Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
hello! i have few questions if you guys have the time to reponse to them.
is evolution a sentient thing? is it self-aware? is the process conscious?
if the answer is no! then...
is your stomach self-aware? is it conscious ?
when your stomach produce a mucous lining to protect itself from being digested by the acid, that's not because it can understands the risk of the acid, but because it was taught to operate that way.
If you swallow a liquid which is a poison, your stomach will absorb that liquid, because that's what it meant for it to do and from there it goes to your blood stream and once that poison is inside the body it will be used. It's not the fault of your stomach that made you get poisoned and it's not it's responsibility to check what your throw in it, but it's you who has a consciousness to understand that this is wrong.
how does a tree knows what it's fruit should taste like to humans? so it makes them so sweet with tempting smell, looks and colors? why the fruit supply us with important nurtrients and it's not posionous?
is the tree a sentient thing? is it self-aware? is it conscious? if the answer again is no! then...
if an it " evolution" doesnt know and an it " tree " doesnt know then who does?
Random chance and immense amount of time explain the process. Some choose to believe that it was all directed by some singular intelligence or part of a deliberate plan, but the idea is that neither are truly required for what we believe took place, to take place.
Evolution is not a conscious process, and what's with the head-slappling? Did you make a point?
As to who "knows" a tree is a tree: that's more of a philosophical question, isn't it? We identify trees as "trees" because any living conscious being needs to identify its surroundings, and that's how we identify a tree.
Grandstander: you are telling that evolution is capable of desiging us without having a consciousness or thoughts or knowledge or even a reason for it ?
you are telling me that evolution understand when to start evolving an organ and it knows when to stop?
you are telling me that evolution finished evolving living parts and it wrote a full set of instrctions on each specific part, so that a heart will be reproduced as a heart and a lung will be reproduced as a lung and a stomach will be reproduced as a stomach, but in another human body? and it designed the female body to be capable of receiving and understanding those instructions?
all of this from mindless evolution without...
Any understandings of it's surroundings, brain, thoughts, without knowing what it's actions are, and without realizing what the reasons are.
sorry.. i'm not dumb enough to understand the theory. could you please try again?
Atheists are merely people who don't believe in the actuality of any of the hundreds upon hundreds of different deities that have been suggested over the centuries. Atheists are not necessarily experts on evolution. One of the things that atheists do tend to believe in however is the premise that arguments from personal incredulity are a waste of time.
Grandstander: you are telling that evolution is capable of desiging us without having a consciousness or thoughts or knowledge or even a reason for it ?
you are telling me that evolution understand when to start evolving an organ and it knows when to stop?
you are telling me that evolution finished evolving living parts and it wrote a full set of instrctions on each specific part, so that a heart will be reproduced as a heart and a lung will be reproduced as a lung and a stomach will be reproduced as a stomach, but in another human body? and it designed the female body to be capable of receiving and understanding those instructions?
all of this from mindless evolution without...
Any understandings of it's surroundings, brain, thoughts, without knowing what it's actions are, and without realizing what the reasons are.
sorry.. i'm not dumb enough to understand the theory. could you please try again?
thank you.
Who on earth told you any of these things? Nobody that I know believes evolution "tells" an organ to evolve. It is based on random genetic mutations -- something we see happen in births every single day, in every single country on this planet.
You say you're not "dumb enough" to believe a theory that nobody says is true, and which, apparently, you pulled out of your own head (or, well, elsewhere). No. We're not dumb enough to believe your uneducated and non-thought-out personal theory. What an unbelievably nasty, bizarre and completely thoughtless post. It deserves the response I just gave it.
Grandstander: you are telling that evolution is capable of desiging us without having a consciousness or thoughts or knowledge or even a reason for it ?
Not to speak for Grandstander, but that is exactly how it works.
Evolution as we have observed it appear to be two mechanisms working in concert with each other. First we have random mutations, chance alterations in an organism's DNA (thus the changes are inheritable). Second we have natural selection, the principle that is an alteration is beneficial to an organism or group of organisms it will allow them to reproduce and preserve the alteration. If there alteration is not beneficial, that is reduces the chance of successful reproduction, the organism is more likely to die out.
Note that there is no design involved here, simply changes both harmful and beneficial, and a mechanism for retaining useful adaptations.
Not only can we observe evolution in action today, we can replicate it in the lab. Beyond that, we can extend the principles of biologic evolution to other areas. For example, using genetic algorithms, we can solve optimal design problems for a specific set of constraints using evolutionary theory. The same technique that shaped life as we know it can be used to optimize mathematical algorithms.
So clearly, we can see that no design or designer is required...
Grandstander: you are telling that evolution is capable of desiging us without having a consciousness or thoughts or knowledge or even a reason for it ?
.
No, you did not understand. If you had you would realize that there is no "design" to it. We are speaking of the product of an immense series of accidents and random selections.
Before you get too agitated about all this, are you aware that evolutionary theory neither confirms nor disproves the idea of a creator? Evolutionary theory identifies and explains the process, it has no stance on how the process came into being.
For all else I direct you to JerZ's post which covers anything else I might have said.
Note that there is no design involved here, simply changes both harmful and beneficial, and a mechanism for retaining useful adaptations.
As far as I understand things, the mechanism you mention is simply the fact that those with the characteristics that are beneficial to living in their environment live longer and better and so do any of their offspring who receive those characteristics. Over time, therefore, there end up being more of them, than those with less of a chance to live, procreate and pass on their own genetics.
I don't see consciousness in the equation, personally. If there were, and if there were some (in some way) conscious mechanism of retaining those beneficial characteristics, there would be no such thing as extinction, IMO. Or at least it would be greatly minimized (obviously a giant comet hitting the earth, for example, will cause mass extinction). By contrast, what we actually see is a whole lot of missed opportunities, or late opportunities, for species to evolve in certain ways, and their eventual extinction based on their overall inability to adapt.
JerZ: ok, so evolution with nature selection are just randomly mutating things for billions and billions and billions of years?
they both don't have a reason for doing so?
when it comes to insects developing pesticide resistance, it is less than a decade and evolution never misses a new pesticides cycle ever! every time it develop a pesticide resistance for the new pesticide... but by chance???
[mod]delete[/mod]
Last edited by Miss Blue; 05-12-2013 at 05:04 AM..
Reason: attacking to point of trolling
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.