unworthyone

Yes I never heard of them. But what are you trying to tell me?

Automaton

It's very hard because without a time machine, we are unable to see what the first self-replicator was. But considering the primordial earth had literal oceans of building block chemicals to work with and replicators are rather simple, how probable does it seem to you?

unworthyone

improbable as God.

Automaton

I guess I did make it sound too subjective.

Viti

I was pointing out that there exist organisms living in conditions thought unable to support life a few short years ago. They live in extreme temps off of toxic chemicals. They do not fit into other catergories of life (they are not really animals or plants). Their existence made me, a layperson, start thinking that abiogenesis was not that far fetched. I thought you might want to learn about them.

Vorkosigan

Well, first you need to have a definition of "life." Then you need to pick the point at which a system can be described as "living." Then you need to be able to describe in minute detail all of the biochemical and biophysical steps involved, as well as ascribe probabilities to them. Of course, if you can do that, why are you wasting your time posting to a newsgroup, when you could be in Stockholm collecting your Nobel?

Remember that complex cells did not arise from the original chemical soup all at once, but in steps spread out over many millions of years. What is probability that of trillions upon trillions of self-replicating molecules, replicating trillions of times of billions of years, will accrue enough changes that we will come to think of them as "alive." The probability is "1" of course, since there is life on earth.

Michael

copernicus

copernicus:
You still made no suggestion. You asked a question. My answer was that you can't possibly know what was probable without understanding all of the selectional outcomes that led to a particular evolutionary factors over time.

How was he able to do it with the plants?

As far as I can tell, he didn't. Just providing a number does not explain how you got it.


And the other mumbo-jumbo, I have no idea what you are talking about, personal incredulity etc...

Never heard of it.

Yes you did, if you read my post. The Argument from Personal Incredulity is the claim that something is impossible because the arguer cannot conceive of a natural explanation for it. Usually, it is then claimed that "God" is the only conceivable explanation. The fact is that there are many natural phenomena that we cannot explain. Being unable to provide you with a numerical probability for something does not mean that the something is impossible. As Dawkins has pointed out, improbabilities become probabilities over geologic time. In our narrow lifespans, we have difficulty in conceiving the time it takes for natural selection to work its "miracles".

<strong>
Maybe I should change the probability question to something more easily figured like....

The chances of life to evolve from non-living? (protein stuff, you know?)
</strong>

Fine. You are still just giving us a variant of Paley's argument. If you truly want an answer to your question, you have a pair of marvelously constructed eyes with which to read The Blind Watchmaker or the two short web pages I cited. In your case, however, I fear that the blindness is not physical. Good luck with your questions. Don't be too surprised if you never see or hear the answer you want. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Lizard

unworthyone wrote:

I think the objective is to acquaint you with the evidence for evolution. If you decide to accept the evidence, fine. If you don't, which I think highly probable, fine.

At least your questions have produced some much-appreciated explanations of the mechanisms of evolution, so those of us who aren't scientists can learn.

Thanks, all, for your great posts. I

BLoggins02

No one's trying to force you to believe something, we're just trying to answer your questions.

Also, it's completely understandable that you don't know about a lot of this stuff. When I got here people were throwing around words like "progeny", "genotype", "allele", etc... and I had to keep an online dictionary page up because any of those terms that I had learned in junior high biology I had long forgotten. If you don't understand a word, just look it up. If you need further clarification, ask.

But my question is, is learning about evolution why you're really here? This is not a rhetorical question, I'm asking you this honestly. Let me put it to you this way: you don't understand the basic concepts of evolution (which is fine and not your fault, due to our *stellar* education system not many people do ), yet you are probably willing to explain without hesitation why you think evolution is wrong. Do any of these explanations have to do with science or are they of the more emotional or religious variety?

Think about it: the only reason people disbelieve in evolution without educating themselves about it first is because it threatens their religion as well as their sense of place in the universe. No one ever says "I don't believe in the theory of Einsteinian Relativity." "Well do you know anything about it?" "Nope, not really, I just don't believe in it." Why not? Because relativity doesn't hurt the human ego. Just as it wasn't the Earth's fault that it wasn't at the center of the universe when almost everyone thought it was, it's not evolution's fault that it disproves a literal interpretation of a certain bablylonian-originated creation myth. It's also not evolution's fault that it completely does away with any literal explanation for original sin.

It is man's fault for being so egotistical in the first place.

Why am I talking about this instead of natural selection? First of all, because a number of people have answered your original post (OP) completely. They showed that you were right in that Natural Selection alone does not introduce new genetic information, but that natural selection + random mutation does this very exact thing.

Secondly, it has been demonstrated that your original quote is not found in the source you cited. Obviously you either copied it down wrong (honest mistake) or you lifted it from some source whose intent was to distort the meaning towards its viewpoint and then failed to cite where you got the source from originally (not so honest mistake). Although, to your credit, you probably didn't know these quote-citing rules, and that's fine.

But, this isn't about "what is evolution", this is about "evolution vs. creationism". It's about religion. That's why I brought up my point about creation myths and original sin. If the reason you don't like evolution is not because you are familiar with the theory but find it dubious, but instead because it conflicts with your particular choice of one religion out of over 1500 in the world today, then why are we even having this conversation? You've already made up your mind.

unworthyone

Why don't they know it, but can give me the plant one?