Evolution Vs. Intelligent Design, Can They Be Reconciled Instead? Options

[Omega892R09]

...the misunderstood processes of evolution.

That, in a nutshell is one of the biggest issues in the evolution/ID-Creationist dichotomy.

Many think of evolution as a random process in the macro sense when it is anything but as a look at the mechanisms and processes of natural selection makes clear.

Jerry Coyne in Why Evolution Is True expands on this in the chapter 'The Engine of Evolution' where he reminds us that Richard Dawkins has described natural selection as, 'the non-random survival of random variants', this from 'Climbing Mount Improbable' which happens to be one of my favourite Dawkins.

And this is about as short as I can tell the story without filling volumes,

Just so. Such volumes are already written, and continue to be updated, which is why I keep mentioning Dawkins as he has a lucid style of explaning the most complex processes. I think I am on my sixth copy of The Selfish Gene', children and their friends having borowed earlier copies which have failed to come back - but I don't mind as Dawkins has added more to later editions.

"Evolution" is just a backwards looking recording of what has happened. To see the truth of it all, one has to be aware of the possibilities as to what didn't happen and the why's and wherefore's of that.

Sorry to yet again bring in Dawkins but he explained how there are many more ways of being dead, i.e. never having existed, than there are of being a viable organism in his 'The Blind Watchmaker'.

EDIT.
In this book he introduced Biomorphs:

Now I have not evaluated any software found by seraching on Biomorphs at this time so visitors beware.

1- Richard Dawkins and Biomorphs invention

This post has been edited by Omega892R09: Apr 12 2010, 12:05 PM

[lunk]

There is a huge diversity of life forms, that we know of, on Earth.
The maximum size of land creatures has decreased.
The earliest critters were insects, some of them so huge, that they could not exist today, even if we could "remake" them, today.

Over time and through evolution, their prodigy became smaller.
Dragonfly's, no longer have 1 meter wing spans, nor could one that size, exist today.
Same with the much later evolved dinosaurs, and reptiles.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/...t/Extremes.html

They are mostly way too big, to exist under today's gravity.

The Blue Whale would collapse, under its own weight, on the beach.

This means, to me, that the gravity on the surface of the Earth is getting stronger, and lifeforms on the land, must evolve smaller, over time.

So, perhaps, intelligent design would be better replaced with the words evolutionary necessity.
However, in animal husbandry, and breeding programs, features of certain creatures can be enhanced, and of course, with today's technology, we can skip the whole long term breeding programs and "build" the DNA, to make any creature with any features we want.

Genetically modified organisms, are intelligent design.
Breeding out a poodle from a wolf, is intelligent design.

But both, can fail, because these organisms may not be able to stand the test of time.

So evolution, is not an intelligent design,
but an evolutionary necessity, responding to changes on, and of, the Earth.

Funny, evolution is tried and true,
while intelligent design is haphazard.

[Omega892R09]

There is a huge diversity of life forms, that we know of, on Earth.
The maximum size of land creatures has decreased.

This has more to do with available habitat and plentiful food sources rather than to do with your pet hypothesis of an expanding earth.

After all carp, as in goldfish, can develop enormously in size if moved from an indoor tank to a pond. This is well known.

To be sure gravity does have a limiting factor on size of organisms but blue whales are living proof that the earth is still capable of supporting organisms larger than any previously known.

Besides, an expanding earth does not necessarily mean it becomes more massive.

[lunk]

This has more to do with available habitat and plentiful food sources rather than to do with your pet hypothesis of an expanding earth.

After all carp, as in goldfish, can develop enormously in size if moved from an indoor tank to a pond. This is well known.

To be sure gravity does have a limiting factor on size of organisms but blue whales are living proof that the earth is still capable of supporting organisms larger than any previously known.

Besides, an expanding earth does not necessarily mean it becomes more massive.

"Did you know, the whale is not a fish?
...It's an insect that lives on bananas."
Monty Python.

Omega, i was talking about land animals, reptiles, dinosaurs and bugs, as they have generally gotten smaller, through evolution, globally, over time.

The whale is supported by the water,
it is not in the category of critters that live on the land.
Though it is curious, that some water creatures have gotten bigger,
than their ancestors from the distant past.
Perhaps the shallow seas, weren't deep enough,
back then.

This post has been edited by lunk: Apr 13 2010, 03:45 AM

[Obwon]

"Did you know, the whale is not a fish?
...It's an insect that lives on bananas."
Monty Python.

Omega, i was talking about land animals, reptiles, dinosaurs and bugs, as they have generally gotten smaller, through evolution, globally, over time.

The whale is supported by the water,
it is not in the category of critters that live on the land.
Though it is curious, that some water creatures have gotten bigger,
than their ancestors from the distant past.
Perhaps the shallow seas, weren't deep enough,
back then.

Funny thing is, there is some truth to what you say, but another
"funny" thing is, I have yet to see anyone try to account for it.
Sure the earth is "growing" by accretion. >About a trillion tons of space
dust falls to earth every day.< (correct that way-off memory from so dim past reading to: 30 to 40k per year) I don't know exactly how much of an effect
has had (quantitatively) on gravity over the last 4.5 billion years, but
I'd have to imagine that, what we call 1g today, isn't what it was
4.5 billion years ago.

We do know that atmospheric pressure is about 14 lbs/sq.in at sea level
today. We don't know what it was 1 billion years ago, when life was
getting started. But we do know that reaction times for many chemical
reactions, slow as pressure increases. Not to mention the variations of
survival mechanism that would be gravitationally sensitive.

To try to apprehend what has happened (I'm no physicist), but I do intend
to google up some facts about mass and gravity as well as the earths accretion
rates to see what kind of ball park figures I might arrive at. Unfortunately
I can't do that right now because things (demands on my time) get in the way.

In any event, it's easier to feed, support and defend an organism that's smaller
than it is to do for a larger animal. But my guess is that as land plants got
started when there were very few land animals around, the first to come
ashore found plenty of lush vegetation to feed upon. With food being no
object, they'd be expected to grow to enormous sizes, since size has
many beneficial effects with regards to metabolism, I've read, bigger is
generally the way to go when food is plentiful. Unfortunately this leaves
the species prey when smaller life forms turn predatory and/or destructively
parasitic.

My point is that what was also possible, but did not happen, is as (if not more)
informative as what did. Of course, it takes more effort to see the non-existant
possibilities at any given point along the life time line.

But, that is worth the effort because it makes it very clear indeed, that
what's being called "intelligent design", is merely another attempt to imbue
the record with an imposed view. Something akin to cartoonist giving animals
human like traits.

Oh wait... It's UPS at the door with my new ACME jet skates! lol! (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/laughing1.gif)
(IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/cleanup.gif)
Found this interesting page on space dust:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.html
Seems it's way too inconsequential to matter, even over 4.5 billion years.
That hasn't stopped creationists from trying to use it though.

Obwon

This post has been edited by Obwon: Apr 13 2010, 07:58 AM

[GroundPounder]

don't know how much space dust, cosmic rays (heavy nuclei) and meteorites get incorporated into the earths mass, but hydrogen and helium float off into space from the earth.

so, who's got a big scale to weigh the earth?

[lunk]

The thing that forces evolutionary change in the development in a species is a change in the environment. This could cause an extinction, if it is a sudden change, or the development of fins on the whale if it is gradual.

Changes in many species, world wide, shows a change in the entire Earth.

BTW. Accretion would have left all the planets on different plains of orbits, each being bombarded with cosmic debris
yet all eight planets are all on the same planetary plain around the sun.

Plus, mountains are not covered with millions of years of accreted cosmic dust from space.

Yes, there is accretion, going on, but it is not enough to account for the gradual change, over time, of the maximum sizes of species on the Earth.

(IMG:http://www.enchantedlearning.com/sgifs/Sizecomparisons.GIF)

hmm, i wonder, do goldfish grow bigger,
when they are placed in a larger tank?

[Obwon]

The thing that forces evolutionary change in the development in a species is a change in the environment. This could cause an extinction, if it is a sudden change, or the development of fins on the whale if it is gradual.

Changes in many species, world wide, shows a change in the entire Earth.

BTW. Accretion would have left all the planets on different plains of orbits, each being bombarded with cosmic debris
yet all eight planets are all on the same planetary plain around the sun.

Plus, mountains are not covered with millions of years of accreted cosmic dust from space.

Yes, there is accretion, going on, but it is not enough to account for the gradual change, over time, of the maximum sizes of species on the Earth.

(IMG:http://www.enchantedlearning.com/sgifs/Sizecomparisons.GIF)

hmm, i wonder, do goldfish grow bigger,
when they are placed in a larger tank?

Yes, I corrected that, "dust fall" is negligible as a factor.

On the other hand, environment doesn't drive evolution, it shapes it.
DNA will change regardless of any and all environmental factors. Many of the
changes to DNA will not do anything at all. Of these, those changes that do
alter something, most will be unsurvivable. But, of those there will be a few
that will be survivable, and of those even fewer will actually do something that
might enhance survival. Then, after all that's done with, it's the environments
turn to apply the stresses that test the performance of the new function.

As one might imagine in this "hodge-podge", even a new and very valuable
new advantage, could simply be lost forever, due merely to an unfortunate
circumstance, that did not permit it to survive. Thus the idea of (it's not a theory)
"intelligent design" fails. For any "intelligent designer" would have had to protect
his design from disappearance due to unfortunate circumstance. No where in the
historical records do we find any such "unseen hand" intervening.

[lunk]

DNA will change regardless of any and all environmental factors.

The shark hasn't changed for billion(s?) of years, and i think, the same is true for the crocodile,
why would evolution stop, for just them?

[Obwon]

The shark hasn't changed for billion(s?) of years, and i think, the same is true for the crocodile,
why would evolution stop, for just them?

Quite obviously we need to know more about the exceptions. There are species that don't appear to change over millions of years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their dna hasn't changed.
There are several possibilities, one of which might be that, shark dna, for some reason, has a low tolerance for incorporating changes. Such that just about any dna changes simply will not produce a
survivable offspring. Offhand, we can be sure that their dna does change at the normal rate of all species, because they receive the same amount of background radiation/chemical exposure that causes these changes to occur in all dna. However, there are "repair" strategies, which these unchanging species may have nearly perfected. Or their dna may be sructured to be simply highly intolerant of faults.

[Sanders]

The shark hasn't changed for billion(s?) of years, and i think, the same is true for the crocodile,
why would evolution stop, for just them?

When a model becomes stable in its environment, outside forces (DNA corruption) become moot. When a species is not sufficiently adapted to its environment, outside forces either provide alternate plans to deal with new suroundings, or the species goes extinct. More often than not, the species goes extinct - but in a minority of cases, the species adapts and a new species emerges.

Seems pretty simple to me, and you don't even have to embrace Darwin to grasp it.

[lunk]

When a model becomes stable in its environment, outside forces (DNA corruption) become moot. When a species is not sufficiently adapted to its environment, outside forces either provide alternate plans to deal with new surroundings, or the species goes extinct. More often than not, the species goes extinct - but in a minority of cases, the species adapts and a new species emerges.

Seems pretty simple to me, and you don't even have to embrace Darwin to grasp it.

Whats the definition for the domestication of wild creatures?

Dog, from wolf;
pig from bore,
cat from wild-cat,
rabbit from wild rabbit,
cow from wild cattle,
Indian elephant from wild Indian elephant.
How does this differ from evolution?

This, i think, is the only, intelligent design.
or perhaps intelligent re-designing.

...but most domesticated species, cannot exist for long, in the wild.

Evolutionarily speaking, they would probably soon be, an extinct error.

[Obwon]

Whats the definition for the domestication of wild creatures?

Dog, from wolf;
pig from bore,
cat from wild-cat,
rabbit from wild rabbit,
cow from wild cattle,
Indian elephant from wild Indian elephant.
How does this differ from evolution?

This, i think, is the only, intelligent design.
or perhaps intelligent re-designing.

...but most domesticated species, cannot exist for long, in the wild.

Evolutionarily speaking, they would probably soon be, an extinct error.

But we're not designing anything merely by domesticating animals.
All we're really doing is providing an environment with special needs/conditions for
the animal to adapt to over time.

Designing would be, to go in and take out, say, a hunter predator gene and
replace it with a more domestically desirable trait.

Obwon

[tnemelckram]

Hi Omega and All!

I just took your advice (in part) and watched Dawkins' documentary Why Are We Here?

He said a lot of the things I said above about human brain exceptionalism. Foresight, contemplating own existence, purpose, transcending basic evolutionary drives to reproduce and propagate the species, technology overriding nature etc.

I've been saying that the human brain seems to be an evolutionary exception. He does too, but has a different approach. He looks back and says that our brains have developed so that we gradually been able to make ourselves an exception to evolution - for example, instead of being driven to reproduce at all costs by taking every opportunity to do that, we deliberately use contraception to impede reproduction so we can have purely hedonistic sex.

He is right with this analysis of exceptionalism looking back, but I think a further question about evolutionary exception arises if you look at human brain development from the start and then going forward. He explained that the triggers for our brain development fit the normal pattern and gradual pace evolution to provide us with a competitive survival advantage, which is the conventional way of looking at it. I still suspect one or a few events where some force outside of evolution was a trigger that suddenly accelerated the normal evolutionary process of our brain development, which is a different exception. Oh well . . . .

I also watched his The Enemies Of Reason, which was really delightful. I wonder what those shamans think when they look out at the sea of adoring faces and see this one man with b u l l s h i t! written on his face in the audience? Dawkins takes them apart and is polite enough to do it in one on one interviews instead of in front of the crowd. The only quibble I had was when he proposed to one that it was bad to keep feeding people's obsessions instead of leaving them alone so they could let go. First, I thought this moral question exceeded his writ, which was to just demolish their fallacy using science. Second, it seems that if the goal is to comfort people, that can be done by either "letting go" or by revisiting it - whatever works. I'm not sure that psychologists agree that one approach is better than the other, although I'm a "letting go" man myself.

This post has been edited by tnemelckram: Apr 16 2010, 06:38 PM

[lunk]

It's sort of about structure.

Is the mountain designed like a castle?
No, but a castle can be designed like a mountain.
Yet, it is the rock from the mountain that the castle is made from.
But when it comes to the test of time,
it is the mountain that usually endures the longest.

It was the castle that was an intelligent design,
not necessarily, the mountain.

DNA, the building block of life.

[Tamborine man]

Lunk

You're an Artist. You're a Poet.

It will take generations for people with exclusively scientific minds to understand you.

The mountain is of course based upon intelligent design. So is the valley.

But so also is music of the spheres - in all its glory.

Think of the first vibration. The first oscillation. The first wavelength. The first pulsation.

The first resonance. The first trembling. The first goose pimples.

All of it much more intelligent than what meets the eye.

All "Design" belong to the Arts.

Science will never understand its nature. Until the day arrives when we will explain it to them.

But that will first happen when they are ready.

Not before.

This post has been edited by Tamborine man: Apr 17 2010, 09:51 AM

[GroundPounder]

and then there is always:

http://halfpasthuman.com/woowoodo.html

[Omega892R09]

Omega, i was talking about land animals, reptiles, dinosaurs and bugs, as they have generally gotten smaller, through evolution, globally, over time.

Evidence does not support that.

Land animals became larger when the landmasses were more grouped together and thus had a wider space to roam and forage for food. Also there were fewer large predators to cull the large herds of browsers. It has been shown that the rate of predition can be a limiting factor on the size of an organism.

And note that mammals of the Mesozoic period tended to be small but then developed into giants such as modern day elephants of which some can be larger than the Brontotherium of the Paleogene but smaller than the Indricotherium. African and Indian elephants can be larger than the Imperial Mammoth or the woolly mammoth of the Quaternary.

When bugs, e.g. arthropods such as dragon flies and centipedes were larger during the Late Carboniferous (you may know it as the Pennsylvanian), up to 2ft 4 in (70cm) wing span of dragon flies, then oxygen content of the atmosphere was much higher at about 35 percent. Structural strength aside, respiration in arthropods is another limiting factor on size as breathing takes place through the surface and volume is in proportion to cube of the length thus if oxygen ratio is higher the upper size limit is moved.

The whale is supported by the water,

Yes but a Liopleurodon, a large continental shelf predator of the Jurassic was smaller than the Blue Whale. Gravity still has an effect even if the organism is oceanic.

Though it is curious, that some water creatures have gotten bigger,
than their ancestors from the distant past.
Perhaps the shallow seas, weren't deep enough,
back then.

Higher abundance of food perhaps. Note that the large whales are plankton feeders which are more abundent in nutrient rich water where there is mixing from below.

For an expanding earth to be the explanation then the earth would have had to go through periods of both expansion and contraction. Besides the geological record is against such a hypothesis supported by detailed knowledge of the contours of ocean floors.

[Tamborine man]

and then there is always:

http://halfpasthuman.com/woowoodo.html

".......
Something else you can count on; universe is geared in cycles. These cycles should be thought of not as circles, but rather the peaks and valleys of waves. Just when things get to their most extreme state in the wave, either top or bottom, is also when things change and start moving the other way. Learn to notice this, and then harmonize with it.

Harmonization with universe means that universe directs, we agree, and amplify. In so doing a link between the goals of universe and our puny ass little selves is formed such that in order to defeat us, an enemy would have to defeat universe itself. Count on this too….that ain’t gonna happen.
......."


O' thanks for that One, Groundpounder!

Couldn't be said any better.

Cheers

[Tamborine man]

Evidence does not support that.

Lunk is correct.

Many animal species has become and will become extinct as time passes.

All animals of all kinds and all types that has survived and will continue to survive in the future,
all evolve Toward their blueprint.

Which means that these animal species eventually will become more and more in harmony with
the prevailing conditions existing as times go by.

All homo sapiens, on the contrary, evolve Away from their blueprint.

Which means, that as mankind continues to evolve and advance, the less and less
'animalistic' mankind becomes.

Cheers

This post has been edited by Tamborine man: Apr 18 2010, 10:00 PM