Talk:Evolution/Archive3

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WTF?

You can't compare evolution to creationism. There are facts for evolution. We know for example that the ancestors of birds are dinosaurs. Nothing proves creationism. 91.115.62.5 (talk) 13:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

It's worse than that. Evolutionary biology offers accounts about what happens and how so that features of the world of life turn out the way things are. For example, how it is that mammals are all air-breathing four-limbed vertebrates. Why humans, being mammals, have typical structure to the eyes of vertebrates, rather than of insects, or of octopuses. Creationism shows no prospect of ever addressing such issues. Creationists have no interest in offering an "alternative" account for such "complex specified" structures in the world of life. (Something which couldn't have happened by chance.) TomS TDotO (talk) 08:59, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Not by chance? I was taught that the reason we even have life here is because we got lucky with the chance of the primordial soup arranging itself. And then we got really lucky that all the environmental factors somehow came together to evolve eucaryotes and eventually human beings. As in, genetic changes pretty much just happen by chance and are seemingly random, and then it is up to the survival of the fittest which one ends up persisting. (Unless you are going to argue a complete chain of deterministic events all the way from primordial soup to now, in which case I'm not going toargue with you.)

Indeed, I would think that the creationists are more likely to hold the view that everything didn't happen by chance, but God designed it. Nullahnung (talk) 11:46, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

It isn't a matter of chance that mammals are air-breathing four-limbed vertebrates. Whenever we come across a mammal, we can feel confident that, upon investigation, we will find that it is air-breathing (even if it is fully adapted to water), it is four-limbed (in some cases, like whales, some of the limbs are vestigial), and have a bony skeleton. Creationists have never attempted to say why God created things that way - it's just a matter of an "act of God". Why are no five-limbed mammals? TomS TDotO (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, but is a tail not counted as a limb, as it can be extremely useful for things that limbs are used for, like keeping balance or grabbing tree branches? And are monkeys with such tails not mammals? Consider yourself slightly corrected, good sir! (<--sidetrack)

And yes, it is still always a matter of chance. Just because we can work with probabilities and good predictions based upon such probabilities doesn't mean the random element doesn't come into play. Kinda like quantum physics (not really, but you get my point). Nullahnung (talk) 21:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

And the question posed by Lincoln: if we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

My point was that we have a good account for how it happens that mammals are tetrapods. And "an omnipotent creator made things that way or "intelligent designers were responsible" does not tell us why, in so many ways, every mammal that we have examined is a tetrapod. And we can predict that every mammal that will be discovered, extant or extinct, will be a tetrapod. Evolution accounts for such observations and such predictions, and it is not just a matter of the luck of the draw. Creation/design has no way for accounting for that: Calculate, as the creationists like to do, the probability that every species of mammal has so many features in common - it is a regularity, and the only regularity that any one has thought of to produce that (and so many other facts of life) is common descent with modification. Unless someone has any prospect of ever discovering why God or intelligent designers are constrained to do things that way.

It is not a matter of chance that the next mammalian fossil that is dug up will fit the pattern. TomS TDotO (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, sure. Nullahnung (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion

Include a link to 'devolution' until 'about next Monday' (or whenever Salmond and Westminster have stopped arguing over who which side won). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Mivart

'What use is half a wing?' - still no satisfactory answer... ^{— Unsigned, by: 78.146.32.24 / talk / contribs}

Yawn. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 18:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

They're called "drumettes" and they're delicious with barbeque sauce. Ikanreed (talk) 18:25, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Until we crack the code on penguin or emu speech... we'll never know.--Inquisitor (talk) 18:27, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't natural selection have a mind?

It seems like it... I mean it chooses the best traits for the environment. Isn't that natural selection having a mind? ^{— Unsigned, by: 71.222.47.95 / talk / contribs}

A mighty clumsy mind, maybe. It's less of a choosing of the best traits, but more of a organisms who happen to have the better traits having a higher chance of survival. Nullahnung (talk) 09:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

It has no more of a "mind" than a river flowing downhill. Change the land and the flow will change - but it's not making conscious decisions, it's not self-aware and it's not planning ahead. It's not a "mind".--Weirdstuff (talk) 11:24, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Natural selection works like this: Mutations occur, and an organism maintains, thrives, or dies under environmental pressures. Mutations--that is, an imperfect replication of DNA--happen all the time, and most of them don't amount to much because most DNA is just junk. Then, too, mutations have a bigger difference if they happen early on--because then the altered DNA will be passed along by the cells derived by the original mutant one. If you get a skin cell with the mutant power to change color according to your will, but you're 25 when it occurs, you'd never know. Every now and then a mutation happens in an important spot, and--usually--an organism dies (because you're in trouble if your liver is miscoded, or other important organs). And then, sometimes, one hits the genetic lottery, or a bunch of the previously useless mutations happen to add up to something new and useful. Check out the wiki's page on The Lenski Affair for an example of a beneficial mutation letting something thrive under environmental pressures.. --Maxus (talk) 02:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Illuminati

Maybe I'm too fed up with the recent Illuminati explosion on RW (mostly from BoNs), but isn't this article's Illuminati section just too silly? It's like following a discussion of Inflammatory Bowel Disease with a bad fart joke. MarmotHead (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it should have its own section unless there is more recognition (newspapers documenting it, viral videos of it, that stuff). The source is pretty scanty, being only one (most likely obscure) Youtube video. What's next, the article on Pokémon having the Illuminati because one person talked about it? The best we can do it make a one-liner bullet point in the main Illuminati article, I believe. Finally, there's an awful lack of coherence that leads to this section. So, I'd support removing it. LEFTYGREENMARIO 20:09, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I just heard that the Illuminati invented Pokémon. Proof? Someone mentioned those two words in the same sentence on RW! MarmotHead (talk) 03:10, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

brb creating section on the article. ;) P.S. Does anyone else agree? LEFTYGREENMARIO 03:21, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Proof evolution is a hoax

http://creation.com/evolutions-achilles-heels

Possibly interesting

http://search.proquest.com/openview/d9097bbc2a097c5dbc37ffed00f8fff0/1?pq-origsite=gscholar Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 00:08, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Evolution, as theory and fact

I don't want to redact an entire section of an important article (I'm also a newbie here), so I propose this here. If some people agree to this, I'll gladly put it in.

“”“In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.”

—Stephen Jay Gould

We know that smaller masses are attracted by greater masses, whether they are apples or moons. We call this phenomenon “gravity” even when there is still considerable unclarity how it works exactly. Our understanding of gravity has changed between Newton and Einstein, and yet the fact that masses do attract each other in some specific way is true regardless of how we think about it. Evolution happens and is therefore a fact. In contrast, the theory of evolution is our currently best attempt to explain how it happens. Scientists will continue to improve our understanding, but regardless of how they go about it, masses attract each other, and life evolves. ^{— Unsigned, by: Aneris / talk / contribs}

I like it. Cømяade FυzzчCαтPøтαтø (talk/stalk) 21:53, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

straighened it a bit, added linkage and plugged it in now. ^^ Aneris ✻ (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Why teach evolution?

Why Teach Evolution? Going Beyond the Laws and Standards. FuzzyCatPotato of the Boorish Cardboard boxs (talk/stalk) 00:33, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Most people

... who have a basic knowledge of science can understand how much of evolution 'works' on the broad level - members of one species go into two different environments (in the broadest possible sense) can lead to two different variants and eventually two different species; as environments change the creatures will also do so (eg the transition from life in the sea to seashore/mangrove life and then land based life); and 'if there is no good reason why eg one eye colour has a particular benefit then variants all are likely to survive.' (And 'if life has evolved here on Earth it will probably emerge elsewhere in the universe - insert Trappist/Dr Who Silence pun here - and some of it will seem very peculiar to us, but there will be certain practical limits to it.)

However it is some of the technicalities that provide 'the problems' - how did 'the original chemicals' develop into 'self-replicating components' which then became cells (beyond 'some self-replicators make use of other such's by-products and associate together as a result' or how one gets from 'sensors' ('nerves or whatever') to eyes and taste buds. To some extent this may lead to 'god of the gaps'-itis (and should be where there is more explaining). 31.49.115.208 (talk) 11:01, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

The "place" you describe is basically the link between philosophy of mind (in the sense of a "philosophy of life") and evolution — but also where chemistry specifies into biology. Abiogenesis, in other words. As a skeptic, this place about marks the furthest end of where methodological naturalism has currently taken us (with certainty). Beyond this point, in the unexplored "gap" which lies ahead, the only guide you can trust is metaphysical naturalism — but that's assuming you want to stray into the jungle at all. I highly recommend doing so, but only responsibly. See our article on philosophical naturalism for more. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:25, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

In a nutshell

Welcome to the jungle. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:29, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Rev BP - write the book on 'eyes, cells and suchlike puzzles' aimed at the curious person described and you might well get rich (or more likely to do so than 'responding to the stuff in your email spam folder'). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Where is the github???

This is the best computer simulation I have ever seen of evolution.

I can't find the github repository. The author said in 2016, he was releasing his source publicly in a few weeks.

ClickerClock (talk) 01:05, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Common misconceptions about evolution

SciShow lends a hand. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:46, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Nice. I one time had to argue with my art history teacher that "nature is survival of the fittest", attributed that to Darwin, and that "nature selects the best and discards the rest" and that doesn't really line up with evolution. The video didn't touch too much on the idea that "less fit" organisms die off when I think they simply slowly vanish from the population; their genetics change slowly, gradually, it won't be noticed until after tons of generations to the point species from one point is different from species from a past point. The part about genetic traits being "strange", "useless", "neutral" is very interesting, I'd bring that up whenever the opportunity arises. It might mess up some brains! --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 18:04, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Where should I put my edit?

Tell me where I should put it, or you can put it there yourself, or, if it is already somewhere else, then tell me. Jeezbaby (talk) 23:32, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't rightly know. It's got some applicability to De-evolution but there's nowhere I can find on the wiki that really suits it exactly. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 04:49, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

jeezbaby's edit

Contrary to popular belief (and what most Creationists will say) evolution does not necessarily mean the fluid transition from lower life forms to higher life forms. Rather, Evolution is a complex process with many steps and processes. Religious people have reduced the idea of evolution to a ridiculously simplified caricature. Do not fall for this tactic.

It doesn't have a good section. Do we even have an article about misconceptions about evolution? Because they're describing a common one, even among people who believe in evolution. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 23:42, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Tweet

Where does [2] belong on the various RW-evolution-related pages? Anna Livia (talk) 17:33, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

[3] well, read that. It says that a carcass is still an open system. ^{— Unsigned, by: 2600:1:F160:161D:8676:18B5:893C:1DAE / talk}

AiG? Really? The apologetics group who's leader's default argument is "Were you there?"... Really aiming for the heavy hitters aren't you? Next up, Gravitiy is a satanic plot... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:26, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

But does it mean being an open system does not mean evolution is consistent with the second law? ^{— Unsigned, by: 2600:1:F160:161D:8676:18B5:893C:1DAE / talk}

No, resresponse? Does that mean there is not argument against it? So AiG has a point? ^{— Unsigned, by: 2600:1:F160:161D:8676:18B5:893C:1DAE / talk / contribs}

What does this have to do with a species that reappeared because its common ancestor evolved twice? Piss off, creationists. --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 19:17, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Well I am no scientist. Just seeing the difference in opinions. And seemed Answers in Genesis has a response to the debunk of open system, unless a scientist reading also has a response. And it seems both sides can give responses forever. ^{— Unsigned, by: 2600:1:F160:161D:8676:18B5:893C:1DAE / talk / contribs}

It's not a "difference" in opinions. It's one side being willfully ignorant and dishonest to real scientists and advancing questions that has been already answered. "Both sides" are giving responses forever only because creationists are intellectually dishonest. Anyway, this is veering off topic. I like to have comments that don't involve promoting creationism, okay? --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 20:01, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Evolution is based on a logical fallacy

1. if evolution is true we should observe varying fossils in the fossil records 2. we observe varying fossils in the fossil records 3. therefore, evolution is true

A textbook example of the fallacy of affirming the consequent.--Anotherbeliever (talk) 01:46, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

@Anotherbeliever if you think fossils are the only evidence for evolution, please read Common descent, or much more what you may be looking for (something recent), look at the Lenski affair. Evolution and its mechanisms are relatively easy to observe. its as simple as the proteins that replicate our DNA making a mistake, or placing a "stop" in the wrong spot. Creatures who manage to make it to reproduction with these changes (at least if the change occurred prior to the creation of reproductive cells) will pass on the trait to their offspring.PhoxyDude (talk) 01:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, there are multiple lines of evidence which support the Theory of Evolution. The fossil record is not even the most compelling - something which is borne out by the fact that it is only mentioned once in the entire article! (And which leads me to think that Anotherbeliever hasn't even read the article before commenting on it.)Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 08:49, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Are there "multiple lines of evidence" that a bat and a sponge share a common ancestor? Since that's what evolution imagines.--Anotherbeliever (talk) 23:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

There is evidence that points to life on earth being at least 4 Billion years old, the "microevolution" you speak of is really the only kind of evolution. The current prevailing idea is that the very first single celled organisms would have "eaten" (more just adsorbed through their cell membrane) the raw minerals within the earths early ocean, and very, very, very slowly inched their way into separate directions, of course completely dictated by what caused them to reproduce best. sponges are actually animals, and are possibly the oldest animal, which would have been over 600 million years ago. filter feeding wasn't the most efficient thing for some of them, and in some areas they died off, but the animals capable of moving were able to reposition to better feed themselves and reproduce. This continued in similar veins as things like sexual reproduction concentrating characteristics as two creatures would have to be successful enough to reproduce. Animals diverged in many different ways, but the source of commonalities is traceable. I don't know if this will make you feel better, but regardless of anything this could all be "god's plan" as it is impossible to prove he does not exist. PhoxyDude (talk) 01:00, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Reportedly, sea sponges share almost 70 percent of human genes according to this Sydney Morning Herald article! (Note: There is a way more technical article in Nature itself that correlates to the Herald article. If you don't mind dry and technical, the Nature article is the superior read, because its purpose was to examine the genome of a Great Barrier Reef sponge in relation to the evolution of animal complexity, and the article goes into a lot more detail about various biochemical similarities.) Either way, whether a sponge, bat, or human, the biochemistry is quite similar for any self-replicating multicellular organism. As *cough* pointed out in the common descent article. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 00:29, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

(fuck your edit conflict) Yeah, I was gonna point out, about 60% of the human genome has a recognizable counterpart in the genome of a banana, while the actual proteins encoded by them are 40% identical. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 00:32, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes. It's really really easy to find backup for "humans sharing X percent of DNA with Y". This is not even open for debate.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:18, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

1. If (something) is true we will find evidence that supports it being true. 2. We found evidence. 3. Therefore (something) is true.

Hey, look at that, you can rephrase ALL OF REALITY as a form of affirming the consequent. Guess existence is based on a logical fallacy and nothing is real, huh? --Zipperback (talk) 09:21, 2 October 2022 (UTC)