tribalbeeyatch

That's an excellent analogy, lpetrich. Many thanks for your sharing it.

Secular Pinoy

I have no problem believing in evolution. Why is it that some people fear the word believe? Is it because it connotes faith? Knowledge is sometimes defined as "properly justified true belief" in Philosophy. Even though the definition has several problems, I accept this as a working definition open to revision and change. If evolution is a form of knowledge, then it is a belief that is justified and true. I accept belief in evolution.

Doubting Didymus

It depends on what you mean by semantics.
- possibly a Boro Nut original

Harumi

This thread was created so that I can learn more about evolution (I will bluntly admit that my knowledge of it is very lacking. Other than a short course of it in middle school and in my freshman year of highschool, everything else came from watching the Discovery Channel, and as great a show as it is, it isn't really into details). And now that I have learned some things, I would like to ask some more questions.


Could you please go into this more? I don't know what this means, and it sounds interesting. And once you translate the Latin (I'm assuming it's Latin, but if it isn't, than I stand corrected), it would be nice if you could explain what that hint meant.


I'm not sure what this means. Please explain.


Could you go into this more as well? I've heard about it, but been talked down so many times that I would like more info on it so that I can hold my own against an argument the next time.



I'm simply referring to Darwin's original book The Origin of Species. Sorry about the confusion.



I'm sorry that my ignorant question offends you. If you haven't noticed, that's why I wrote "I've heard things..." Usually this indicates that the person is unsure, and needs clarification. Instead of insults, it might be better to offer books or websites that describe more of this. I enjoy reading. And since it's summer, and I'm incredibly bored, I might as well do something worthwhile besides sleeping. Although, if the books are expensive, it might have to wait. I'm only a poor, broke student who's just about to start college this fall. So all assumptions that I'm perhaps male, adult, or well-learned, and other such things, will have to go.

I'm only trying to learn and help my brother with his paper, dammit!

lpetrich

Harumi:
This thread was created so that I can learn more about evolution (I will bluntly admit that my knowledge of it is very lacking. ...

I'm not sure what would be a good starting point. One good place is the U of C Museum of Paleontology. It has a fairly good overview of the Tree of Life, as it is sometimes called.

Very good on evolution vs. creationism is http://www.talkorigins.org

RufusAtticus:
natura non facit saltus

Could you please go into this more?

It's Latin for "Nature does not make jumps"

That is, evolution does not proceed by giant jumps, but by relatively small changes. This has been a rather controversial subject, for these reasons:

* Cumulative small changes often seem inadequate for accounting for some features of evolution

* Jumps have two difficulties: (1) big-enough ones have the rabbit-out-of-a-hat quality of being able to explain anything, and therefore nothing, and (2) observed jumps are birth defects and the like, which are usually troublesome.

However, in recent decades, molecular-genetics techniques have advanced enough to move the question of "allowable" jumps into the realm of testable hypotheses. Certainly, small changes are known -- point mutations -- but also bigger changes -- insertions, deletions, gene duplications, gene transfers, even whole genome duplications. So I am confident that this whole evolution-by-jumps conundrum will eventually be resolved.

(The Escherichia coli flagellum)

Current investigations indicate that it is a decendent of a secretory pathway.
I'm not sure what this means. Please explain.

Essentially, it was once a tube used for injecting stuff into other cells. So all that's necessary to make it a flagellum is (1) make that tube stiff and (2) make it rotate. Which are already somewhat useful for its original function.

[i]How did single celled organisms become multicellular organisms?
Division without separation.
Could you go into this more as well? ...

Essentially, it's cells not separating from each other when they divide. Which results in a big mass of cells sticking together. Bacteria often do that, and often form strands or even "biofilms" on various objects.

The next step beyond a colony is differentiation; different cells may specialize in different functions.

... Although, if the books are expensive, it might have to wait. ...

The Internet is a wonderfully-cheap substitute, and we can point you to good places to look. Also, if you know of an easily-accessible public library, you can use that also.

As to chaos theory, that's an overused and misunderstood concept. There is a well-defined meaning to dynamical chaos, as it's called.

Imagine that you are studying the motion of some object. At each time, it will have a position and a velocity, some state variables. If you start it off at a slightly different position and velocity, it will have a slightly different trajectory. In most cases, these will slowly diverge over time, and how they diverge over time is the key.

And dynamical chaos happens when this divergence is exponential over long enough times.

This explains why it is so difficult to make long-range weather predictions -- the Earth's atmosphere had dynamical chaos in it, which make precise predictions difficult beyond a few days. However, dynamical chaos does not preclude having well-defined overall statistics, as the Earth's atmosphere does.

Dynamical chaos is present in turbulent flows in general; one simple place to find it is if you are boiling some water. It will be difficult to predict exactly when each bubble will appear or how big it will be, but those bubbles have well-defined distributions of sizes and starting locations.

Albion

Well, if someone does recommend a good-sounding book, yuo can always see if it' s available ot eBay or half.com or amazon marketplace sellers. I've found some good books at low prices there (although they're sometimes not the latest edition).

Secular Pinoy

If you want big discounts, then look for second hand books. Albion has already noted several places you can try. Here's another tip:

I don't know why, but Niles Eldredge's informative tome, The Pattern of Evolution, costs only $ 3.98 at Barnes & Noble. The site says it has a list price of $ 14.95, which translates to 73% off. A good buy!

Edited to add:
As for internet resources, the NAS' Science and Creationism booklet and webpage is a good starting off point. Then go to Talk Origins and read their must-read FAQs.

Harumi

Thank you everyone! You have certainly given me several places to start.

I would have taken a class on natural selection this first semester, but it didn't fit into my schedule. I guess I'll have to do some private reading on my own time then. Although I will be majoring in biology, it is geared toward human anatomy more than evolution, so I'll need all the extra resources I can get.

Again, thank you.

MrDarwin

Coming in late (as usual) but in a nutshell, the fact that evolutionary theory can't explain everything right now does not mean that the things it hasn't explained yet are automatically explained by "intelligent design".

Ironically, when we start suggesting ways that the as-yet unexplained could have come about, the IDists accuse us of making up "just-so stories". Never mind that ID is a bigger and even more opaque "black box" than Darwin's, as it has yet to identify (even tentatively) the who, what, where, when, why, and how of "intelligent design".

Harumi

As it is, even if it was "intelligent design", I say that it's far more likely that aliens designed us, than say...a god.