How Life Began

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Proleg

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #90 on: January 21, 2009, 11:30:48 PM »
Clearly, God made us. Also, black holes are giant vaginas for Him to fuck.

/thread

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Raist

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #91 on: January 21, 2009, 11:31:22 PM »
Yeah, but I was responding to something you said before that. so.... no.
But I thought you were responding to another post so....no.
Fail.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #92 on: January 22, 2009, 07:30:39 AM »
Yeah, but I was responding to something you said before that. so.... no.
But I thought you were responding to another post so....no.
Fail.
Damn you're an idiot.
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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #93 on: January 22, 2009, 11:50:29 AM »
Clearly, God made us. Also, black holes are giant vaginas for Him to fuck.

/thread
Does that mean god loves black chicks
Only 2 things are infinite the universe and human stupidity, but I am not sure about the former.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #94 on: January 22, 2009, 12:44:39 PM »
Actually 99% of genetic mutations are neutral. Neither good nor bad.
Okay. But the chances of us progressing so far on less than a percent has to be in the billions.

It may seem counter intuitive, but humans have trouble actually comprehending the odds of winning the lottery - we don't tend to do well with very large numbers.

The very moment that the first non-living cells were able to replicate and complete, the evolutionary process started.  As it continued the mutated losers, became food for the mutated winners, which allowed the losers to actually help the winners.
More importantly, cell replication takes advantage of the 'power of two' principle.  One becomes two, two becomes four, etc...

2256 = 115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,853,269,984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,936

Essentially you end up with lots of cells to mutate, with the most beneficial mutations becoming dominant. 

Throw in a few billion years and it starts to appear more viable.


Regardless of that though, you should at least be able to see how cellular life could evolve out of non living self replicating cells given the factors mentioned above. 

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #95 on: February 05, 2009, 08:49:53 AM »
I was in class today and my teacher (who has a masters in Biology) started talking about genes, which then turned to mutations of genes.
As we all know, mutation plays an enormous part in the Evolutionary theory. The problem is, 99% of mutation is bad and generally deadly. An example would be cancer. So what are the chances, that even with billions of years, we have mutated this far from a single-celled organism,  and that there are literally billions of different species of bugs and animals? How does that happen?
The fact is most organisms die off. The bad mutations (or just random chance) kills them.

As an example:

A Common House Sparrow can lay 25 eggs a season, and is reproductive for around 4 years.

That means a pair of Sparrows can produce around 100 offspring in their life time.

BUT

The young of those sparrows also reproduce as well, so this craters an exponential increase in numbers, or

100 the first year.

Then each of those pairs off and produces 100 offspring as well which gives a total of:

102 sparrows after year 2
5,202 sparrows after year 3
265,302 sparrows after year 4

After 8 years you might expect around 1,794,820,294,494 sparrows!  :o

But hang on, we don't see that many sparrows do we.

What occurs is that most of the sparrows are killed.

In fact, for a population to remain stable each breeding pair needs to produce exactly 2 offspring that go on to breed in their entire life.

So, lets use your number of just 1% of mutations are non harmful (allows the individual to live to breed).

A Sparrow pair can produce 400 offspring in their life, at 1%, that give 4 offspring that survive. That is twice the needed threshold for a stable population. So even if your scenario was true for sparrows, after 8 years a single breeding pair would still end up producing 4,374 sparrows.

It no longer sounds so unlikely that occasional beneficial mutations could not occur (oh and BTW: if this 1% surviveal continued for just 100 years then you would have around 3.44 * 1047 - that is 344 with 45 0 following it or:

344,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

 :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

And that is at the survival rate you specified.

Evolution is not so unlikely now is it. Most people don't realise how big the numbers actually can get with unlimited reproduction. It is because there is such a high death rate that we are not completely swamped by all manner of organisms.

It means that just that small chance of a good mutation is highly likely due to the massive numbers that are involved.
Everyday household experimentation.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #96 on: February 05, 2009, 09:11:41 AM »
But you forget that not everything mutates. It is completely possible that none of those sparrows had a mutation.  By your reasoning we should see new species coming from an existing species all the time.
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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #97 on: February 05, 2009, 09:46:35 AM »
But you forget that not everything mutates. It is completely possible that none of those sparrows had a mutation.  By your reasoning we should see new species coming from an existing species all the time.
Actually every genome has a few mutations, not to mention that in a species with two sexes we inherit half the genome from one parent and half form the other, so in a sexual species you could say that every offspring is a massive mutation.

And yes, each of those sparrows might have had a mutation that did not effect it at all.

Mutations are not only just Good or Bad, there are Neutral ones too.

Each organism has a lot of Non Coding (some call it junk, but that is turning out to be a misnomer) DNA in them. If a mutation occurred in one of these places, then no effect on the organism would occur. Also there are lots of redundancies in DNA as there are many ways to code for the same amino acid.

Each amino acid is described in DNA by 3 base pairs. Lets take Leucine as an example: There are 6 different ways to code the base pairs to produce it:

UUA
UUG
CUU
CUC
CUA
CUG


So if an organism got a mutation in this, where the first letter was changed from a U to a C, it would still produce Leucine, if a further mutation occurred, say to the last letter that changed it into n A or G, it would still produce Leucine.

The organisms could have two mutations and still not be any different, at all. And that is if the mutations occurred on the same codon. As there are millions of codons, this is extremely unlikely to occur. And then due to the redundancies it organism could sustain a lot more mutations if there were scattered over the other codons and still not experience any changes in it phenotype.

However, if enough mutations occurred in one spot or certain types of mutation, then it would cause changes (like say the centre base in UUG Leucine was mutated from a U to a G, then it would change it from Leucine into Tryptophan).

Also point mutations like this are not the only types of mutations. You can have deletions or additions (a single or double letter addition or deletion causes a knock-on mutation called a frame shift, but that is a much more complex subject and deals with how the DNA is interpreted), doublings where whole sections are repeated, jumping sections where part or whole sections are moved, and so forth. The types of mutation are quite numerous and we don't actually know them all. One newish one is methelation where certain chemicals called methel groups attach or detach from the DNA and prevent or allow sections to be read.

Also, as most mutations are harmful, it means that there are new "species" developing, but they are a bad mutant and won't survive.

Also, if a mutation occurs, and although it is benificial, it actually prevents the organisms from breeding with any other organism, then those mutations won't be passed on.

And yes, we do see new species developing all the time. Look up the Vampire Finches of the Galapagos. This is a New Species that has developed in the last century. It did not exist 100 years ago, and it is an entirely new species that has evolved. Speciation does occur and it is been documented to occur in wild populations.
Everyday household experimentation.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #98 on: February 05, 2009, 09:58:52 AM »
SO once every hundred years we see a new species? Why, in 10,00 years do we not have different species of humans?

And something I've thought about for awhile, how do you think the brain was randomly generated? It is a living computer more powerful than anything we have ever created, and for power just put some food into the body, where the body automatically seperates the individual proteins  to create completely new proteins for your various protein needs. Bit convenient, isn't it? Also, our eyes are the most advanced lenses ever. They automatically choose the correct aperture depending on the light hitting it, which then flips the picture upside down, to be read and flipped right side up again by the brain. Then, we have the nervous system, which uses tiny electrical impulses to move a limb or to let you know you just stubbed your toe. To believe that these things just exist and happened completly randomly is not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.
I hate myself for coming here

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Raist

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #99 on: February 05, 2009, 11:59:43 AM »
SO once every hundred years we see a new species? Why, in 10,00 years do we not have different species of humans?

And something I've thought about for awhile, how do you think the brain was randomly generated? It is a living computer more powerful than anything we have ever created, and for power just put some food into the body, where the body automatically seperates the individual proteins  to create completely new proteins for your various protein needs. Bit convenient, isn't it? Also, our eyes are the most advanced lenses ever. They automatically choose the correct aperture depending on the light hitting it, which then flips the picture upside down, to be read and flipped right side up again by the brain. Then, we have the nervous system, which uses tiny electrical impulses to move a limb or to let you know you just stubbed your toe. To believe that these things just exist and happened completly randomly is not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.
LOL. Kingman, I swear you make me giggle. As for us not being a new species, the dude above is an idiot.

On to the rest of your faggotry, yes you put massive amounts of potential energy in your body, and watch it turn most of it into heat, because we work better at a temperature above 70 degrees. Wow whoever designed us gave us a wasteful operating temperature. That's dumb.

Then our super duper complex brains of science. A single computer can do math better than the entire human race combined. Wow, awesome computer.

As for the image being double flipped and stuff. That isn't that hard, my computer flips images too, and I hope an organic self teaching computer will figure out the image it receives is upside down.

The eye is not the greatest lens ever either. I don't know who told you that, but ever fucker on earth with a pair of glasses is probably saying wtf? I'm pretty sure a space telescope lens wins that, the kind that distorts several mirrors to see through the atmosphere. Or the kind of mirror that is completely flexible so it can distort a laser beam out of an airplane that won't be affected by the changes in temperature.


Kingman, you fail hard.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #100 on: February 05, 2009, 02:05:30 PM »
SO once every hundred years we see a new species? Why, in 10,00 years do we not have different species of humans?

And something I've thought about for awhile, how do you think the brain was randomly generated? It is a living computer more powerful than anything we have ever created, and for power just put some food into the body, where the body automatically seperates the individual proteins  to create completely new proteins for your various protein needs. Bit convenient, isn't it? Also, our eyes are the most advanced lenses ever. They automatically choose the correct aperture depending on the light hitting it, which then flips the picture upside down, to be read and flipped right side up again by the brain. Then, we have the nervous system, which uses tiny electrical impulses to move a limb or to let you know you just stubbed your toe. To believe that these things just exist and happened completly randomly is not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.
LOL. Kingman, I swear you make me giggle. As for us not being a new species, the dude above is an idiot.

On to the rest of your faggotry, yes you put massive amounts of potential energy in your body, and watch it turn most of it into heat, because we work better at a temperature above 70 degrees. Wow whoever designed us gave us a wasteful operating temperature. That's dumb.

Then our super duper complex brains of science. A single computer can do math better than the entire human race combined. Wow, awesome computer.

As for the image being double flipped and stuff. That isn't that hard, my computer flips images too, and I hope an organic self teaching computer will figure out the image it receives is upside down.

The eye is not the greatest lens ever either. I don't know who told you that, but ever fucker on earth with a pair of glasses is probably saying wtf? I'm pretty sure a space telescope lens wins that, the kind that distorts several mirrors to see through the atmosphere. Or the kind of mirror that is completely flexible so it can distort a laser beam out of an airplane that won't be affected by the changes in temperature.


Kingman, you fail hard.
First off, you are a douche. Second off, Our brains are so complex, we have not even tapped their potential. And it is without a doubt the most advanced purely because they are 100% organic. And I wear glasses, idiot.Soon to be contacts. We are warm so that we don't automatically freeze in cold weather. We generate our own heat.
I hate myself for coming here

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Cinlef

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #101 on: February 05, 2009, 02:33:40 PM »
SO once every hundred years we see a new species? Why, in 10,00 years do we not have different species of humans?

And something I've thought about for awhile, how do you think the brain was randomly generated? It is a living computer more powerful than anything we have ever created, and for power just put some food into the body, where the body automatically seperates the individual proteins  to create completely new proteins for your various protein needs. Bit convenient, isn't it? Also, our eyes are the most advanced lenses ever. They automatically choose the correct aperture depending on the light hitting it, which then flips the picture upside down, to be read and flipped right side up again by the brain. Then, we have the nervous system, which uses tiny electrical impulses to move a limb or to let you know you just stubbed your toe. To believe that these things just exist and happened completly randomly is not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.
LOL. Kingman, I swear you make me giggle. As for us not being a new species, the dude above is an idiot.

On to the rest of your faggotry, yes you put massive amounts of potential energy in your body, and watch it turn most of it into heat, because we work better at a temperature above 70 degrees. Wow whoever designed us gave us a wasteful operating temperature. That's dumb.

Then our super duper complex brains of science. A single computer can do math better than the entire human race combined. Wow, awesome computer.

As for the image being double flipped and stuff. That isn't that hard, my computer flips images too, and I hope an organic self teaching computer will figure out the image it receives is upside down.

The eye is not the greatest lens ever either. I don't know who told you that, but ever fucker on earth with a pair of glasses is probably saying wtf? I'm pretty sure a space telescope lens wins that, the kind that distorts several mirrors to see through the atmosphere. Or the kind of mirror that is completely flexible so it can distort a laser beam out of an airplane that won't be affected by the changes in temperature.


Kingman, you fail hard.
First off, you are a douche. Second off, Our brains are so complex, we have not even tapped their potential. And it is without a doubt the most advanced purely because they are 100% organic. And I wear glasses, idiot.Soon to be contacts. We are warm so that we don't automatically freeze in cold weather. We generate our own heat.

Kingman, as a sincere theist, I've got to ask you to stop arguing here, study this topic and only then attempt to argue it. Cause right now your really really not helping except to provide arguments for the atheists to gleefully rip to shreds

A sad
Cinlef
Truth is great and will prevail-Thomas Jefferson

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Cinlef is the bestest!

Melior est sapientia quam vires-Wisdom

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Raist

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #102 on: February 05, 2009, 03:10:47 PM »
SO once every hundred years we see a new species? Why, in 10,00 years do we not have different species of humans?

And something I've thought about for awhile, how do you think the brain was randomly generated? It is a living computer more powerful than anything we have ever created, and for power just put some food into the body, where the body automatically seperates the individual proteins  to create completely new proteins for your various protein needs. Bit convenient, isn't it? Also, our eyes are the most advanced lenses ever. They automatically choose the correct aperture depending on the light hitting it, which then flips the picture upside down, to be read and flipped right side up again by the brain. Then, we have the nervous system, which uses tiny electrical impulses to move a limb or to let you know you just stubbed your toe. To believe that these things just exist and happened completly randomly is not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.
LOL. Kingman, I swear you make me giggle. As for us not being a new species, the dude above is an idiot.

On to the rest of your faggotry, yes you put massive amounts of potential energy in your body, and watch it turn most of it into heat, because we work better at a temperature above 70 degrees. Wow whoever designed us gave us a wasteful operating temperature. That's dumb.

Then our super duper complex brains of science. A single computer can do math better than the entire human race combined. Wow, awesome computer.

As for the image being double flipped and stuff. That isn't that hard, my computer flips images too, and I hope an organic self teaching computer will figure out the image it receives is upside down.

The eye is not the greatest lens ever either. I don't know who told you that, but ever fucker on earth with a pair of glasses is probably saying wtf? I'm pretty sure a space telescope lens wins that, the kind that distorts several mirrors to see through the atmosphere. Or the kind of mirror that is completely flexible so it can distort a laser beam out of an airplane that won't be affected by the changes in temperature.


Kingman, you fail hard.
First off, you are a douche. Second off, Our brains are so complex, we have not even tapped their potential. And it is without a doubt the most advanced purely because they are 100% organic. And I wear glasses, idiot.Soon to be contacts. We are warm so that we don't automatically freeze in cold weather. We generate our own heat.

God damn it. Wow. It has nothing to do with the fact that our body produces certain proteins that it can't at this temperature? If your eyes are the perfect lens, why do they need correction? How does being organic make them complex? Do you understand the term organic? I'm not being a douche bag, you are being the average idiot that uses words you do not grasp because thanks to stupid marketing campaigns your brain has added extra meaning to them.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #103 on: February 05, 2009, 04:45:27 PM »
SO once every hundred years we see a new species? Why, in 10,00 years do we not have different species of humans?

And something I've thought about for awhile, how do you think the brain was randomly generated? It is a living computer more powerful than anything we have ever created, and for power just put some food into the body, where the body automatically seperates the individual proteins  to create completely new proteins for your various protein needs. Bit convenient, isn't it? Also, our eyes are the most advanced lenses ever. They automatically choose the correct aperture depending on the light hitting it, which then flips the picture upside down, to be read and flipped right side up again by the brain. Then, we have the nervous system, which uses tiny electrical impulses to move a limb or to let you know you just stubbed your toe. To believe that these things just exist and happened completly randomly is not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.
LOL. Kingman, I swear you make me giggle. As for us not being a new species, the dude above is an idiot.

On to the rest of your faggotry, yes you put massive amounts of potential energy in your body, and watch it turn most of it into heat, because we work better at a temperature above 70 degrees. Wow whoever designed us gave us a wasteful operating temperature. That's dumb.

Then our super duper complex brains of science. A single computer can do math better than the entire human race combined. Wow, awesome computer.

As for the image being double flipped and stuff. That isn't that hard, my computer flips images too, and I hope an organic self teaching computer will figure out the image it receives is upside down.

The eye is not the greatest lens ever either. I don't know who told you that, but ever fucker on earth with a pair of glasses is probably saying wtf? I'm pretty sure a space telescope lens wins that, the kind that distorts several mirrors to see through the atmosphere. Or the kind of mirror that is completely flexible so it can distort a laser beam out of an airplane that won't be affected by the changes in temperature.


Kingman, you fail hard.
First off, you are a douche. Second off, Our brains are so complex, we have not even tapped their potential. And it is without a doubt the most advanced purely because they are 100% organic. And I wear glasses, idiot.Soon to be contacts. We are warm so that we don't automatically freeze in cold weather. We generate our own heat.

God damn it. Wow. It has nothing to do with the fact that our body produces certain proteins that it can't at this temperature? If your eyes are the perfect lens, why do they need correction? How does being organic make them complex? Do you understand the term organic? I'm not being a douche bag, you are being the average idiot that uses words you do not grasp because thanks to stupid marketing campaigns your brain has added extra meaning to them.
You are a douche because you called me names first. And the fact that it is organic and actually alive makes all the difference. And if normal computers are better than our brains, why is it that we can reason and they cannot? As for the eyes I meant there is no other lens like our eyes. You comparing it to a telescope lens is completely inadequate, as they are more like a camera lens. Do you know what organic means? We have yet to create a computer without using metal, yet there is one right in each of our heads. We actually generate electricity, and the fuel is food and water. Thats all. And as usual you are glib by bringing up things like Marketing Campaigns that have absolutely nothing to do with this conversation which means you are either grasping at straws or partially insane.
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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #104 on: February 05, 2009, 05:10:06 PM »
if you look into nature you'll find lots of animals with better eyes or other superior features. i think the point is that homo sapiens seems to be the best overall combination. although in general there's nothing really special (except maybe for the brain and our hands) with us.

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Ravenwood240

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #105 on: February 05, 2009, 05:12:51 PM »
if you look into nature you'll find lots of animals with better eyes or other superior features. i think the point is that homo sapiens seems to be the best overall combination. although in general there's nothing really special (except maybe for the brain and our hands) with us.

Opposable thumbs and the ability to reason.  Possibly, humour.  No other species has a sense of humour.
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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #106 on: February 05, 2009, 06:26:56 PM »
if you look into nature you'll find lots of animals with better eyes or other superior features. i think the point is that homo sapiens seems to be the best overall combination. although in general there's nothing really special (except maybe for the brain and our hands) with us.

Opposable thumbs and the ability to reason.  Possibly, humour.  No other species has a sense of humour.

Is that why most animals that can learn language skills will begin to intentionally mislabel objects when asked as a "joke".

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #107 on: February 06, 2009, 03:06:23 AM »
SO once every hundred years we see a new species? Why, in 10,00 years do we not have different species of humans?

And something I've thought about for awhile, how do you think the brain was randomly generated? It is a living computer more powerful than anything we have ever created, and for power just put some food into the body, where the body automatically seperates the individual proteins  to create completely new proteins for your various protein needs. Bit convenient, isn't it? Also, our eyes are the most advanced lenses ever. They automatically choose the correct aperture depending on the light hitting it, which then flips the picture upside down, to be read and flipped right side up again by the brain. Then, we have the nervous system, which uses tiny electrical impulses to move a limb or to let you know you just stubbed your toe. To believe that these things just exist and happened completly randomly is not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.
Now what you have done is to completely misunderstand speciation. Speciation does not occur *pop* ...new species, it doesn't work like that except in really, really bad strawman arguments.

Evolution is a gradual (from a generational perspective) change in the genetic code of an organism.

Lets look at a hypothetical examination over time.

We know that Amphibians exist.

they lay eggs that requier water to survive. However, they also need a protective (althoguh soft and water permiable) shell to stop them being damaged.

But, if a species of amphibian lived in an area where there were a lot of water born predators that ate their eggs, then it would be advantageous for therm to lay them as close to the shore as possible. However, due to various reasons the shore line can rise and fall. If one of our amphibians laid their eggs too close to the shore, they might avoid all chance of predation, but they run the risk of the eggs being exposed and drying out.

If an amphibian's egg were to have a thicker shell, then it might make it harder for the young to escape the egg, so this would normally be selected against (as they would be weaker and be therefore more susceptible to predation after they hatch and the more vigorous young would be able to out compete them for food).

But, in an area where predation of eggs is high, then eggs not out as far as possible would be at a disadvantage as they would be eaten by the predators, but the eggs on the outside would be safer.

However, in this situation, any egg that had a thicker shell could last longer out of water and not dry out. So in this case a thicker shell is an advantage, even though the young would find it harder to hatch and then find food. They would, though, be able to survive situations which would kill all the other eggs as they could last longer out of water.

Now, if there was any mutation that allowed the young to escape the eggs easier this would be an advantage, say a tooth that develops early. This might not be a disadvantage for the original amphibian, but it would not be an advantage either. But for these new mutant amphibians, this would be a decided advantage as it would enable them to escape the thick shelled eggs easier and so take less energy and they could remain vigorous. They could catch food easier and escape predators easier.

But then this "Egg Tooth" would also allow the shell of the egg to become thicker still, allowing these eggs to last even longer out of water, which give this species even more advantage against the egg predators.

This will continue back and forth for a bit until the shell fo the egg becomes completely water proof. At this point the species is no longer dependent on breeding in the water any more and can lay their eggs completely on land. They would in fact be reptiles as we would classify them.

By small changes We have gone from an amphibian to a reptile. A frog to a lizard if you will. But at no point could we state that there was a new species, except if we look back and compare it to the original amphibian.

This of course is an extremely simplified example to show the process and to highlight how speciation occurs (ie it is an artificial and human created division, not something that actually exists).

Because speciation is a human created definition, it tends to fail in light of real word situations. We can't agree on precisely what a species is because the whole concept of a species is not something that really exists in the real world. So even what constitutes as a speciation event is not well defined either because the real world is not like that.

We tend to think of new species branching off like a branch of a tree. But in reality, this branching takes place over many generations, and in this time there is many links back form the diverging genomes to the old genomes, there is hybridisation, there is large scale mutations, there are extinctions, there are random deaths, there are changes to the environment and so on and so forth.

This concept of a neatly branching tree of life is altogether over simplified, but it is a decent analogy, just don't mistake it for the real thing.

Now, as for the drive for new species to develop:

Evolution create pressures on a species. Over time an equilibrium is reached where the pressures drop. In these situations there will not be much changes, as a key point in evolution is selection. If selection is minimal, then there will not be much drive for the organism to change much. It will, however, change in neutral ways. that is in ways that do not make much changes to the organism.

If you remember my previous post, I explained how a mutation could be neutral and actually not effect the organism at all. However, these are changes, and they do effect what directions the organism could more easily take in evolution.

This is called genetic drift, because the genome of the organisms will drift over time and not much change will be noticed. This will also create a lot of variation in the population as small changes that do have an effect will not be necessarily selected against.

Remember in the amphibian example above how the development of an "egg tooth" in the amphibian with the soft shell did not create any overt disadvantage, but did not create at that point any overt advantage. Something like this could develop and it wouldn't really change the species in any real way.

But things get interesting when some pressure is put on the organisms,say a new predator comes onto he scene, or the climate change. Now these variations that have accumulated in the species might offer some an advantage and others a disadvantage. There might also be more than one variation that offers an advantage but it is not existant in all members of the population.

This would create a strong selection for these traits that offer an advantage and a strong selection away from the traits that offer the disadvantage.

This would create a rapid change (geologically speaking) change in the organism and create a speciation event that would be seen in the fossil record, or even occur within out lifetime for a rapidly reproducing species like finches (the vampire finches of the Galapagos).

ALso, as the original species would go extinct, we would not necessarily see any survivors of this original species survive.

Also...

If there were several different traits that offered an advantage, but these traits were not in every individual, then what we would see occur is that these different traits would lead to different species and we would get two species with a common ancestor.
Everyday household experimentation.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #108 on: February 06, 2009, 03:38:04 AM »
It seems that Kingman is being purposefully and persistantly obtuse rather than actually striving to develop a clearer understanding of these evolutionary processes in order to only explain the amazing complexity of life by invoking intelligent design.

Quote
not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.

Quote
You are a douche because you called me names first

Actually, I am a douche because I am used to clean vaginas.
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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #109 on: February 06, 2009, 06:23:31 AM »
It seems that Kingman is being purposefully and persistantly obtuse rather than actually striving to develop a clearer understanding of these evolutionary processes in order to only explain the amazing complexity of life by invoking intelligent design.

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not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.

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You are a douche because you called me names first

Actually, I am a douche because I am used to clean vaginas.
I love a double entendre. No stanky fish for me, please.




I've never been called obtuse before, hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm....
lol tot he stinky fish, I agree on that one.

@Edtharan, Stop making your posts so damn long!
I hate myself for coming here

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Raist

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #110 on: February 06, 2009, 11:20:43 AM »
It seems that Kingman is being purposefully and persistantly obtuse rather than actually striving to develop a clearer understanding of these evolutionary processes in order to only explain the amazing complexity of life by invoking intelligent design.

Quote
not just ludicrous, it borders insanity.

Quote
You are a douche because you called me names first

Actually, I am a douche because I am used to clean vaginas.
I love a double entendre. No stanky fish for me, please.




I've never been called obtuse before, hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm....
lol tot he stinky fish, I agree on that one.

@Edtharan, Stop making your posts so damn long!

Kingman, the acting dumb thing is only funny if you've ever showed intelligence in your life. Now you can go back to your super organic computers. The fact that our super computers of a brain have trouble doing triple digit multiplication is just an aspect of how super they are. Or the amazingly brilliant sheep I saw the other day with a wire wrapped around its neck, it was spinning in circles instead of backing out of the loop, which tightened the loop so much it was about to strangle itself.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #111 on: February 06, 2009, 01:53:51 PM »
Your a Douche
I hate myself for coming here

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Raist

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #112 on: February 06, 2009, 02:20:27 PM »
Your a Douche
quoted for awesomeness.

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Guessed

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #113 on: February 06, 2009, 02:24:01 PM »
This page is so full of win it makes my eyes bleed.
Is Dino open source?

Quote from: grogberries


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Mykael

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #114 on: February 16, 2009, 05:27:29 AM »
Just posting to add my 2 cents on the whole "brain as supercomputer" thing...
Yes, our brains have a lot of potential. In raw potential power they are much more advanced than silicon computers...

But.

Most of brain's processing power is wrapped up in non-math/"computer" things, such as social interactions or body coordination. We can interpret the slightest of facial expression changes, depending on hundreds to thousands of factors, and guess what the other person's thinking with fairly reliable accuracy. That's like having a math equation with thousands of variables, filling the variables with all different sorts of data, solving it, all in real-time.

Where our brain fails is its lack of reprogrammability. We can't unlearn that instinctual social relations part and reassign it to math functions... even though some of us might like to  :D. A silicon computer, however, can be playing a video game one moment and compressing a video the next.



TL;DR: the amount of brainpower tied up in hardwired functions means there's usually little left over for number crunching or other "computer" tasks.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #115 on: February 16, 2009, 08:45:21 AM »
This page is so full of win it makes my eyes bleed.
Said the Atheist.
I hate myself for coming here

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Proleg

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #116 on: February 16, 2009, 03:16:56 PM »
Stop spamming in the serious boards, KingMan.

Re: How Life Began
« Reply #117 on: February 16, 2009, 03:25:37 PM »
Stop spamming in the serious boards, KingMan.
I meant that he is obviously prejuduved on the subject, so he cannot declare win.
I hate myself for coming here

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General Douchebag

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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #118 on: February 16, 2009, 03:29:09 PM »
Of course Guessed can declare win, he knows it when he sees it. If he doesn't know win, he needs to look at himself seriously.
Then ask himself "Is this page anything like me?"
No but I'm guess your what? 90? Cause you just so darn mature </sarcasm>

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Pongo

  • Planar Moderator
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Re: How Life Began
« Reply #119 on: February 25, 2009, 03:49:26 AM »
I like this thread because of the similarities you can draw to the flat earth debate.  Both arguments have a similar side; science.  The opposite side was once, or currently is backed by religion.  The flat earth and creationism arguments are both supported by the bible.  And backing evolution or a round earth was or is conventionally associated with being an atheist.  (I tried to word that carefully, I am showing parallels to how the ideas have been similar over the past few centuries.  I am not saying all flat earth supporters are theists, I am not saying round earth supporters are devils, and regardless of my beliefs, I am not invalidating either view.)

Where I think that the sides differ majorly is that the flat earth debate no longer has the fortune of being backed by extremely influential, rich, and powerful groups.  Groups that will claim you will be forever tortured if you deviate from their norms. 

This is why I have always felt that evolution will one day become as unanimously accepted by the vast vast majority of people just as a round earth has.  However, popular believe does not equate truth.  Although, to refute the overwhelming evidence for evolution, creationists currently are citing outdated or disproven sources, questioning an unknown agenda for science, and constantly revising their arguments to better handle the evidence, as seen in the emersion of Intelligent Design.  Hrmmmm...
« Last Edit: February 25, 2009, 04:04:14 AM by Pongo »