The Darwin Spin Off

[Madelaine McMasters]

19 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

So, to your Cambridge article. Darwin's basic idea is that all evolved from a single life form via a random selection guided by survival of the fittest.

Through the various editions of "Origin of Species", Darwin became less certain of everything evolving from a single starting point. The theory itself is more about looking backwards from a descendant to a common ancestor. Darwin thought there might have been lots of starting points, only a few of which ultimately produced life as we currently know it. Darwin's theory is less about starting points and survival of the fittest than of tracing backwards through ancestry to determine starting points.

19 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

When we started learning more about the primordial conditions and trying to replicate them to test the idea we found the 1950's and 60's experiments that are said to have succeeded were flawed and inaccurate. With new knowledge of Earth's ancient history replicating the experiments always fails to produce life or even self replicating proteins. We need a new hypothesis.

We have new hypotheses, lots of them. They're falling into three camps these days. Replication, metabolism and compartmentalism. The answer might be that all three happened at once.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We might need a new hypotheses, that's what science is all about. But, the new hypothesis we need might be about the initial conditions, not evolution. The Miller-Urey experiments of 1953 got the primorial composition of Earth's atmosphere wrong. They were never gonna bake a cake with their ingredients. Watson and Crick revealed DNA the same year, adding unforeseen complexity to the recipe, RNA.

We've been reworking theories of those starting conditions, non-stop, since Darwin. That's how science works. So far, so good.

20 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

One thing that we know about information is that it is always created.

The No-hiding theorem says you are wrong. If you believe quantum theory (no other theory has withstood so much experimentation), information can neither be created nor destroyed. If one thing you know is wrong, might more things you know be wrong?

 

The march towards the discovery of life's first step reminds me of the evolution of our understanding of planetary motion. Until Newton's law of gravitation, that motion was modeled by ever increasingly complex models of shapes within shapes, and it seemed unlikely we'd ever figure it out. Then Newton laid out the mathematics of it all and humanity collectively slapped its forehead.

I suspect it'll be like that for the discovery of life's first step. Modern science has only been around for a few hundred years, life has been around about 3.7 billion years. We've got some catchup work to do. I'm optimistic.

[Madelaine McMasters]

18 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

If we accept that life exists, however, it is not only possible but actually occurred.

The odds of two people firing guns at each other having their bullets collide in midair is laughably small. However, after the American Civil War people found more than one pair of bullets that did exactly that.

I think it was John Allen Paulos who, in his book "Innumeracy" admitted that he might believe in miracles. Given our propensity to see patterns where none exist, our woeful misunderstanding of probability, and the very large number of us on the planet, he thought it was a miracle that there aren't more miracles.

;-).

Edited March 11, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Ceka Cianci]

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

It's difficult for the human mind to conceive of infinity.

That's because we are stuck seeing things at our level in time and space measuring.. We can't get our heads passed impermanence. We see more of beginning and end rather than seeing something as just in a cycle.

We're no different than the plants in our garden that end up feeding the soil that we end up tilling the next year..

We're just a bunch of stuff that one day will break down and become part of other stuff..

 

I am my foot as I am the sun.. hehehe

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

55 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Interesting...I didn't know that about trees...

Mountains, down to sand grains... also fractal.

ETA: Fibonacci too!

https://www.thejoyofplants.co.uk/fibonacci-numbers-science-plants

Edited March 11, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Nalates Urriah]

18 hours ago, Mollymews said:

this is how science works.  First person says: this is how I think it works based on my observations/measurements with the tools at my disposal. Second person comes along with a different and/or more advanced toolset and measures the same. And the second person says here are my findings, the first person is correct

in this case, the first person (Darwin) said sub-species are more diverse in larger populations of the same species than they are in smaller populations of the same species. And as you say this intuitively makes sense to the average person.  Scientist says can you prove it. The second person in this case said: yes I can

another case. The first person (Darwin) said that based on my observations, local (soft) factors impact on selection behaviour. Second person(s) comes along later and measures this. Second person says: yes that's right and here is my data to proof this

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2020.1111?af=R&

this paper also points toward a further path of research and discovery. "These results suggest that soft selection could be a general mechanism for the maintenance of ecological diversity over evolutionary time scales."

which is pretty interesting I think

Very brief article abstract. I point out again, the RS is not going to talk about their doubts in public. So, we can only infer from what they do and don't say.

Your 'how science works' is correct. You example using measurement doesn't really work here, at least for me. The idea, my example, that we can measure the speed of light and it is 'c' fits with observable data and your example. That it is also the limit for the speed of moving all matter is a hypothesis advanced by testing to the level of a theory. While we have considered that limit a law, we are thinking of ways to exceed that speed limit. They are hypothesis at this point but we are looking for how to test theories based on the new hypotheses.

The thing is we have tests supporting the math and observable data to move the speed limit into theory territory and a current thought is it is in fact a law of the universe. It also looks like we are going to be able to circumvent that limit. And we are currently observing things which apparently have to be moving faster than that limit. We get tied up in a lot is semantics describing how it can be a law and yet be broken.

The article you pointed to is suggesting genetic variation is influenced by population over time and CAN have an effect on how species develop. The proof this variation by population influence is actual and observable is in the data and analysis they provide. What is not provided is how it supports the core of Darwin's hypothesis, other than say it does. All they say is an influence on  species evolvement. But they can only speculate it will eventually reach the point of creating a new species. They don't mention in the abstract how long that might take, the time needed problem.

None of the core issues the RS is dealing with are addressed in this study. So I don't see them offering any significant ideas to solve those issues.

[Nalates Urriah]

18 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

There are many Scientists who believe in God and also believe evolution is true....the very basics...that humans evolved from 'lower' life forms.

..and there are people that think the Earth is flat...

Science is not a consensus thing.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

3 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Atoms can split or be fragmented but they cannot be destroyed.

They can by the Large Hardon Hadron Collider. First, hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons, then the remaining protons are smashed into each other from two opposing proton beams. When two protons collide full frontal, they are utterly smashed into all kinds of quark-gluon degeneracy matter at temperatures that only existed at a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, and upon cooling down, transformed into all kinds of funny weird particles such as mesons, pentaquarks, high-energy gamma ray photons and the occasional Higgs boson.

So, yeah, atoms can be destroyed and they are currently being destroyed, paid by your tax money.

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Nalates Urriah]

18 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Nope. Bad source.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Richard_William_Nelson

Why is mine a bad source when I quote from an article he wrote?

Your link is to Wikipedia an organization so biased and censored the founder is starting up an alternative to eliminate bias.

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

But they can only speculate it will eventually reach the point of creating a new species. They don't mention in the abstract how long that might take, the time needed problem.

If new species don't evolve from previous species, why do some species first occur in the fossil records far later than others? Were there multiple intelligent creation events over time, like sequels to a movie?

Bear in mind that we know much more about how genetics creates an organism than Darwin knew. If you don't understand genetics it's logical to assume that major change takes a long period of time. However, our genetic code doesn't necessarily work that way. To gain an extra pair of legs it isn't necessary to create the code for an entire new set of limbs from scratch; it just requires a modification in a small amount of code that determines how many sets of pre-coded limbs will be made.

[Nalates Urriah]

18 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

If we accept that life exists, however, it is not only possible but actually occurred.

The odds of two people firing guns at each other having their bullets collide in midair is laughably small. However, after the American Civil War people found more than one pair of bullets that did exactly that.

Your response begs the question. But lets be clear. The question isn't whether we are here but how we got here. That we here doesn't prove how we got here. I'm in California. Does that prove I drove here, walked, flew?

With your bullet example you phrase it in such a way we are left arguing opinion. When one considers numerical odds of various events a fair comparison would provide the odds of both so one could make objective comparisons.

I explained how the simplified odds I presented were calculated. The 9.63 number I used is actually the subset of a sub subset of a ... this goes several levels deep and each level explodes the numbers. I gave a small number.

If you can provide the odds, we can discuss it and make comparisons.

[Rowan Amore]

[Nalates Urriah]

19 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

This sounds like the idea that consciousness always existed (information), and that each particular life form developed a unique connection to the larger consciousness (or developed their own type of awareness/consciousness with needed limitations, suitable for their particular life form) as they evolved.

So both could apply here.

Since it seems there has to be an conscious uncreated creator it would follow there has always been information. However, it seems reasonable that this initial being created the information. We still have no example of spontaneous information nor independently evolving information.

That a life form could develop a connection to a larger consciousness doesn't address how the life form came into being.

[Nalates Urriah]

19 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

In one of the dead sea scrolls there is a quote purportedly by Jesus saying that It was "a miracle for the physical to have come from the spirit (consciousness), It would have been a miracle of miracles for the spirit (consciousness) to have come from the physical."

I have no idea whether it is a true statement or not, but the implications are quite interesting when meditated on. 

I have not idea what your point is in this context.

A quick search of the Qumran Caves scrolls doesn't return any hits for the sentence or parts of it.

[FairreLilette]

46 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

They can by the Large Hardon Hadron Collider. First, hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons, then the remaining protons are smashed into each other from two opposing proton beams. When two protons collide full frontal, they are utterly smashed into all kinds of quark-gluon degeneracy matter at temperatures that only existed at a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, and upon cooling down, transformed into all kinds of funny weird particles such as mesons, pentaquarks, high-energy gamma ray photons and the occasional Higgs boson.

So, yeah, atoms can be destroyed and they are currently being destroyed, paid by your tax money.

 

I love the part where the two protons collide and a metal table and chair are formed like magic.

Atoms can create subatomic particles.  That's another discussion and a half.  The internet estimates it will take this long to destroy an atom (wonder if the internet is part putting us on?)

To destroy an atom it will take:  

A nonillion is equal to 10^30, a quadrillion quadrillions, and 1 followed by 30 zeros. That's enough zeros that it's pretty hard now to keep track of all of them.

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Your response begs the question. But lets be clear. The question isn't whether we are here but how we got here. That we here doesn't prove how we got here. I'm in California. Does that prove I drove here, walked, flew?

With your bullet example you phrase it in such a way we are left arguing opinion. When one considers numerical odds of various events a fair comparison would provide the odds of both so one could make objective comparisons.

I explained how the simplified odds I presented were calculated. The 9.63 number I used is actually the subset of a sub subset of a ... this goes several levels deep and each level explodes the numbers. I gave a small number.

If you can provide the odds, we can discuss it and make comparisons.

"Odds" are meaningless in hindsight. If something occurs, it occurs regardless of how unlikely it was considered for it to happen.

You seem concerned about where "information" comes from when it's hard-coded into the deepest parts of existence.

A cluster of 11 positively charged particles (with a few neutral particles thrown in for stability) will attract 11 negatively charged particles, one of which will be alone in an outer valance and at high risk for straying. A collection of these agglomerations will form a metallic substance that will catch fire in water.

A cluster of 17 positive particles, on the other hand, will attract 17 negative particles, leaving an outer valance with a powerful desire to grab just one more electron and become full. A collection of these groups will be a greenish gas that will smell like a swimming pool.

If a group of the +11 things happens to encounter a group of +17 things, it's very likely that the outrigger electrons of the +11 will be grabbed by the outer shells of the +17 and form a collection of stable molecules made up of a single +11 and a single +17, resulting in a white crystal that will taste like salt.

These miraculous changes - and all other chemistry - will occur despite all of this just involving three types of miniscule particles, one of which is strictly along for the ride. They don't need information; they just do what they do.

[Theresa Tennyson]

19 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Since it seems there has to be an conscious uncreated creator it would follow there has always been information. However, it seems reasonable that this initial being created the information. We still have no example of spontaneous information nor independently evolving information.

That a life form could develop a connection to a larger consciousness doesn't address how the life form came into being.

Seems that more than one person can beg a question...

Why does there need to be a creator separate from creation, and why does that "creator" have to be conscious (i.e. aware)?

[Nalates Urriah]

16 hours ago, Mollymews said:

a comment on the math

to arrive at 3 billion pairs from 1 pair there are 32 steps when each step multiplies by 2. At each step there is a set [2, 4, 8, 16, etc]

each element of the set at each step can interact with other elements of other sets numbering in the billions/trillions. A total number that is dependent on the presence of the external elements within the interactive local environment. When an other external element is not present then the interaction doesn't occur. The paper I linked to earlier examines the consequences of this

interactions at each step don't happen linearly, they also happen simultaneously [across the elements of the set] and not every interaction is going to affect/influence the path to the next step. The paper you mention models this behaviour. What the paper calls the blunderbuss pattern

the math used to record this is basic peano arithmetic, addition and subtraction. Adding a positive influence going into the next step. Subtracting creating a negative influence on the next step. Progressive addition results in survival. Progressive subtraction results in extinction

What are you talking about? DNA is pretty well described in medical literature. One does not have to arrive at 3 billion. We simply count them. DNA has a left and right side making the pair. The right and left paring is constrained. If a G is on the left only one particular nucleotide can mate to it on the right. However, the order of left side nucleotides is not constrained by the preceding or succeeding nucleotide. Thus we count it as 3 billion pairs and calculate as unconstrained permutations. I think that is what you were saying here.

As the pairs are fixed combinations the calculations for permutations at this level can be ignored.

Again I am at a loss as to how this describes DNA and its various possible permutations.

[Nalates Urriah]

16 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

You can join any one of three camps:

1. Darwin IS right! So there!
2. Darwin is wrong, and here's the new secular theory of How We Got Here
3. Religionists

Arguments and/or evidence about the current accepted theory of evolution being wrong are not proof of the existence of God. In fact, by definition there can be no proof of the existence of God. That is a matter of faith, not of scientific proof.

Contrariwise, absolute proof of (any form of) secular evolution is not DISPROOF of the existence of God, either. He works in mysterious ways, y'know?

People just love to argue whether god exists or not. I am interested in the science part.

There are some other possibilities. I think #1 has already been proven not to be the case. If Darwin were right, several of his other points would have been proven, and they haven't been. While it was an innovative hypothesis Darwin lacked the micro-biology to understand what he was proposing.

#2 is very plausible and I think worthy of consideration.

#3 Religion... people have gotten this SO WRONG so many times.

#4 Supernatural being... people go right to God and a single entity. However, when one puts the bible on hold there is no such limit.

As to proof or disproof of God... that is whole other argument. Trying to argue opinion and incomplete circumstantial evidence is unlikely to get people to a conclusive decision or even a consensus.

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 minute ago, Nalates Urriah said:

People just love to argue whether god exists or not. I am interested in the science part.

There are some other possibilities. I think #1 has already been proven not to be the case. If Darwin were right, several of his other points would have been proven, and they haven't been. While it was an innovative hypothesis Darwin lacked the micro-biology to understand what he was proposing.

#2 is very plausible and I think worthy of consideration.

#3 Religion... people have gotten this SO WRONG so many times.

#4 Supernatural being... people go right to God and a single entity. However, when one puts the bible on hold there is no such limit.

As to proof or disproof of God... that is whole other argument. Trying to argue opinion and incomplete circumstantial evidence is unlikely to get people to a conclusive decision or even a consensus.

Wait - was this whole thing about whether a scientist with mid-19th century information was completely correct? He probably wasn't. By the same criteria, I doubt any of the other scientists we study were either.

[Nalates Urriah]

9 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Actually, there's a fourth way - truth is relative to any era, today we have evolutionary theory because there is no better explanation, tomorrow we'll have a better explanation that will last for probably another 150 years (*), and then, the truth will change yet again.

To my mind the only part of evolutionary theory that I'm a bit suspicious of is the lack of any explanation for purposefulness. There is an interesting story "The case of the midwife toad" that describes an interesting scientific attempt to study this area which failed due to somebody's compassion.

 

(*) There is some possibility that the duration of a truth-era might be decreasing, Euclidean-Aristotelian lasted a couple of thousand years, Newtonian about 400 years, Q... about a dozen  months....

So... are you saying there is no absolute truth? If so, is that absolutely true?

I think you misunderstand the Euclidean-Aristotelian and similar truths. Tue, Euclidean geometry is not the only geometry. We still use it because it accurately describes out physical world. The thinking process he developed and the requirement for rigorous proofs is still very much in use today.

May be you can start another thread to explain how it is no longer true.

Darwin style material evolution eliminates the idea of a purpose. If all these chemicals came together randomly, formed self replicating proteins, that came to life and started thinking... how could there be a purpose?

Edited March 11, 2021 by Nalates Urriah

[Arielle Popstar]

37 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I have not idea what your point is in this context.

A quick search of the Qumran Caves scrolls doesn't return any hits for the sentence or parts of it.

My mistake, Gospel of Thomas is part of the Nag Hamadi Library, not the Dead Sea Scrolls. Link

Mostly it was an aside to Luna but at the same time it has the potential to simplify or make evolutionary theory much more complex in having to account for consciousness. Is it something all matter has or just organic ones and if so, at what point did it enter the evolutionary process. 

[Arielle Popstar]

32 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

People just love to argue whether god exists or not. I am interested in the science part.

There are some other possibilities. I think #1 has already been proven not to be the case. If Darwin were right, several of his other points would have been proven, and they haven't been. While it was an innovative hypothesis Darwin lacked the micro-biology to understand what he was proposing.

#2 is very plausible and I think worthy of consideration.

#3 Religion... people have gotten this SO WRONG so many times.

#4 Supernatural being... people go right to God and a single entity. However, when one puts the bible on hold there is no such limit.

As to proof or disproof of God... that is whole other argument. Trying to argue opinion and incomplete circumstantial evidence is unlikely to get people to a conclusive decision or even a consensus.

Really it just comes down to one of two possibilities.

1. Natural selection

2. Intelligent design

The rest is just fluff.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

21 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Darwin style material evolution eliminates the idea of a purpose. If all these chemicals came together randomly, formed self replicating proteins, that came to life and started thinking... how could there be a purpose?

How indeed...

 

[Nalates Urriah]

9 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Hiya folks. Science is not about truth. Scientists do not claim to hold the truth. Science is merely the art of not BS-sing yourself or others, while trying to understand things and make predictions based on those understandings. Scientists do not claim that the theory of evolution is the truth. It's merely at tool to make predictions about the emergence of new variants and species whenever the environment changes.

You're perfectly welcome to come out with a new theory to explain diversification and the emergence of new species. There is no controversy with regard to the core principle of the theory of evolution, that new species emerge from changes in the environment, mutations that result in biological variation, and selection of the variants most thriving in this new environment. So if you have some alternative mechanisms to explain changes in body plan and speciation of organisms, and not just attribute these things to magic or miracles, have a go at it.

There's no conspiracy among scientists to cancel anyone who disagrees with them. Quite the contrary. If someone truly has the opportunity to shake up some feathers in the 'establishment' (resulting in a better understanding of things, of course), all the better.

The problem is just that there are just many many crack pot 'scientists' out there on the internet (great, easy and free platform for spreading information and disinformation alike), whining about how everyone is against them, rather than admit that mentally, some things are bit out of their league. And then there's people, like the OP, who just copy/paste a flood of nonsense, half-truths and utter falsehoods from these crack-pot websites, so overwhelming in volume, it's hard to even decide to determine where to begin.

I'll just do one then, for the sake of argument.

"perfectly reasonable mathematical possibility but unreasonable to some, because: math is hard" - FTFY

Science is not about truth? Maybe you should stick with Merriam-Webster definitions for words.

Science 3: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method

Scientists don’t claim the ‘theory of evolution’ is true? Where have you been hiding. They certainly do… did. Any online search proves my point.

There is no controversy with regard to the core principle of the theory of evolution… you haven’t been following along. In the OP I link to that information showing even the RS has problems with it.

There's no conspiracy among scientists to cancel anyone who disagrees with them… Oh really? You can start your research here.

Ah! The first attach on the messenger with pure opinion. (And then there's people, like the OP,…) I think most of the people here recognize an Alinsky maneuver when they see one. When you can’t tackle the merits of an argument belittle the one making it.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

59 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

So... are you saying there is no absolute truth?

What we *know* to be true is all about the proofs we have and the beliefs or foundations they are based upon. Today, the old explanations of a divine creator or tribes of warring gods don't work. Tomorrow, the ideas that it's a mixture of probability, randomness, or the presence of absence of observers will be shown to be an over-simplification because of (insert predictions here).

If so, is that absolutely true?

A Cretan proclaims "All Cretans are liars". True, or False?

There is a third way, it's a joke.

Sadly, the human mind has a tendency to polarize everything, it's either black or white, you're either with me or against me.