A
Aloysium
Guest
You have no explanation for our intelligence, the capacity to explain, the reality of science, nor how we decide whether an idea is satisfactory or not.
Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true
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R
rossum
Guest
I do not have any magic, I have well established science. See Evolution 101 for an introduction to the science.
Please read what I said more carefully. I did not talk about “babies”, but “grandchildren”. Babies are of no evolutionary importance if they do not reach maturity and successfully reproduce. There is nothing magic about more grandchildren meaning more copies of your genes in the population.
Natural selection selects the sets of instructions that work better than other sets.
R
rossum
Guest
That is what I said. Your “Given” is the assumption you are making and which I pointed out. Thank you for confirming that I am correct.
Evolution is a gradual process. We can observe graduations in the intelligence of animals. Chimps are more intelligent than dogs. Dogs are more intelligent than cats. Cats are more intelligent than mice. Mice are more intelligent than Amphioxus. Where there is a graduation in a property then there is a path to gradual improvement in that property. Conversely we can observe that damage to the brain impacts intelligence in many species, humans included. Since evolution can change the brain and neural development then evolution can develop intelligence.
Consider a human egg and a human sperm. Neither is intelligent, yet the combination of the two can eventually produce intelligence. Intelligence is an emergent property, and so is capable of gradual development. A five year old human is more intelligent than a five hour old human.
T
Techno2000
Guest
Too vague, please give me an detailed example of this .
R
Rubee
Guest
So you’re presuming the pre-existence of ‘sets of instructions’ that natural selection then picks between. What is the origin of these sets of instructions?
You claim things with no intelligence create instructions, you claiming magic. You can put the word ‘science’ around it, but you can’t hide the blunt offense to logic you’re committing.
R
rossum
Guest
Malaria kills a high proportion of young children, before they reach sexual maturity. Malaria resistance, such as the HbS or HbC mutations, enable more children with those mutations to reach maturity and have children of their own. That puts more copies of those variants into the population of areas where malaria is prevalent.
Lactase persistence mutations allow adults to digest milk. That is an extra food source in areas where sheep, cattle, goats etc. are farmed. That extra food source is useful in times of famine, reducing deaths among those with the mutation relative to those without the mutation. Again, because of higher relative survival rates more copies of that variant appear in the population. Currently about one third of the human population has a lactase persistence variant.
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Techno2000
Guest
You keep extrapolating microevolution to automatically apply to macroevolution .Techno2000:
Malaria kills a high proportion of young children, before they reach sexual maturity. Malaria resistance, such as the HbS or HbC mutations, enable more children with those mutations to reach maturity and have children of their own. That puts more copies of those variants into the population of areas where malaria is prevalent.
Lactase persistence mutations allow adults to digest milk. That is an extra food source in areas where sheep, cattle, goats etc. are farmed. That extra food source is useful in times of famine, reducing deaths among those with the mutation relative to those without the mutation. Again, because of higher relative survival rates more copies of that variant appear in the population. Currently about one third of the human population has a lactase persistence variant.
R
rossum
Guest
Scientists are still working on that problem. Currently I prefer the RNA world hypothesis, where the initial instructions are RNA ribozymes. Szostak has shown that randomly assembled RNA ribozymes can have useful effects: Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences. RNA is a single strand, not a double helix like DNA, hence it is a lot easier to assemble RNA than DNA.
You might want to note that a lot of what we on the science side say has a great deal of research becking it up. Creationism is generally lacking that level of research backup. A useful illustration of this point is The Mirage.
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buffalo
Guest
Do you support funding of more “Creationist” research?
R
rossum
Guest
ICR is already doing some such research, as with their RATE project. They are free to spend their money as they wish. IIRC there was some Hindu organisation doing research into Hindu creationism – the Big Bang theory gave much too young a universe for them, they wanted a 300 million year old universe (or older) with a human presence from the beginning.
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buffalo
Guest
The question was about public funds.
R
rossum
Guest
That may have been what you were thinking, but it was not what you wrote; the word “public” was nowhere in your post:
I am not a mind reader, so you need to type what you actually mean, not relying on hidden assumptions.
Many universities support funding into religious research, effectively any university with a theology department or a religious studies department. Those universities are often supported in whole or in part by public funds. If creationists can persuade theology department heads to undertake research in their department then that is fine.
Similarly, if they can persuade a science department heads to undertake research, then that is also fine.
E
edwest
Guest
Thank you.
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ProdglArchitect
Guest
What do you mean a “missed opportunity?”
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buffalo
Guest
Junk DNA was purported to be leftover from our evo past and useless. Because of this we are decades behind in this valuable medical research. Just think how many lives might have been saved if we were investigating design.
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edwest
Guest
An amazing claim. The present is not like the past.
B
buffalo
Guest
Then change is an illusion? That would make Darwinism an illusion too.
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