It is not about "winning" or "losing", we are just having a discussion around basic scientific concepts. Agreement and disagreement are normal aspects of civil discussions. you are welcome to agree or disagree. No need to view this as "winning" or "losing" an argument.
You can't trust a meta-ethical moral relativist since such a person can abuse reason to justify any act.
Surely "fitness" would be how well suited a species is for its' environment?
Of course it is different for humans, we're evolving much slower because of our reproductive patterns, also we nurture our weak so it's very different.
A guy who ruffies many woman and and impregnates them would be "fitter" than a guy who doesn't, interesting thought though not very humane.
I often think of technologically superior armies taking out lesser technological forces as natural selection, like guns vs spears etc.
And then an asteroid hits the technological superior army and gets taken out by the inferior one. Chance happens so labeling anything that survives as "fitter" doesn't make sense. Something may just be at the wrong place at the wrong time like a super fast antelope standing next to a large tree with a lion on the other side or a weak one seeking safety in the middle of a herd. In both cases nature failed to select the fittest or weed out the weakest. If fitness can't be predicted it can't really be claimed just by looking at the result. Fitness is also a relative concept based on environment. A green snake in the grass will have a higher chance of catching its pray but if the grass dies then it will be at a disadvantage over a brown one.
The focus should be on populations. It's not the characteristics of the individual but the ability to have those characteristics that defines fitness. It may not be of any use to the snake now but if it can pass on the ability to mutate its color genes to future generations then its line will have a better chance of survival.
Take the most common and pathogenic strain of HIV HIV-1 as an example. It infects target cells through its glycoprotein gp120 attaching to CD4 receptor sites. This functions as a lock and key mechanism that invites the cell the open its wall and absorb the virus. Current vaccine research is targeting the gp120 protein but if this happens it could slightly alter it to make the vaccine useless but still be viable for infection or it could mutate it to infect a different animal host. It's not the specific key here or even the gp120 that gives it an advantage but the glycoprotein and ability to induce mutations as without these it would not have been capable of human infection in the first place.
Patterns in nature are not unusual. We regularly see both unspecific and repeated patterns. These are called simple structures. What we do not see often or at all is specific patterns. The trick here is knowing where the balance lies that separates the two. An overly critical person will see some sand dunes and claim it was designed while an overly optimistic one will see a series of platforms with holes through which the sun shines only for a few seconds a year at sunset and claim its a natural occurrence.Originally Posted by CoolBug
Both are overlooking the details. Sand dunes have a natural mechanism, are irregular shapes, do not occur in specific orders, and are not regularly spaced. It's simply an unspecific pattern that has to exist but it could have been any pattern. The platforms however have holes that are regularly occurring, are of regular shape, are in a regular order, and have no natural mechanism for creating it to accomplish a clear goal. It's a specific pattern as only a few would do to accomplish the goal.
The key here is complexity. The 2nd law of thermodynamics also known as the law of entropy states that the entropy in a closed system will always increase. It's held up so well that it's commonly also regarded to apply to systems and processes too. Isaac Asimov writes:
Simply put things break down. We make machines and if we don't maintain them they literally fall apart. Even our own bodies deteriorate. Entropy can roughly be described as the amount of randomness in a system. As complexity decreases entropy and randomness increases. To remove randomness and decrease entropy we have to add complexity again from outside the system.Another way of stating the second law then is: 'The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!' Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself—and that is what the second law is all about.
Evolution arising from randomness and gaining complexity violates this principle! Nothing in the universe violates it. Even the universe itself is getting less complex. Life as a closed system will also deteriorate and lose complexity without intervention.
Looked up lately?
Technically speaking, we haven't actually observed anything that is random. We have only observed various degrees of order. At best you can talk of indeterminate states or processes.
You can't trust a meta-ethical moral relativist since such a person can abuse reason to justify any act.
if you mean its ability to survive to reproductive age and pass its genetic information to future generations...
perhaps that is because we largely now control our environments, thus natural selection is a diminishing factor in our evolution.Of course it is different for humans, we're evolving much slower because of our reproductive patterns, also we nurture our weak so it's very different.
fortunately, rape and procreation have different outcomes in mind. the rapist is also at higher risk of landing up in prison, or contracing an std - outcomes which would diminish his future reproductive potential. if this was the most optimal mating strategy, it would be more widely employed.A guy who ruffies many woman and and impregnates them would be "fitter" than a guy who doesn't, interesting thought though not very humane.
this sounds more like eugenics and artificial selection than natural selection. when it comes to these kinds of things, it's very hard to separate advantageous genetic traits from luck, and meme from gene. and who is to say a violent predisposition isn't an evolutionary disadvantage?I often think of technologically superior armies taking out lesser technological forces as natural selection, like guns vs spears etc.
Last edited by murraybiscuit; 13-07-2012 at 08:41 AM.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so
I don't know why you think "natural selection is a diminishing factor in our evolution" just because we control our environments better. Natural selection is just the result of fitness differences right? And that still exists irrespective of how well we control our environment.
You can't trust a meta-ethical moral relativist since such a person can abuse reason to justify any act.
i understood that if factors in the environment led to you not surviving or reproducing, then natural selection had ultimately determined your evolution. if you took those environmental factors away, then you would ultimately not have been influenced by them, because you would have been able to reproduce.
take the following example: humans die from a wide range of viral, bacterial etc contagions. humans develop countermeasures. humans survive. it was not (from my understanding) inherited genetic traits (their "fitness") which helped them to survive. surely if our advances in beneficial technologies serves to better ensure our survival, these would ultimately lessen the influence of our environment in our evolution?
maybe my grammar/terminology is the issue here. i'm an evolution noob. please explain.
Last edited by murraybiscuit; 13-07-2012 at 09:14 AM.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so
Environment is one factor that plays a role but not the only one. A simple example would be bacteria that can only digest sucrose. This is an intrinsic disposition. It is a quality or power of these bacteria and this, in part, determines their fitness. This fitness/disposition is relative to the environment it lives in. Both the bacteria's intrinsic qualities AND the environment play a part in their survival and reproduction.
Ok, so here again are the two factors.
First there are the intrinsic dispositions of humans. E.g. humans can die as a result of various diseases.
Secondly, there is the environment. In this case, humans are capable of changing their environment that leads to increased survival without changing their intrinsic dispositions. E.g. humans make soap, or vaccines to help them cope with viral infections etc. So, while humans still have intrinsic dispositions, they are also able to change their environment. There are still fitness differences that result in natural selection, we can just control the environment a bit better. That's how I see it anyway.
Last edited by Techne; 13-07-2012 at 09:22 AM.
You can't trust a meta-ethical moral relativist since such a person can abuse reason to justify any act.
but if smallpox is no longer an issue due to herd immunity, then is it really an issue any more? let's say one day we eradicate polio or smallpox. even if we don't, smallpox currently has very little potential for determining our fitness into the future. add it to a growing list of environmental factors which no longer affect our "fitness", as they no longer act as a filter because we have developed ways to negate their influence.
in the sucrose bug example, if the source of sucrose were to dry up tomorrow, that would be the end of them. however, if certain sources of human nutrition were to vanish tomorrow, we have the options of genetic modification, artificial cultivation or chemical synthesis to derive the necessary nutrients from alternative sources. because the sugar bug can not influence its environment, this course of action is not an option and therefore it is more susceptible to natural selection in this case.
please bear in mind that i didn't say that natural selection has NO influence, just that its influence seems to be diminishing at this point in history. as witnessed by our current population. hope it's making sense
Last edited by murraybiscuit; 13-07-2012 at 09:46 AM.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so
Fitness is not meant to be an unchanging quality. Polio or smallpox are not an issue due to two possible reasons.
Either something intrinsic in our immune system has changed that makes immune. I.e. our intrinsic dispositions change.
Or something in the environment changes, E.g. we are able to alter our environment by either eradicating it completely i.e. there is no more smallpox, or we engineer vaccines that can boost our immune system by making us more immune to it.
Yes, while our intrinsic dispositions may not change much, we can alter our environment which in turn leads to fitness differences and natural selection.
I understand what you are trying to say. My point is that natural selection is not a quantifiable thing that happens less here or more there. Whenever you have fitness difference you have natural selection. The magnitude that each factor contributes towards these fitness differences may change. E.g., an environmental change or a change in the intrinsic dispositions of a creature.please bear in mind that i didn't say that natural selection has NO influence, just that its influence seems to be diminishing at this point in history. as witnessed by our current population. hope it's making sense
You can't trust a meta-ethical moral relativist since such a person can abuse reason to justify any act.
And?Looked up lately?
Of course we haven't because the universe is governed by laws so everything behaves in more or less predictable ways. Then there's also the butterfly effect and that none of us might have been here if that speck of space dust didn't land on our planet. We view things from a set frame of reference so it's hard to determine true randomness but if quantum randomness is true then given two identical universes they may both end completely different.
The point is that there are certain degrees or magnitudes of order that are statistically likely and certain degrees of order that are so unlikely to not completely fall apart that it's practically impossible for them to even come about.
You are right with the idea that we influence or create our environment to such a degree that natural pressures no longer have much control. The problem is that there are also other genetic factors. We keep people with genetic diseases alive just long enough to reproduce thereby weakening our gene pool. Cancer, asthma, allergies, heart defects, or any other genetic disease you can name. They would all be "selected" against not by environmental pressures but simple survivability but these are all seeing an increase in our species.
The smallpox you mention has actually been eradicated. Only a few samples worldwide exist for research purposes and in case a vaccine needs to be made. If smallpox were to occur we would actually have less immunity due to generations not having been exposed to it. Both smallpox and polio were effectively contained by vaccines and polio is now limited mostly to undeveloped regions, specifically South Asia and Nigeria.
...and I had assumed (wrongly) this wouldn't need to be spelt out. The Earth isn't a closed system; there is a constant influx of energy from that big ball of burny **** in the sky.
Of course, that's beside the point that the second law of thermodynamics deals with heat flow and has sweet **** all to say on the topic of evolution. It is an exceedingly moronic objection thereto, which only serves to highlight ignorance.
No... tell me Swa didn't just spew out the second law of thermodynamics argument?!? (can't follow what he is saying I have the muppet on ignore)
That is a really really stupid argument. In fact I would argue that with the exception of "if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys" it is the thickest argument I've ever seen. Only the dumbest of the dumb creationists would ever entertain such an argument. For fscks sake Swa go take high school physics again!
EDIT: What I love most about the retards that push this second law of thermodynamics argument (I use the word argument in a very loose sense here) is that they don't realise that that same flawed logic can be used to say that it is impossible for an embryo to grow into an entire functional adult human being.
Last edited by porchrat; 13-07-2012 at 03:47 PM.
The box said "requires Windows7 or better" so I installed Linux.
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