Learning Evolution

@DocSavage Yes, it has been obvious from the start that all we were going to see was dissemination, deception, and evasion.

Asked for information about evolution, and was given information about evolution... ran away

Now says
As I said: dissemination, deception, and evasion

Merely a self-absorbed, self-satisfied, time waster

@newjaninev2
Chuckles couldn’t give a straight answer to this one.
And being Christian, you know he’ll never admit it
The snake in Eden was not Satan.

@AkioTsukino The environment is constantly changing.

A defect in one environment is a defect only in light of, and because of, that environment. Change the environment, and the defect can become an advantage... for now.

Genes operate in several environment e.g. the ever-changing natural environment, and the ever-changing set of other genes with which they operate. They cannot know what those future environments will be.

Genes march backwards into the future... which is why evolution isn’t teleological.

@AkioTsukino
What she said. It’s in the genes

@newjaninev2 Now I'm going to do a sort of word (or concept) association exercise I like to do to advance my thinking in any possible direction. Don't get upset if I say something which is wrong because I'm playing with possibilities, whether right or wrong. Sort of like Paul Atreides with future paths before him. A puzzle. Does this piece fit? No. Okay, set it aside . . . .

Random defects and advantages are defined by the outcome after the fact as we perceive them.

The environment is constantly changing. Can changes be varied in length of time. A dramatic change or more subtle, again, as we perceive them. It's not like clockwork.

A pathogen doesn't leap from animal to man in a short period of time. It would take a greater period. Say, 400,000 years as opposed to a trip to the wet market.

A new breed of dog can be manipulated in a short period of time. Are genetically modified foods accelerated evolution?

If humans created AI that for whatever reason decided light skinned people were useful or not useful and began either using them like we do cattle or destroying them like we do pests, would the rapid advantages to dark skin people be evolution?

Can the changes in the environment themselves be regarded as evolution? (I think it was you who, in this thread, bring up nature and natural selection. Hopefully I will get to that later.

Of course, genes can't "know" anything. Could you briefly elaborate on what you mean by "know"? No objection there, of course, just need clarification.

Teleological: relating to or involving the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.

Excellent. Okay, I don't know if I've already mentioned this, but so far it is pretty much clarification of what I knew and excepted about evolution. No need to comment on that last statement.

Thanks for the information.

@BlueVeins Thank you for your response. I've addressed adaptation in my response to @basilfawlty89 below if you're interested. As to your response specifically: Quote from below is from: https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Allele


Allele: having two identical alleles of a particular gene or genes. "homozygous embryos" (Oxford)

EDIT: I have to stop this and finish it (this post) tomorrow. In my research I'm having some difficulty with what exactly DNA is. I'll get back to this.

@Pikachu
Yes, it's fair, but it isn't the case in this thread.

@DocSavage
The OP was pretty simple.


It's in the presentation. That will become clearer as we go forward.

@AkioTsukino You’re talking as if science were something palpable and separate from everything else.

Science is a methodology

“What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?”
Steven Novella

“Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.”
Richard Feynman

I realise you desperately need science to be something else, in the same way you need evolution to be something else, because then you can wheel out all your prepared arguments.

Sorry, can’t be done

Your arguments are based on straw-man fallacies

That’s why all you offer are vague allusions and disingenuous questions which have not a whit of academic curiosity behind them. Here’s an idea... ask a question, and then engage with the answer. Don’t run away from the answer. Engage. Explore the ramifications of the answer.

@AkioTsukino
You are forgetting ( more likely ignoring ) the one thing which completely destroys your little conspiracy theory.
Understand that there are bad scientists. Incompetence, or deliberate frauds. Take your pick. There is no bad science. Science is judged on results. That is it’s biggest benefit. Repeatable, consistent, predictable results. Which is what makes your statements so ridiculous. Especially about evolution. Evolution is a natural process that has occurred over millions of years. What you see is the results. What do those results tell you ? That living organisms change over time. That’s it . They change and adapt to conditions in their environment. The process is biological, not corporate. It’s not something that is subject to your corporate corruption.
It will continue, with or without us. It’s really that simple.
Now to the subject of applied science. That too , despite your belief to the contrary, is not bad science either. Applied science is how the science is put to use. Corporations do indeed use the science. Some might even misuse it. It depends on what they want to achieve. Nuclear energy at mentioned before, can be used to make a bomb, or keep the lights burning at night in thousands of homes. Don’t blame the science.
Corporations, use science to make products, or sell services. The science has to work, or it’s not going to be of any use to anyone. It has to provide results and give the public what it wants. So as long as they do, the science is “good” . You don’t trust, or like it ? Too bad. Unless you can come up with a practical alternative, no one will give up the convenience. So whatever corruption you have a moral problem with, people will over look, as long as they’re happy with what they get.

@AkioTsukino The evidence for evolution is overwhelming, passing tests and falsification. Not one person suggesting an alternative theory has tried to design an alternative model.

Truth can be tested and demands it. Tell me there's absolutely zero magic events. That nothing made up and exaggerated whatsoever. You can’t. The Bible reads exactly like mythology, full of it’s heroes and villains.

@BlueSkyKing
Here's the real question, sir. What exactly makes you think that I object to evolution?

Do me a favor, would you? Look up, in a dictionary, the words evidence, model, theory and truth. These are the things you are talking about. Read very carefully. Meditate on them. Take a minute.

I never intentionally memorize scripture. You know why? Because the mind, the brain if you like, fools us, in a way. Not only that, we fool ourselves independent of our own minds. I also very often look up the meanings of words I want to use even if I think I know how to apply them. Even simple commonly used words.


Truth can be tested but the test demands to be tested more than the truth. That is where evolutionists screw it up.


Look that up too. It's an illusion. There is no magic in the Bible except for that. Illusion. God doesn't do magic. Magic practice was prohibited by pain of death in the Law of Moses. God doesn't know the future. The future doesn't exist. God can see how things will obviously play out or he makes them happen. Everything you think you know about the Bible is a lie. Because it brought fame and fortune to those who would create the lie. Same is now happening with science. For only about a hundred years, but that's a good start. It will soon catch up with religion at the pace it currently runs.


Ah, but you see, I can. I have. A man once perpetuated a fraud. I can't remember how he did it, but he planted the "evidence" where he knew it would be found, in a dig or something, and it was "discovered" and made the headlines. What a stunning discovery on the ancestor of mankind! It was taught as evolution. Then there was the teeth and fragments of a jaw that did the same. I think they were from a pig and an ape. Missing link! For decades these frauds were taught as evolution. Where was the test? Some quotes. By an evolutionist.

"A century after Darwin’s death, we still have not the slightest demonstrable or even plausible idea of how evolution really took place - and in recent years this has led to an extraordinary series of battles over the whole question. . . . a state of almost open war exists among the evolutionists themselves, with every kind of sect urging some new modification. . . . As to how and why it really happened, we have not the slightest idea and probably never shall."


You want to know how science really works? Watch the weatherman on your local news. He has the training. He has the science and the technology, and he still gets it wrong more often than not.


Then why is it so prevalent in the discussion of the science of evolution? Some more quotes.

"A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the success of the Origin was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculation. . . . The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity. . . . This situation, where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science."

[media=https://youtu.be/2MgBekMGc-U]

@Pikachu
Even if that were the case, and I don't think it necessarily is, obviously, but even if it were that doesn't mean I just accept it blindly. Let's say in the research or in another response from someone else I come across a discrepancy. I want to investigate that even if I have acknowledged and understand the meaning in context of evolution.

@AkioTsukino
You don't have to accept it blindly. But you haven't raised any specific objection.
Do you have any specific objection to the definition of adaptation in an evolutionarily context being a process which does not require conscious effort?
If not then to what are you objecting and why do you keep bringing it up?

@Pikachu
Alright then. Good.


Nope. Don't think so.


Like I said. The potential for linguistic abuse. Confusion.

@MalteseFalconPunch Microevolution is the process by which organisms change in small ways over time. Macroevolution refers to larger evolutionary changes that result in new species. Evolution is change. I'm vary [sic] weary? of people that don't specify what they mean by something.

I'm fairly certain that the evolution I was taught in school isn't the evolution of today, or of Darwin's day, or of Empedocles' day.

First what it is should be established, then how it works.

@AkioTsukino

Time can be depicted as being seconds, minutes, or hours... it’s still just time.

‘Micro-‘ and ‘macro-‘ evolution are a distinction without a difference.

There’s just evolution.


Change that isn’t heritable cannot be evolutionary.

Alleles are heritable.

Evolution is change in the frequency and distribution of alleles.

Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.

Is that specific enough for you?


The process of evolution was discussed by the Ancient Greeks, up through the 19th century... and continues today. What was missing was a mechanism. That changed in 1859 when Darwin’s twenty years of work led to his understanding of Natural Selection.

Subsequent research and evidence, combined with genetics and the spectacular contributions of technology, have resulted in the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis.

If it helps:
https://study.com/academy/lesson/modern-evolutionary-synthesis-definition-formation.html

@DocSavage Yup., and if the change isn’t heritable then it’s not evolution... it’s just change.

@SW-User Thanks for the answer, Concretedust

@SW-User I understand. I agree. That is sort of what this is about. The hammering out of what is presumptuous and assumption. In careful small steps. I would be happy to hear any input you have to offer during the course of the thread.

@AkioTsukino They’re the same thing... Canis lupus

Humans have used selective breeding to produce a wide range of different, but inherently superficial, forms.

That range of forms is loosely referred to as [i]Canis lupus familiaris[/I]

We say wolf, and we say dog, but the genes say [i]Canis lupus[/I]

Your chihuahua is a wolf.

Put your chihuahua to the test, and you will see Nature red of tooth and claw so quickly that your eyes will water.

@newjaninev2
You could expand that by saying I always have a problem with what things are called. Or at least typically justifiable suspicion, so that will be a part of my learning.


Okay.


Well, see, there could be a problem. So, let's define, shall we? Where is the random selection in nature? Selection isn't selection at all in any common application I can see. It's more like natural turn of events. Or, nature for short. It's just natural. So my question becomes what is mechanism?

Mechanism: a natural or established process by which something takes place or is brought about.

So natural selection is natural nature by nature. It's just nature. Correct? I realize everything has to be called something but why not call natural selection nature. Get rid of the middleman. The terms selection and evolution are unnecessary. Feel free to correct me.


Again. Sex and death are nature. Changing environment is nature.

@AkioTsukino

There is no random selection in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how evolutionary selection works, though it is sadly a very common one.
I will leave most of this response to @newjaninev2 but allow me to clarify the concept for you.

Consider the roll of the dice:

The 6 that turns up is random, as are all the other numbers.
But you're not just rolling and rolling...you're keeping the sixes and rolling again until you get more sixes.
The important part to remember is that evolution is keeping all the 6s while the rest get left behind.
The rolls (mutations) are random (kind of) but the selection process is anything but.

If your desire to educate yourself about evolution is earnest, this is one of THE MOST important concepts you must understand.
Do you understand it?