695 replies to this topic

[Arbitran]

Harsh86_Patel, on 12 September 2012 - 08:24 AM, said:

Explainig the gradual evolution of the eye is one of the biggest debacle experienced by most 'evolutionists' and hence they had to come up with the concept of spontaneous evolution.

Except that it isn't. And "spontaneous evolution" is a very controversial hypothesis, which is not widely accepted. The related ideas of punctuated equilibrium and saltation are likewise controversial. The evolution of the eye is no mystery at all; it's quite well understood. And even if it weren't, it certainly isn't the root of the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis or its related hypotheses. The idea of spontaneous evolution has been around even longer than Darwin's theory of natural selection (Lamarck was a notorious proponent of the notion, in that his own hypothesis suggested that each and every generation is sufficiently evolved to suite its environment that any particular situation which any given organism might encounter might be solved in its offspring; this, of course, is not how evolution works).

[Arbitran]

Harsh86_Patel, on 12 September 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

Still could be something that you could consider as physical devolution.Since i was asked for a proof which one could relate to hence i brought it up.When i talk of longevity i am not talking about death brought about by external factors directly.You are assuming that hygeine and medicine are modern concepts.

I am not assuming that hygiene and medicine are modern concepts; I do happen to know that our hygiene and medicine today are exponentially more sophisticated than those of yesteryear. As I said, our ancestors, up until around perhaps five-hundred years ago, were relegated to life-spans of only about thirty to forty years. Why? Well, dying of old age seldom occurred (though when it did, it was usually in the late sixties, seventies, or perhaps early eighties, at most), and hygiene and medicine were of such poor quality (among a number of other things; such as food quality and preservation) that life was far shorter. In any case, our longevity is undeniably increasing, not the other way around.

[Harsh86_Patel]

Arbitran, on 12 September 2012 - 02:58 AM, said:

The "camera" eye, which is present in all mammals, reptiles, and birds, is the product of a long chain of intermediate forms. For instance, the beginning of the chain was most probably something along the lines of a simple compound of photosensitive cells; the next stage would have involved the patch of cells enlarging, and forming a concave indentation, which would allow for better perception of the angle of light and colour; the next stages would involve the deepening and advancement of this concave hollow of cells; at some point, a mucus or otherwise semi-fluid substance would have eventually filled this concave area, allowing for greater clarity still. It's all a very long and complex process, and it's a bit difficult to describe in lay terms. The following video gives a visual example, so it might be easier to understand:

Again i restate why would the photosensitive cells aggregate.Even if i give you that due to some random mutation(that didn't make the organism sterile or cancerous) do you realise how much of a time period and favourable random mutations along with natural selection it would take for that cell aggregate to enlarge and take a concave shape.Even if i give you that the cell aggregate did give rise to a concave indentation due to some random mutation(that didn't make the organism sterile or cancerous) that was favoured by natural selection again still do you realise that you are still not reaching a stage where this visual information due to photosensitivity is coherent or even interpreted by the organism for it to be favourably to it(the organism) in it's survival as there is no optic nerve.Even if i give you the credence that due to some random mutations over large periods of time and favoured by natural selection due to some oblivous reason the aggregate of photosensitive cells that have given rise to a concave indentation and have suddenly also given rise to a prototype mechanism(like an optic nerve) to interpret the light based signals in some mundane sense do you realise how much time and random mutations it would take(without making the organism sterile or cancerous) and how many generations of this organism would have to exist for these signals to be interpreted by it's brain in the form of any sort of Vision.

In the above paragraph i have only talked about the evolution of a mundane proto eye and it still seems nothing less then a miracle.Inorder to give a faint estimate of the probability of evolution of the eye gradually is less then the probability of the same person being struck by lightening 10000 times or probably even less depending on environmental factors persistent at those times when it was evolving.Once this protoeye along with it's optic nerve and gene group to code for it has been created then further evolution of the same can seem more explainable.Frankly speaking, beleiving in intelligent design seems more plausible then believing in this miraculous set of random events taking place in progression to give rise to the modern eye.

P.S. your description and the video is more suitable for the describing the development of the eye in an embryo when there are already genes to govern it's development but trying to extrapolate it for the gradual evolution of such a complex organ without having the complete set of genes to code for it's development is in my book next to impossible.Like i said i might as well believe that God/Aliens created us rather then in it's gradual evolution theory.

[The_Spartan]

Harsh86_Patel, on 11 September 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

Decrease in the longevity of humans,decrease in physical strength, can be taken as few examples of devolution also descent from a spiritual to a materialistic existence can probably also be termed as devolution (as suggested by cremo).

"As suggested by Cremo."
Who is this Cremo?
Does he have academic credentials to propose such conclusions?
What is his scientific background and training?
Is his papers or books or writings peer reviewed any where?

Cremo has an interesting tactic for making his works look  academic -  Present his papers and speeches at congresses or conventions held at reputable academic institutions and thereby getting mentioned or printed in their newsletters/journals and magazines. \

There are scientific reasons for all his claims.

Let him prove with a peer reviewed and accepted evidence of Devolution.
then we can say he is a respectful academic and not a fringe author.

[The_Spartan]

Deleted - multiple quote

Edited by The_Spartan, 12 September 2012 - 09:26 AM.

[Harsh86_Patel]

kmt_sesh, on 12 September 2012 - 02:46 AM, said:

It's already been pointed out by several other posters why no one ought to take Cremo seriously. Real-world, legitimate historical and scientific research will point you in the proper direction. For instance: decrease in longevity? No. The average person in the Bronze Age lived to be around 35 years old. And this is if you were lucky enough to survive childhood. At least 30% of all children did not reach five years of age, and infant mortality was frightening (probably around 20% of all pregnancies ended in spontaneous miscarriage). This is why, all over the Mediterranean world, girls were often married off as soon as they experienced their first menstruation—this means girls as young as twelve were often married, and having babies within a year's time. They would continue to have babies their entire lives because they well knew many of their children would not live. Decrease in physical strength? How exactly is such a thing measured? How can one prove this? It's too subjective to be taken seriously, but consider that the average man 3,000 years ago rarely grew taller than about 5'3"; for women an average height was around 4'10". These ancients were not big, intimidating people. What they accomplished was certainly impressive, but one has to balance such things with real-world evidence. Descent from spiritualism to materialism? Here I cannot argue with you. However, it has little to no effect on the development or evolution of mankind. There's both good and bad in religion, as there is in all things. Religion has often been used as a blunt weapon to keep people in their places. I should think we all prefer the way things are today to the days when the Catholic Church ruled all of Europe and stymied intellectual and scientific pursuits for centuries. I'm actually not trying to demean Catholicism (I was raised Roman Catholic and do not consider myself an atheist). I am only stating a fact.

Nice points sesh but very easily counterable neverthless you gave a lot of new material for Devolution in your arguments.Like women having lesser number of progeny nowdays as compared to before.And you have led me to think that evolution cannot be understood only in terms of the material world but it is also guided by conscious choice voiced by sentient beings or organisms in response to their environments or out of their own free will.Uptill now most evolutionist think of evolution as a defunct process based on interaction of organism with their physical environments and the infamous random mutations for improvement,while you can apply this to lower organism to some extent but once the organism becomes sufficiently complex to be sentient then probably the concious choices it makes would have definately played a big role in it's evolution along with environmental factors.Now unless we account for the impact of free will for the evolution of sentient organisms the concept remains highly incomplete.For eg- what if the first monkey to turn into a man decided to commit suicide or jumped of a cliff? probably then we would have had to wait for millions of more years to have such a random progressive mutation again for humans to evolve.

Also spirituality is independant of relegions of a book.

[Harsh86_Patel]

When i talk of Cremo's book 'forbidden archeology' or his ideas of human devolution it doesn't mean i have to love and worship the man.You can discredit him in whatever sense you want but the facts and inconsistencies he brings to light in the above mentioned book is very sensible and with referrences and is not something i can dismiss wether people with credentials do dismiss him or not.Can anyone discredit or prove false any information he has given in 'forbidden archeology' as for me all i know and care about what he has to say is pretty much in that book that he has written.I don't care if he is a murdering pyscopath and a child molester but what he has compiled in that book makes a lot of sense.

So again i would like to restate that subtracting any other beliefs he holds or personality traits he harbors can anyone tell me what wrong information has he provided in his book 'Forbidden archeology'.

Rather i should put it this way--"can anyone please enlighten me by showing me that the book 'forbidden archeology' and the concept of 'spiritual descent of man' are crap and full of lies"

[Arbitran]

Harsh86_Patel, on 12 September 2012 - 09:12 AM, said:

Again i restate why would the photosensitive cells aggregate.Even if i give you that due to some random mutation(that didn't make the organism sterile or cancerous) do you realise how much of a time period and favourable random mutations along with natural selection it would take for that cell aggregate to enlarge and take a concave shape.Even if i give you that the cell aggregate did give rise to a concave indentation due to some random mutation(that didn't make the organism sterile or cancerous) that was favoured by natural selection again still do you realise that you are still not reaching a stage where this visual information due to photosensitivity is coherent or even interpreted by the organism for it to be favourably to it(the organism) in it's survival as there is no optic nerve.Even if i give you the credence that due to some random mutations over large periods of time and favoured by natural selection due to some oblivous reason the aggregate of photosensitive cells that have given rise to a concave indentation and have suddenly also given rise to a prototype mechanism(like an optic nerve) to interpret the light based signals in some mundane sense do you realise how much time and random mutations it would take(without making the organism sterile or cancerous) and how many generations of this organism would have to exist for these signals to be interpreted by it's brain in the form of any sort of Vision.

In the above paragraph i have only talked about the evolution of a mundane proto eye and it still seems nothing less then a miracle.Inorder to give a faint estimate of the probability of evolution of the eye gradually is less then the probability of the same person being struck by lightening 10000 times or probably even less depending on environmental factors persistent at those times when it was evolving.Once this protoeye along with it's optic nerve and gene group to code for it has been created then further evolution of the same can seem more explainable.Frankly speaking, beleiving in intelligent design seems more plausible then believing in this miraculous set of random events taking place in progression to give rise to the modern eye.

P.S. your description and the video is more suitable for the describing the development of the eye in an embryo when there are already genes to govern it's development but trying to extrapolate it for the gradual evolution of such a complex organ without having the complete set of genes to code for it's development is in my book next to impossible.Like i said i might as well believe that God/Aliens created us rather then in it's gradual evolution theory.

Except that that is in fact how it happened. How long would it take? Give or take, roughly half a billion years. Because that is how long it took. And you're, or at least it looks to me like you're looking at this completely backward. The teleological idea that there was something like an eye that was the ultimate goal of the evolutionary process; in fact it's the other way around. Evolution has no set course, natural selection simply favors traits which prove more useful for a creature's survival and reproduction. Basically, the premise is: traits that make it more likely for a creature to survive and reproduce, are in fact more likely to survive and reproduce. The development of aggregations of photosensitive cells is favorable for the detection of light, and thus an aquatic creature's location in the water relative to the surface. From there, each of the steps simply goes a stage further, granting sharper and sharper information with respect to the creature's environment which would allow it to survive and propagate more effectively. (Incidentally, it isn't at if an eye evolved and then later an optic nerve; they developed simultaneously: the original photosensitive cell aggregations would have been connected via nerves, just as so many other skin cells are.) And this is only referring to the "camera" eye used by fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals; the eyes of mollusks, arthropods, and other phyla are evolved independently, and are completely different. And yet, they all diverged from a common ancestor, which might have been a primitive, eel-like creature with photosensitive cells in its skin.

Edited by Arbitran, 12 September 2012 - 10:18 AM.

[Arbitran]

Harsh86_Patel, on 12 September 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

Nice points sesh but very easily counterable neverthless you gave a lot of new material for Devolution in your arguments.Like women having lesser number of progeny nowdays as compared to before.And you have led me to think that evolution cannot be understood only in terms of the material world but it is also guided by conscious choice voiced by sentient beings or organisms in response to their environments or out of their own free will.Uptill now most evolutionist think of evolution as a defunct process based on interaction of organism with their physical environments and the infamous random mutations for improvement,while you can apply this to lower organism to some extent but once the organism becomes sufficiently complex to be sentient then probably the concious choices it makes would have definately played a big role in it's evolution along with environmental factors.Now unless we account for the impact of free will for the evolution of sentient organisms the concept remains highly incomplete.For eg- what if the first monkey to turn into a man decided to commit suicide or jumped of a cliff? probably then we would have had to wait for millions of more years to have such a random progressive mutation again for humans to evolve.

Also spirituality is independant of relegions of a book.

The fact that you can say that a "monkey turned into a man" simply demonstrates that you have no comprehension of the evolutionary process whatsoever. For the record, women do indeed have fewer children today, but in no small part due to the extreme population density of our planet as compared to times past. And yes, conscious choice can have a part in evolution; natural selection often works in this way, in fact (for example, female bowerbirds are attracted to males which construct the most impressive nest; the largest, most colourful, or most elaborate, depending on the female; ergo, future generations of bowerbird males will likely be better predisposed to being capable of building impressive nests). No monkey has ever turned into a human. And "random mutation" is far from the mechanism for evolution; the principal mechanism is natural selection and its relation to gene flow and allelic frequency shifts.

And, finally, might I ask how spirituality is independent of religious books? In what sense does "spirituality" exist, apart from religious texts which claim there is such a thing in the first place?

[Harsh86_Patel]

Arbitran, on 12 September 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

Except that that is in fact how it happened. How long would it take. Give or take, roughly half a billion years. Because that is how long it took. And you're, or at least it looks to me like you're looking at this completely backward. The teleological idea that there was something like an eye that was the ultimate goal of the evolutionary process; in fact it's the other way around. Evolution has no set course, natural selection simply favors traits which prove more useful for a creature's survival and reproduction. Basically, the premise is: traits that make it more likely for a creature to survive and reproduce, are in fact more likely to survive and reproduce. The development of aggregations of photosensitive cells is favorable for the detection of light, and thus an aquatic creature's location in the water relative to the surface. From there, each of the steps simply goes a stage further, granting sharper and sharper information with respect to the creature's environment which would allow it to survive and propagate more effectively. (Incidentally, it isn't at if an eye evolved and then later an optic nerve; they developed simultaneously: the original photosensitive cell aggregations would have been connected via nerves, just as so many other skin cells are.) And this is only referring to the "camera" eye used by fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals; the eyes of mollusks, arthropods, and other phyla are evolved independently, and are completely different. And yet, they all diverged from a common ancestor, which might have been a primitive, eel-like creature with photosensitive cells in its skin.

As in many other theories my friend which seem very elegant on the surface the fallacy in these often lies in the details.It is your perogative as a sentient human is to rationalise why a aquatic animal would want to come to the surface or on land and also that vision was the only way to determine it's distance from the surface as pressure sensitivity and use of high frequency sound waves are other alternatives.The rest of the things you state are all probable but what i did was just highlight the chances of these happening in a sequential manner over half a billion years as suggested by you.When you say that the optic nerve developed along with this mass of photosensitive cell (this was highlighted by me as in my previous post as you had omitted it in your reasoning before) as a part of an organism it sounds like a very simple and plausible event but when you look at the molecular biological implications it would have on the whole organism then you can probably realise the magnitutde of this devolpment.You can also explain how man can evolve wings and start flying one day in the future and i or anyone cannot deny the possibility but the probability of that happening is something we can comment about.And like i said in that roughly half a billion years of evolution if any of the links(intermediate set of organisms) in the complex evolution of the proto eye would have been lost or interuppted then we would not have the eye.

For eg-just for a cell to become photosensitive is not a one step mechanism at a molecular level,it involves a complex process by which it achieves photosensitivity using various chemicals and chains of reactions happening within the cell along with the subsequent receptors and effectors.So even if such a development was to happen it would require a series of random mutations (which do not make the organism sterile or cancerous as in most cases mutants become so) just for the cell to become photsensitive.And this just for the photosensitivity,reorganising photo signals to provide and sort of coherent vision is light years ahead and would probably require thousands of favourable random mutations(assuming that mutations that happen on a larger scale almost 99.99% of the time make the organism sterile or cancerous).Now if you look at the great number of developments required at a molecular level for something like an eye to come into existence by gradual evolution and number of random mutations required for it to happen along with natural selection to support all the intermediate states and mind you that the whole process in not under any predetermined guidance and is happening over half a billion years then can you compute what is the probability of the same happening?

Now when you suggested that different creature evolved different types of eyes from a common eel like ancestor which just had photosensitive cells then you are telling me that such a huge number of nearly miraculous changes didn't only happen once but happened multiple times in different organisms.So it is next to impossible,you should rather say that a protoeye evolved in one ancestral organism which later evolved into diferent species and gave different types of eyes as per natural selection (not that this helps in actually explaining how the proto eye evolved).

[The Mule]

Theres one in every thread, isnt there?

[Harsh86_Patel]

Arbitran, on 12 September 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

The fact that you can say that a "monkey turned into a man" simply demonstrates that you have no comprehension of the evolutionary process whatsoever. For the record, women do indeed have fewer children today, but in no small part due to the extreme population density of our planet as compared to times past. And yes, conscious choice can have a part in evolution; natural selection often works in this way, in fact (for example, female bowerbirds are attracted to males which construct the most impressive nest; the largest, most colourful, or most elaborate, depending on the female; ergo, future generations of bowerbird males will likely be better predisposed to being capable of building impressive nests). No monkey has ever turned into a human. And "random mutation" is far from the mechanism for evolution; the principal mechanism is natural selection and its relation to gene flow and allelic frequency shifts.

And, finally, might I ask how spirituality is independent of religious books? In what sense does "spirituality" exist, apart from religious texts which claim there is such a thing in the first place?

It is not me saying that the monkey turned into a man but it is the evolutionist,though i accept that i oversimplified the jist of evolution in the same way you tried to oversimplify the evolution of the eye.
From the face of it you seem like a person who knows a lot about evolution and you still deny the fundamental trigger of evolution which is 'random mutation in the genetic code',natural selection and survival of the fittest come into play after the mutation has given rise to a new variant and or a new gene.How do you suggest new variants come into existence without random mutation?Are you suggesting that God or biotechnologist were introducing these deviation through deliberate mutations?.

Leaving the rhetoric aside  gene flow and allelic frequecy shifts can only happen once the gene(and subsequently it's allelic variants) already comes into existence,how do you suggest that gene evolved if not by insertion of nucleotides (a type of mutation)?The existance of alleles is probably due to mutation from a common template gene.You can state the great mechanism of gene flow and allelic frequency shifts which give rise to variation of a particular phenotypic expression after the gene and it's alleles have evolved (only mechanism suggested by evolutionist is 'random mutation' for the gene and it's allele to evolve).And natural selection comes into play quite later and on a macro level after the phenotypic expression of a particular trait either due to gene flow and allelic frequency shifts or 'random evolution'.

Again just oblige me and tell me that how to gene flow and allelic frequency shift give rise to new species entirely.Is it possible i.e. can a monkey become a man?Please enlighten me with the your great understanding of the evolutionary process.

And for your query regarding relegion and spirituality please read about meditation,consciousness and introspect and probably you will become more spiritual. P.S.-Bhagvad Gita might help.........don't tell me it is relegious since Krishna tells Arjun to specifically undo his mundane acceptance of any relegion or relegious practices and focus more on spirituality in the bhagvad gita.

P.S.-i am avoiding getting more technical as this is not a forum for discussion of evolution on a genetic level.

Edited by Harsh86_Patel, 12 September 2012 - 11:13 AM.

[Harsh86_Patel]

The Mule, on 12 September 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

Theres one in every thread, isnt there?

Aksimov fan?

[The Mule]

Aksimov? Never heard of it

[Harsh86_Patel]

Nevermind. Was reffering to Isaac Askimov the science fiction writer who wrote the foundation series with a protagonist called 'The Mule'.