It's just a theory

[Azisien]

Chemical messenger system, more like. We must not be agreeing. I was trying to point out it's not random, not spontaneous. We're taking about evolution, so I will say a selection pressure of some kind is occurring. The cell can make ATP, it's happy. Species that are completely adapted to their environments don't evolve further (or devolve). Maybe the cell can't make ATP as well as it used to. It is being pressured by selected factors. Maybe it's in competition with another species that is beginning to overtake it now that the environment shifted to better support that new species. This may introduce the evolutionary genes as a minor factor on the evolutionary or ecological time scale, chances are the species losing will in fact lose. Time scale is an important thing, maybe the species can just manage to scrap by, and the genes have time to tweak the genome into becoming more suited to the environment.

This is a rough example of my view about evolution at present. I don't support these evolutionary genes at all, because I haven't heard of them before, and my views do not require such genes (as far as my understanding of genetics is concerned).

[ZAKtheGeek]

But my point about the ATP was that, if it can make ATP, it's happy, and has no reason to do it faster. Were mutations random, and it happened to accidentally produce a faster method, certainly that cell is better adapted and will reproduce more quickly. Thus it will eventually become "standard" for that species to have the faster ATP production pathway.

The whole ATP thing is merely an example because I couldn't think of anything better. My point was that, if all "evolutionary progress" is not accidental and is instead directly and actively initiated and carried out, then anything that's an improvement but not necessary would never occur. I'm sure there's plenty of things to fit this category, but I just can't think of any. Hopefully the point stands.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by ZAKtheGeek

and it happened to accidentally produce a faster method, certainly that cell is better adapted and will reproduce more quickly.

That doesn't necessarily make it better adapted. If you're speaking in general.

Originally Posted by ZAKtheGeek

My point was that, if all "evolutionary progress" is not accidental and is instead directly and actively initiated and carried out, then anything that's an improvement but not necessary would never occur. I'm sure there's plenty of things to fit this category, but I just can't think of any. Hopefully the point stands.

I wouldn't even give the so-called "evolutionary genes" a reasonable fraction of evolution's pie. I wouldn't give it to random, accidental chance, either.

[Dasanudas]

99.999999999999999999% or more of all the little mutations that occur to our DNA are mistakes. I may sound like I'm contradicting Mr. Degree from above, but if a cell underwent even one division without the tremendous proofreading it usually performs, well, it probably couldn't divide by that point anyway, and it would be dead.

In fairness to Mr. Degree, can you give evidence of this massive percentage? Would you note a correlation between said percentage and the understanding that most to almost all mutations are detrimental?

In a brief note, a big problem with telling whether or not there can be cellular consciousness is that science has no clear understanding of what consciousness is or what causes it. There are three axioms that I have seen: consciousness is a product of matter, consciousness and matter are independent, consciousness is the producer of matter. With certain other modifiers, I follow the third, but that's neither here nor there. I don't believe my foot is conscious, but I do believe that an E. Coli germ is. I would like to add a quote by George Wald, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Harvard, "This leads me to my other great problem, that of consciousness. For me that problem was hardly avoidable, for I have spent most of my life in science studying mechanisms of vision. I learned my business on the eyes of frogs. The retina of a frog is very much like a human retina...Both retinas are composed of the same three nerve layers and have parallel connections to the brain.

But I know that I see. Does a frog see? It reacts to light; so does a photoelectrically activated garage door. Does the frog know that it is reacting to light? Now the dilemma: there is nothing whatever I can do as a scientist to answer that kind of question." (Essay 2 of Synthesis of Science and Religion: Critical Essays and Dialogues) (emphasis his, further similarities of frog and human eye cut out for space conservation)

Thus the crux of consciousness which is a whole other topic in itself. I know I am conscious, I'm pretty sure other humans are because of ease of communication and identifying with the bodily form, but how "low" can you go in the species? Are all mammals conscious? all birds? reptiles? fish? invertebrates? single-celled organisms? So far there's just no way to tell. Reversing this, are we sure that humans are conscious? Do I really KNOW I'm conscious? The question is paradoxical, yes, but I have seen shows centered around whether or not our consciousness is false and just chemical reaction - wish I could remember the title to reference it. But it's a good point, if I were to take a step back, I could justify everything another person does as chemical reactions induced by outside stimulus. They as a person would cease to exist.

But this was supposed to be a small note...I talk too much.

Interestingly, in all the three natural strategies of generation of genetic variations, the products of specific genes are involved. We call them evolution genes.

The so-called evolution genes are not suggested as causing evolution, they are given that title because products from them are involved in all three defined ways of generating genetic variation. Then, perhaps I am misunderstanding why you are against them.

Maybe it's in competition with another species that is beginning to overtake it now that the environment shifted to better support that new species.

Is this not the Red Queen Theory, that species are basically in an arms race with each other? As the Red Queen told Alice in Alice in Wonderland, you must run as fast as you can in order to remain in the same place. Species X develops trait A so species Y develops trait B in response, which prompts species X to develop trait C and so on. What arguments have you heard for or against this theory?

[Lockeownzj00]

But I know that I see. Does a frog see? It reacts to light; so does a photoelectrically activated garage door. Does the frog know that it is reacting to light? Now the dilemma: there is nothing whatever I can do as a scientist to answer that kind of question."

This is just wrong--the book you quote is pseudoscience at best. The frog, much like a dog, has a very limited frame of mind. It may understand that the phenomenon happens, but not understand its implications; this is our advantage as humans. Saying "we can't know, we can't know" is simply the same solipsistic nonsense agnostics throw at you.

I think this is becasue lack of understanding of consciousness. You have to clarify: yes, all mammals are conscious. No, not all mammals are intelligent (humans being the intellgent species--spare the jokes).

[Azisien]

I'm not against the genes, they just aren't required for my view of evolution on a genetic level. They are acceptable, yes. And I understood how they worked (those products you speak of would be recombinant enzymes that perform the changes on the genome).

I'm not in the position to quote you the amount of mistakes are made (during replication, or just "at random" [and I'm starting to hate that word]). It was part of my lecture notes, or possibly in my cellular biology textbook. I'll try and dig them up later tonight when I get home and fetch you my source.

Lastly, I've never heard of the Red Queen Theory. My example was a fact of nature. Competition is life. You're an ally (mutualism, coevolution, insects and plants for instance), you're neutral (bacteria at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean and...sparrows), or you're an enemy (realtime competition, deer and wolf, fish and worm [or similar water creature], etc).

I suppose you could characterize life as a massive arms race (with humans winning, at the moment anyway). There are many arms races, most of them are higher life forms fighting off bacteria, or plants fighting off fungi, and so on. I don't characterize it this way, I see it more as a nice happy chain linking most life forms on the planet together in countless different ways, but that's not to say some species are far more involved with each other than others. Hell, it'd be stupid to say otherwise.

Not all species have competition, and not all species live in a constantly changing environment. And so, those species don't change much (or at all). Archaea are a fine bunch of prokaryotes that seem to support this. I mean, they are among the best "living fossils" we have of what we postulate life was similar to when it first came to be. They are rather few and far between, living in the most extreme of the extreme environments on the planet (Salt beds in Death Valley, hot springs in Yellowstone, etc).

[Syka]

Off Topic-Wow, I don't look at this for a few days and look what happens

On Topic-As for the consiousness, psychologists don't fully understand what it is. They have multiple ideas to explain it, but nothing truly substancial.

As I understand it evolution really is a completely random process. Now, it is true that if it hurts the organism they probably won't pass the trait along. If it doesn't hurt or help though it will just spread and become a pointless variation. Look at human eye, hair, and skin color. As for the proof of evolution happening, look at the common cold and the flu. They mutate every year, the process of a specie mutating is evolution.

There is no pinnacle of the species. Sharks are considered "simple" species. They have been around before the dinosaurs and are unchanged. They have found fossils that are nearly identical to the modern Great White. To me, surviving for hundred of millions of years with little change is pretty damn advanced. As humans we just want to believe that we are above the others.

[Dasanudas]

This "pseudoscientist," the person I quoted, as I said before quoting him, was adept enough in the field of biology to be a professor at Harvard. Exactly what are we using as a qualifier on whether or not someone can make an educated opinion in their field? Have you spent so many years on studying frogs? How would you know if it's possible to tell if they are conscious or not? I invite Locke to take up the challenge of proving that you are, in fact, conscious. I would posit that you are simply a highly complex combination of chemicals that, due to arrangement, reactes in certain ways so complex as to be unpredictable at this time - much like weather - but still in a determined fashion. Any seeming awareness that you might display is simply anthropomorphism on my part. Can you prove me wrong?

How do we know what a dog or frog or anyone else thinks or their frame of mind? Animals are simply concerned with eating, sleeping, mating, and defending - I see plenty of humans that have this animalistic viewpoint as well. We just have technology to make us better at it.

You have put the difference, not in consciousness, but in intellect. So what do you consider intelligence? Dictionary.com gives us three applicable definitions: 1)the capacity to acquire an apply knowledge 2)the faculty of thought and reason 3) superior powers of mind. I would say that animals definately have the first, and the second might be harder but I would go with animals being able to reason - the faculty of thought is there certainly. The third is not a whether or not something has intelligence, but a comparison between the two. Vedic definition of intelligence is the ability to discriminate between right and wrong. Not so much ethics, but more (in a human example) wanting to stay home and sleep but knowing you have to go to work, so choosing to go to work. In the Vedic view, all life has intelligence but in highly varying degrees. It isn't fair to say an animal doesn't have intelligence because it can't do math, just as it isn't fair to say a human doesn't have intelligent if it couldn't do math - they just have less of it.

As for the Red Queen thing, it might not have been a theory so much as an effect observed. It's been a while since I looked it up. Vedic views also agree that temporal life is competition, though usually seen as one of the problems here (we really can't all just, get along). From a non-empirical point of view, I would question whether humans are winning the arms race (if we call it that) - as a species we are less in number, diversity, and range of envionments than various other species. The only thing I can see us number one in is impact to the environment. I mean, roaches have us beat in everything else, and they thrive in the environments we create too.

[ZAKtheGeek]

On the shark: the ocean environment, especially deeper down, rarely varies. Get to a good place and stay there; no need to adapt further.

On those genes: the only problem I personally have with them is them being the sole cause for evolution. That just doesn't seem to make any sense to me. They could be factors, I suppose.

On consciousness: Oh, how I've written about this before. It is my belief that conscious decisions, or that which seems to define consciousness as existing, do not, in fact, exist (it is for this reason that I have my religious alignment). I believe that any and all events and occurrences can be described and predicted accurately by mathematic formulas. The other possible, but perhaps not necessary factor, is randomness: some formulas could require some random input, which is acceptable, and also allows for various parallel universes. So then, how to explain our own thoughts and conscious processes? Simple: we can't... yet. But I do believe that our decisons, and as such, out actions, are totally a result of the complex interactions of various brain chemicals, which produce our thought (memory seems to be intertwined with this; note that it's not particularly well understood either). Of course, such interactions would be so complex that even if a method of actually being able to predict one's thoughts is ever devised, it couldn't simply be done in 5 minutes on a calculator, nor could it be easily, if at all, simulated. The only real semi-support I can really provide for this is that, if evolution is correct (and maybe even if it's not), entire behaviors can simply be inherited, implying that the chemicals one's body produces totally govern, as opposed to simply infuence, one's actions.

[Lockeownzj00]

I believe that any and all events and occurrences can be described and predicted accurately by mathematic formulas.

Do you have any circumstancial, logical, or any evidence of any kind or any shape to back this up? Or is this typical religious logic? That is, sci-fi logic. "Yeah. You just use the flux capacitator there, and with 3 zion crystals the time machine will work." Except that doesn't make sense and will never be able to be pragmatically applied anywhere, ever.

I seriously would like to know your reasoning besides "you know, it makes sense."

if evolution is correct

See sig.