argument later. To treat it fairly, I'd have to do a bit more work -- and I'm not feeling like doing that now ;).
  • T Clark
    13k
    You are trying to make it continuous, when individuals and organs, all that, are all discrete. If there is a cat then there was a first cat. Your theory is just a blurGregory

    As I noted, you have no understanding of the theory you are arguing against. Nuff said.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    But you didn't answer my arguments
  • Hanover
    12k
    No organisms developed on Mars, so it is not simply a product of time that assures diversity, but the fundamental components within the system for evolution to occur must first be present.

    This is easily answered by by the fact that the Big Bang created a multitude of environments, so much so that at least one was capable of sustaining life. That is, we are still able to rely upon our theory that given enough trials, most every combination will occur.

    The next question though, is whether it was possible that the primordial mass that constituted the Big Bang could have lacked the components to ever yield life. If the answer is it could, then the only way to assure it was statistically likely it would, would be through the existence of many Big Bangs.

    That is, if we're locked into the argument that given enough time most everything will happen, then we'll need to accept there was a Big Bang that happened and it yielded no life only to be over-ridden by one of billions of other Big Bangs that yielded life.

    This analysis I've done is not generally accepted, but it does seem b to logically follow doesn't it?
  • jgill
    3.5k
    This is all about philosophy and has nothing to do with how scientists see the world.Gregory

    Which, unfortunately, makes it sophomoric babble. But not unpleasant, like a stream bubbling along.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    You're choice



    There is no evidence that everything that can happen will. It's not relevant. My first point was that evolution resulting in humans is greatly unlikely. You can't bring in other probabilities from "many Big Bangs" to rig evolution's probability. That's like someone seeing something random and saying to himself "well other random things happen out there so this is not random". Evolution denies what we see as reality in organisms. Everything is a blur and explained as a blur, although the mind can, philosophically, understand how species are unique and can't be combined in any combination whatsoever. The issue of mating I see is difficult for evolutionists
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    Notice that the theory of biological evolution is not directional - it doesn't 'evolve towards' any particular outcome, it's simply an account of how species develop through time. Evolution in the sense of development towards an overall goal, whether historical, philosophical, religious or biological, is generally deprecated by science as orthogenetic. Orthogenesis is a theory that proposes that evolution proceeds in a predetermined direction, driven by some internal force or mechanism. It was popular in the early 20th century but has largely been discredited by modern evolutionary theory, which emphasizes the role of natural selection and random genetic variation in shaping the diversity of life. I think Henri Bergson's 'Creative Evolution' is regarded as an orthogenetic theory, but it's not really much taught any more.

    So the sense in which you're talking about evolution has little or nothing to do with 'the theory of evolution' as science pursues it (which is not to say that it's mistaken or fallacious).
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