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Offlineeehoo
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: Kurt]
    #22372329 - 10/13/15 09:25 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

If is the key word in your questions because we ultimately know nothing. But obviously what is the reason to all of this has been a consistent questions throughout human history. I like to think somebody upstairs was trying to create a playground for life, but that's just how i feel. Scientists would rather fuck off with feelings and study a bunch of numbers until it can add up to 50-60% certainty (which apparently is good enough for fact?) scientists are fucking weird


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: Kurt]
    #22376207 - 10/13/15 10:29 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Kurt
Ballsalla (10/12/15 11:21 AM ) has begged no question. He(?) has simply skipped the step of defining evolution, once again. By definition indeed it is an agent free process and as such can not have purpose or goal.
Also Evolution only exists within a life supporting environment. And as we know larger environmental events separate from evolution, such as asteroids and vulcanism and ice ages regularly cause extinction of entire species. Eventually the sun itself will turn into a red giant star and all life on earth, if there still is any, will be killed.
So even if evolution had a purpose, it would be part of a larger context which certainly regards life with no respect.

Why many humans seem to feel lonely after childhood without some theology, myth, or dogma, maybe a question for psychologists. But many children seem to do fine without do it. Some adults certainly find it helps justify arguments and wars.

As regards Darwin he lived in a very repressed and religious time and place. He put off publishing for years as he didn't want to deal with the flack. His wife was religious.
When one of his darling children died, he became even more disenchanted with religion. Never the less he was cautious about saying certain things, and ignorant of  DNA, etc.

Evolution only produces adaptation to current environment using resources currently available in the species in question. Hence the cephalopod eye is better engineered than the mammal eye. Hence many species regularly go extinct when the environment changes. Hence many species have very bizarre features.  There is neither foresight nor any possible final perfection, as eventually, given enough time all environments eventually undergo change. Moles and cave fish have both almost entirely lost their eyes, as we have our tails. **
Evolution is always involved with jury rigging temporary solutions.

Lastly "Evolution" is not a thing, spirit, agent, or object. That the word is used as a noun causes confusion. "Fluid dynamics" describe the behavior of fluids. Evolution describes the behavior of biological machines. This is not a problem for Buddhists, but seems to upset American Christian evangelicals, more than any other group of folks on the planet.

And Nietzsche was quite mistaken when he said "All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves…" . The cockroach  has been around for around 300 million years, and sharks for over 400 million -- We have been here about 50,000 to 2 million years.
Again no idea of progress - rather an: "if it works don't fix it!" type algorithm, in the case of evolutionary dynamics.


**
"The examples of human vestigiality are numerous, including the anatomical (such as the human appendix, tailbone, wisdom teeth, and inside corner of the eye), the behavioral (goose bumps and palmar grasp reflex), sensory (decreased olfaction), and molecular (pseudogenes). Many human characteristics are also vestigial in other primates and related animals." from wiki


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Invisibleenlightened seed
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: laughingdog]
    #22376226 - 10/13/15 10:33 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

evolution is a program that is not to be completely understood by those who are not allowed to know  :facepalm3:


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Offlinebastian
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: enlightened seed]
    #22376463 - 10/13/15 11:27 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Unless you're into some magical nonsense, you shouldn't be thinking of the functions of nature as teleological.  Nature doesn't want or intend anything.

(same applies to history)


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Invisibleenlightened seed
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: bastian]
    #22376476 - 10/13/15 11:30 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

nature is here for humans to play with.


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InvisibleKurt
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: laughingdog]
    #22376608 - 10/14/15 12:14 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Would you care to focus your response a little bit? My own post was kind of loose, so if you would indulge this breach of etiquette on my part, maybe chill out a bit with the free association internet argumentative style. I do appreciate the opportunity to clarify this particular notion though.

Quote:

Ballsalla (10/12/15 11:21 AM ) has begged no question. He(?) has simply skipped the step of defining evolution, once again. By definition indeed it is an agent free process




I stopped here because I don't know what you are talking about. On what basis are you "defining" evolution as an agent free process? That question should suffice as a basis of focused discussion, I think.

It seems to me that humans dwell largely in their means and ends. That is something that can and has sufficed to drive selection in nature.

By conventional basis we describe nurturing or our "artificial" behavior as opposed to nature, and this is mainly because by contradiction, this is what in principle determines what a domain of "nature" formally is. This can be seen clearly in Greek thought, as well as in point, in Darwin's theory.

Darwin not only collected data, or organisms, and observed what is the case, but reasoned in a particular way to arrive at his conclusion. That is what I was pointing out as significant, in my previous post. He reasoned that the plants and animals that were artificially selected by mankind and thus familiar and understood by us, suggest a similar mechanism occuring in nature.

I was pointing out how this basis of understanding departing from the familiar to nature, what Aristotle called endoxa, is due to the nature of our intellectual discourse, not ordinarily appreciated as Darwin's manner of observation, in our age. You are reminding me why this is significant, because in endoxa, you get caught up in the way in which a notion of nature is formally established.

Clearly, even if in principle, artificial guidance of selection process is opposed to natural selection, without a doubt the findings of natural selection, include humankind's artificial selections of species. It is self evident that we are guiding the direction of evolution, and are part of nature in domestic selection of species.

I think this must likely be what you are thinking of as some principle or definition that excludes the possibility of evolution being found in directed means and ends, ie. agency. You are referring to the formality, which is clearly significant to the discussion, but certainly it doesn't exclude the possibility of human means and ends becoming a vehicle and driving evolution. Whether empirical data of evolution will be found, will depend on what occurs in human history, and what we make of it.

I appreciate the argument, because as I said, I wrote what I did quite haphazardly. I do not have a background in biology, but as you can see I do not care, since I am talking mostly about unraveling the constrained and prejudicial notions which you speak to. Idk maybe if people laid off the formal patronizing routine of trying to get everyone to think the same, of worrying so much about education and dissemination of an idea, we could begin to notice where we stand in this as humans. It does not take technical understanding to see that human existence is potentially significant, even if our nature is a matter of question.

I was referring to the origin of species, as my basis of understanding. You can correct me where you think I went wrong, but spare me from the biology 101 textbooks. I do not see any so general formal definition that says that evolution excludes agency. I see it clearly includes it, in the way I have just said. I see also that by recognizing the endoxic principles of natural philosophy which accompanied empirical observation, Darwin arrived at an inclusive understanding of life.

As for Nietzsche, I'm sure I don't know what you mean by right or wrong. That isn't the point. You give an example of a being who does not walk the line. Well, some do.


Edited by Kurt (10/14/15 11:43 AM)


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InvisibleKurt
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: bastian]
    #22376746 - 10/14/15 01:21 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

bastian said:
Unless you're into some magical nonsense, you shouldn't be thinking of the functions of nature as teleological.  Nature doesn't want or intend anything.

(same applies to history)




Nobody is ascribing the "function" of nature as possessing agency in that sense. Get real yourself...

History is what the makers make. Others can observe and record it, and still others can listen to those statements as they come. That's history.

To the point, teleology is not even ostensibly magical, so this is a strawman. You seem to want to make a point in reacting to midieval Christian humanism out front, but no one is talking about that.

In principle, Aristotle's secular discussion of causes (found in his physics) ascribes Telos as an end. Naturally, teleology is found in a context which is particular to human means and ends in the first place.

It stands to reason that while in principle, humans are formally distinct in some ways from nature, humans are yet indeed wholly and conclusively part of nature, and their means and ends (motivations, ideologies etc.) are clearly significant to who and what they are in turn.

We do not know human nature, nor is that necessarily something which needs to be understood or laid bear for these extents and purposes. As to what significance that human means and ends can have to evolution the discussion would be of clearing and space which is not a particular conclusion to be laid bear, but contingent possibility.

Human beings can certainly be authentic to who and what they are, as they are in nature, and they can certainly dwell in their particular means and ends as humans. That's what I am referring to in my use of the term teleology anyway.

Respectively, I wonder why you and many people seem to think that Christianity is always the exemplar of all humanism? Why look for fear? It is not much improvement to go from fear of god, to fear of humanists. Hasn't it been long enough; can't we shake it off yet?


Edited by Kurt (10/14/15 10:42 AM)


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: Kurt]
    #22376813 - 10/14/15 02:04 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

"On what basis are you "defining" evolution as an agent free process?"

The same reason Dawkins entitles his book "the Blind watchmaker".
-----------
"It seems to me that humans dwell largely in their means and ends. That is something that can and has sufficed to drive selection in nature."

Not prior to humans which is most (90 something %) of the history of life.
-------------
"He reasoned that the plants and animals that were artificially selected by mankind and thus familiar and understood by us, suggest a similar mechanism occurring in nature."

He was writing long ago so he first had to show that species were malleable to an audience that thought God created everything to perfection (in a few days) and that it remained static thereafter. Therefore he used the example of pigeons, which he could study and with which people were familiar. 
As you already know when man breeds animals his focus is  generally on either beauty (fancy pigeons) or utility, (in it's various aspects), (work horses, dogs for sheep herders etc.), whereas nature is always dealing with the environment and is constrained by the necessities of survival, frequently resulting in "arms races" between predator and prey species.
About half of species are parasitic. Many animals eat others while they are still alive. And many insects lay eggs inside others that are still alive, the eggs then hatch and eat the victim from the inside out. Much of life is rather unpleasant and painful. See for example these very interesting links, with science information, on this unappetizing but fascinating subject:
http://winace.courageunfettered.com/designed_organisms/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=brain+controlling+parasites
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=snail+parasite
It is , I suppose subjective, but attempting to assign a 'higher' purpose to this process seems a big stretch to me.


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InvisibleKurt
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: laughingdog]
    #22376854 - 10/14/15 02:34 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

The title of a book you read which is reacting to the mythology of a Judeochristian religion is not an argument of why human means and ends can't possibly be part of, and the vehicle of human evolution.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: Kurt]
    #22376868 - 10/14/15 02:43 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

really?


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InvisibleballsalsaMDiscord
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: laughingdog]
    #22377709 - 10/14/15 10:05 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Kurt's got you there. 

book titles are a boring and ineffective medium of debate.

but since that's what we are doing now, i'll give it a shot:

Quote:


The same reason Dawkins entitles his book "the Blind watchmaker".




Yeah? why does Alister McGrath entitle his book "The Dawkins Delusion?" then?


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Offlinenuentoter
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: ballsalsa]
    #22378537 - 10/14/15 01:09 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

I think the goal is self evident, perpetuation and adaptability. Evolution is a mechanism designed for long term adaptability to environmental issues.

I don't understand the "if" part I guess though, what would make one think that evolution does not exist?


--------------------

The geometry of us is no chance. We are antennae, we are tuning forks, we are receiver and transmitters of all energy. We are more than we know.  - @entheolove

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for"  - Georgia O'Keefe

I think the word is vagina


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: ballsalsa]
    #22379103 - 10/14/15 03:08 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

You seem to have mistaken where I'm coming from…

if you ask a photographer: " what is the best camera?"
they will in turn ask you: "What do you want to use it for?"
There is no "best".
I did not make this up. Check it out for yourself. That's what they say.

Like wise with evolution, whether we presume to be religious or not there is frequently some sort of notion of 'progress', among us "armchair scientists" which gets associated with 'perfection', in the case of evolution (as with cameras); but a biologist will ask, similarly to a photographer: "adapted to what environment?, at what time? and where? and for how long?"
Environment is, obviously, as we already know, in the case of planet earth a mix of geology (plate tectonics, vulcanism, earthquakes, shifting magnetic poles, ocean currents, and ozone levels etc.), solar system events (sunspot cycles, comets, asteroid impacts, shifting planetary axis with resulting ice ages, etc.) and the effects of life itself ( oxygen levels, prey-predator relations etc.)
In the case of the environmental factors no one presumes to add purpose. And environment exerts great control on "evolution" which is simply a fancy word for change. And environment controls evolution thru pain and death of organisms, not love, not any anthropomorphic feeling, not any purpose we might associate with the word caring.
I suppose some might say God loves complexity, or variety. I would have to be very foolish to argue with them.

Many assume humans are some sort of improvement in a  vast scheme of some sort. Somehow ego seems to get involved when humanity or evolution are mentioned. This seems surprising to me. The older I get, the less relevant my "shoulds" seem.

Consider vision: bees see ultra violet light, snakes sense infra-red, eagles have superior visual acuity, cephalopods have no blind spot, mantis shrimp have more rods and cones and see more colors, and the cats and owls see better in the dark.
Our vision is simply adequate for a primate that needs to distinguish ripe fruit and leaves from unripe. To that degree
there is 'purpose' or more accurately logically related cause and effect within the contextual goal of reproductive fitness, that the genes exhibit, as they compete.

I have no "shoulds" as to others' beliefs, I simply innocently thought as there was an interest in the subject, and us 'arm chair scientists" like the amateur photographers seem to have been mislead by a sound byte media culture, that since I put some time into studying this a little, I would share my results.

Best of luck to you all in your theorizing. The field itself is "evolving" with new discoveries everyday: horizontal gene transfer in bacteria, human cloning, GMOs, virus remnants in "junk" DNA that out number human genes, possibly cloning a mammoth, and chickenosaurus, etc.


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InvisibleKurt
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: nuentoter]
    #22379424 - 10/14/15 04:00 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

nuentoter said:
I think the goal is self evident, perpetuation and adaptability. Evolution is a mechanism designed for long term adaptability to environmental issues.

I don't understand the "if" part I guess though, what would make one think that evolution does not exist?




I definitely think survival is key constraint in life systems in general and with modern humanity it is no different. Clearly we stand as testament that even if incredibly complex adaptability has occured, the principle of survival of the species is still essential. I think reason stands to suggest survival has appeared as all the more pressing through our particularly complex adaptability.

I'd say the "if" or theoretical part is pretty significant. We are reflexive thinkers. By analogy, in what we refer to, just as modern physics is for its own reasons a theory laden paradigm, evolutionary biology is also theory-laden. If evolution doesn't just dump off either theoretically or actually at humanity, and is actually at work, and we are still part of nature, how do we understand it?

I think the first thing is just in not necessarily excluding possibility. This to me seems not to be a mere speculation, but a contingence basis which nature presses on us, even if we can't say what in principle it is. Will we evolve? Will it depend on us being aware? Maybe the question is not of what exists, or of bearing things or entities as present, but also of becoming?

As for the people talking about evolution being just a theory, and the people who respond by constraints of reductionism, I think this distorts the question. I read part of a book by Richard Dawkins once, where he suggested we start calling scientific theories "theorums" (as in being like mathematical theorems). Fun stuff. :shrug:


Edited by Kurt (10/14/15 05:22 PM)


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: enlightened seed]
    #22379919 - 10/14/15 05:48 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

enlightened seed said:
If evolution is indeed true then what is the ultimate goal of evolution?





Isn't that clear? Occupy EVERY niche of EVERY habitable habitat with a wide variety of organisms.

Fill the galaxy with life.


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Offlinegnrm23
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: enlightened seed]
    #22380054 - 10/14/15 06:19 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

evolution is indeed true...


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old enough to know better
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Invisibleenlightened seed
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: Asante]
    #22380091 - 10/14/15 06:26 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Asante said:
Quote:

enlightened seed said:
If evolution is indeed true then what is the ultimate goal of evolution?





Isn't that clear? Occupy EVERY niche of EVERY habitable habitat with a wide variety of organisms.

Fill the galaxy with life.





for what purpose? to see if it will make it or destroy itself?


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: Asante]
    #22380132 - 10/14/15 06:37 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Asante said:
Quote:

enlightened seed said:
If evolution is indeed true then what is the ultimate goal of evolution?





Isn't that clear? Occupy EVERY niche of EVERY habitable habitat with a wide variety of organisms.

Fill the galaxy with life.




To paraphrase George Carlin:


The next thing we're gonna do is go to Mars, yeah, and then colonize deep space.  Won't it be exciting when we can share our microwavable hot dogs, plastic vomit, fake dog shit, sneakers with lights in the heels, cinnamon dental floss, lemon scented toilet paper, and all the other impressive things we've done down here?

And, speaking of our wonderful species, how about another teenage mother throwing her newborn baby in a dumpster.

And our ambassador was late because his breakfast was cold so he was busy punching his wife around the kitchen.

And then there are the 80 million women whose clitorises were forcably removed in order to reduce sexual pleasure so they won't cheat on their husbands.


Can you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up?


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici


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Invisibleenlightened seed
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #22380155 - 10/14/15 06:42 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

George Carlin was a funny man.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: If evolution is indeed true. [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #22380242 - 10/14/15 07:03 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Indeed Carlin nailed it, and he was being polite, folks actually do much worse stuff, on a daily basis, as we all know. But he had to keep it funny.


Edited by laughingdog (10/14/15 07:13 PM)


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