glooper23

I struggle daily with imagining the universe having started from scratch. I can't seem to de evolve certain processes, which is where my question lies.

To evolutionists: life forms seem to be born with pre thought layouts. By that, I mean the organs end up growing to a point and then stop, the bones keep growing and then stop, etc. How did they evolutionarily occur? How did basic molecules build up into the ability to make a seed / egg than holds info about how long the body should grow?

babelfish

Who says the universe started from scratch?

For your other questions, may I suggest enrolling in a basic biology course. Or if you're unable to do that, go on amazon.com and look for some basic books on biology or embryology.

Just because you can't imagine how something happened, that doesn't mean it didn't. It just means you have the opportunity to learn something.

Enjoy!

:wave:

weforgottenuno

Maybe someone with more experience in biology could point him towards the specific theories/ topics that would address his questions. Vague suggestions to "go read a biology book" are infrequently helpful.

American Hominid

I guess I would say - consider how long life existed before the modern body plans showed up. If I remember, the first known signs of life in the geologic record occur in rocks about 3.5 billion years old. The Cambrian "explosion" (the time when some fairly recognizable "modern" body plans and organism types first occur and spread to various ecological niches) occurred around 530 million years ago.

So over those intervening billions of years, organisms were evolving, and various processes of development were evolving with them. By the time the Cambrian "explosion" happened, I suspect many of the developmental programs still used by organisms today were already basically in place. As those ancestral species evolved from the Cambrian to today, their developmental programs evolved with them; the members who were born with severe enough defects were unable to reproduce, and thus, only the effective body plans and developmental programs were passed on.

Granted, I am not a molecular biologist so that's about as much detail as I can get into right now, but I hope it helps?

Theophage

As opposed to what? Poofing in by God magic?

I can't seem to understand what you're saying here. More english, less nonsense please.

What in the world is an "evolutionist"? More nonsense-speak?

False. They are born with pre-made genes, similar to the genes of their parents.

All explainable by genes.

By changing already present genes into new genes. If the new genes didn't work, they didn't get passed on. If they worked better than the old genes, they overtook the old genes in the population.

This is very basic stuff, that was known even before we knew what genes were. The fact that you don't know this stuff means you know absolutely nothing about evolution.

Is it surprising that you are having trouble understanding something that you know absolutely nothing about? Would it surprise you that you didn't understand how circuits work if you knew nothing of electronics?

Here are your answers:
http://www.literature.org/authors/da...in-of-species/
After that, you've got about 150 years of biology to catch up on.

They started from simpler working systems, and gradually became more complex and more specialized. You may have been told by creationists that complexity cannot increase through non-intelligent means. They lied to you.

Occam's Aftershave

Organisms stop growing at a point (actually a bell shaped curve) that maximizes their survival potential in their given environment. Evolution works as a feedback loop. The feedback provided by environmental pressures affects which genes get selected for (which control animal size) , and tends to drive the loop to optimum stability. Everything in life is a trade-off. As one simple example, large animals require more food but are safer from predators. In an environment with lots of food and large predators to deal with, average animal size can continue to increase until they run afoul of the laws of physics and the biomechanical limits of bones and muscle (as animals get bigger, mass increases by a cubic function while structural surface area goes up by a square).

This size optimizing feature can also observed in a well known biological phenomenon known as island dwarfism. It happens when rising waters cut off an isthmus of land and create an island. Breeding populations of animals on the new island are now cut off from the mainland. Besides having their food supply diminished, they may also be subject to much less natural predation. As a result after many generations the average size of the healthy individuals tends to decrease not through malnutrition, but because smaller animals use less resources and a larger energy burning size is no longer needed for protection.

Island Dwarfism

ImaAtheistNow

I've noticed that kind of a reply is quite frequent, here and elsewhere, and I agree that such responses are "infrequently helpful".

nanaimo

Do you really expect even a long post to summarize biology for someone? A book in this case is needed.

As for the universe "starting from nothing" I think a lot of folks have trouble with the realization that there is no "nothing". Air is filled with various gases, gases are made up of molecules, molecules are made up of even smaller parts and so on.

glooper23

Thanks for the responses. I know next to nothing about biology because it's my least favorite subject. Regardless, it isn't a requirement for me to understand the answer to my question.

Occam's Aftershave's response helped immensely. What I am confused about is how life could become so complex without a creator. I support evolution, but this basic concept is what I can not grasp.

Theophage,

Surely it's not impossible. Extremely unlikely, but I'd be a fool is I 100% denied it.

By de-evolve, I meant I want to know how it'd be possible for complex systems like a heart or a gene to evolve from basic molecules.

What term do evolution supporting people take on? There's creationists, and I assume there are evolutionists? I googled it and found it everywhere, so I assumed it was usable on this forum.

Thanks again.

Occam's Aftershave

It's very counterintuitive, but it's also a proven fact that feedback systems which involve imperfect self replicators can and do increase in complexity all by themselves, with no external input required.

There are quite a few good book and papers on the topic, but they tend to be somewhat technical. Do a Google Scholar search on "evolution of complexity" or "self-organizing systems" to see some of the work done.

Wiki actually has some reasonable write ups on the phenomenon. Keep in mind this is not just theoretical but has been demonstrated time and time again in things like realistic artificial life scenarios.

Read a bit, then come back with questions. :wave: