Comment: I have decided to change my mind (for no reason at all), and adapt, or adopt the belief that evolution of lifeforms, and the resulting speciation is without purpose. There is no adaptation, because life does not use anything (including energy), it does not store energy or information, because it can't. It's just passive chemicals swirling chaotically around, in no particular place. It's all completely random. Cosmic rays are probably responsible. Life must be an illusion. Clearly this is the correct viewpoint, since nothing has any purpose, and life doesn't exist, except as a random collection of "stuff"; without the process of evolution, absolutely nothing would happen (life doesn't do anything, evolution does).
You forgot to use the sarcasm "smile" so I put it in for you. Few care what you think as you twist the fact that all organisms have purpose for themselves (such as getting food) into a false statement about a PROCESS* that acts on all living forms. Processes are governed by laws, but these laws may not be entirely known. Law governed Processes are without purpose. Purpose only is meaningful to some organism, not to chemical, physical, legal, etc. laws. In the later example, people (again living organisms) have a purpose in creating the laws, but like all other purposes of living organisms, the goals change with time and environmental changes. There is no long range purpose to life. - Ask any dinosaur if you do not understand this. It just evolves via chance changes in the genes and for a period some are favored to grow in numbers in the gene pool, but eventually (as has already happened for 99% of all species that every lived) these genes will be gone. - Replaced by others in distantly related creatures. Perhaps you think the "purpose" of the dinosaurs was to become birds? If that is what you call "purpose" note that most scientists call that "the process of evolution" and recognize that its particular path into the future was dictated by the chance changes in the evolving gene pool. For example, if one could set back time and let the dinosaurs evolve again, the evolution of the dinosaurs could just have well created a great variety of snail like creatures. Then by your way of very adaptive thinking, the purpose of the dinosaurs was to make a greater variety of snails. I post, not for you, but for new readers here you may confuse. As retired professor, I know that a tiny percent of student have such strongly fixed ideas that one should not waste time trying to educate them to the more accepted POV. For more details and discussion, new readers may want also to read post: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1775190&postcount=116 P.S. After you have posted a few more pages of erroneous claims that “evolution has a purpose” I will warn new readers again if needed. Often I need not as several others give these new readers warnings also. -------------------------- *An example of a PROCESS which, like evolution, is very important for life on Earth: The hydrological cycle - Oceans evaporate; make clouds, which sometimes travel over land cooling as they rise. This causes rain to fall, which keeps aquifers charged with water and that keeps the rivers flowing back to the sea. I suppose you believe that the hydrological cycle has a purpose also. I think it is the natural result of physical and chemical process governed by laws. I believe it would still occur even if there were no life forms on Earth to infer the hydrological cycle has the purpose of supporting life by making fresh water available. The PROCESS is without purpose. The PROCESS of evolution is without purpose. Some ignorant people INFER both these processes have a purpose. Again only living organisms can have any purpose, not any PROCESS governed by the natural laws. Except gravity, of course. Its purpose is to keep people from drifting off into space. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You haven't seemed to understand the rest of the thrust of my post though. You appear to be quite willing to read a sentence and stop, or the beginning of a sentence, and fit it into your belief system. But you keep ignoring what comes after the intro - I mean you seem to believe that nothing comes after the bit you want to see. I'm still saying that biological evolution (life does not exist, remember?) is driven by the agency of adaptation. This is clearly part of Darwin's ideas about it, and he didn't know anything about genes or genetics. Teleology seems to be the big elephant when it comes to the question of life evolving. But evolve and radiate it does. This is what we see, not "having happened", but "happening". We're fairly sure the eukaryotes evolved from ancestral prokaryotes, for instance. Believing that it's "all up to evolution", is failing to understand two things: what evolution is, and what biological evolution is. P.S. There are no "laws", of physics or chemistry, only theories. The "Gas Laws", for example, or "Laws of motion", aren't some universal guiding principle, they're just theories that seem to work out, quite well (like, all the time). If they are laws, then there's a law of evolution, too.
That would depend what you mean by "dinosaur". The birds evolved from some reptilian ancestor in the Cretaceous. But feathered dinosaurs were around before any of them started to fly. And the pterosaurs got there first. The purpose of the "dinosaurs" (or their common ancestor) was to become birds, and ichthyosaurs, and pterosaurs, i.e. to radiate. like everything else that evolves biologically. What that radiation led to is what we see in the fossil record (and the survivors still extant). Had circumstances not been what they were (no asteroid strike, say), things would undoubtedly look different today. But that's history for ya, it's happened already. Evolution is still "happening", don't forget.
OK, so there are a few wilfully blind people around, who clearly believe that their own misguided conceptions, philosophies and opinions are actually correct, and will not brook any dissent, nor do they seem at all willing to discuss what they believe or why; they just keep saying meaningless crap like: "I post, not for you, but for new readers here you may confuse. As retired professor, I know that a tiny percent of student have such strongly fixed ideas that one should not waste time trying to educate them to the more accepted POV." Who is this smug sonofabitch? Why does he think he (or she) has the "more accepted POV". Why are they unwilling to discuss what this is, or why they're so bloody convinced about it? Why don't they look at questions (i.e. choose to ignore them)? Why does it have to be such a waste of time, talking about the subject? P.S. Why does changing my mind (intentionally), mean this idiot suddenly agrees with me. Why doesn't this plonker see that I'm not changing my mind at all. Why are they so bloody happy about a change in the wording?
So what's "wrong" with the Evolution did it approach? It doesn't explain how it all started. Obviously, there is adaptation. This is a principle of Darwinian evolution (an explanation for the emergence of similar species that are adapted to particular roles in their environment, which is part of a larger ecological "system"). Geography and isolation of genomic variants also plays a big part, the planet and its tectonic and climatic changes have always been a primary influence; the stage keeps changing. Life obviously does use something: energy is stored and transported around a cellular compartment; an organism is an organised structure, the organisation requires organising: the agency of "life", the thing that directs it all. Obviously it can and does store information: "genetic" information, which is a representation of itself. Obviously it isn't just passive chemicals, swirling chaotically around. But it used to be.
Nor does it explain why I can't make a proper souffle; or why the sands of Mars are red. It isn't meant to. That is not its goal. The theory of evolution is about how life evolves, not how it originated. If it was about origins it would probably be called The Theory of Origin. You see, there is a clue in the name.
You reply is correct and obvious. I did not bother to make it -sitting it out for a few pages more of his nonsense. But I cannot resist noting that "He does’nt have a clue." (about the meaning of “purpose” as he applies it to non-living things, like the PROCESS of evolution or the PROCESSES of the hydrological cycle, which like evolution are an essential part of life on Earth as only by it is fresh water available.
Yes, you two are quite accomplished. I must admit, at reading a sentence. You don't seem to do so well at reading more than a sentence, though. So, just because we seem to like repeating ourselves for no particular reason (how could there be any reason, it's obviously all unintentional): Life obviously does use something: energy is stored and transported around a cellular compartment; an organism is an organised structure, the organisation requires organising: the agency of "life", the thing that directs it all. You cannot explain away the appearance of a "director", just by repeating some mantra about "chance". Chance is not passive, for chance to be possible, there has to be a "game". A game isn't passive, nor is any form of life. Obviously it can and does store information: "genetic" information, which is a representation of itself. How can a representation exist? How do organisms manage to "make" a representation of themselves? Why do they bother to maintain it? Does it have an important function of some kind (a purpose)? Obviously it isn't just passive chemicals, swirling chaotically around. Yes, the theory doesn't try to explain how life started. This is the problem with it, as I said. Therefore the "Evolution did it" invocation, falls over at some point, the spirit is not evoked, but stays in its little bottle. Why do you need to point this out? No-one is saying, or has said anything that implies otherwise, so what was your point? I can't help noticing that this doesn't say a thing about the purposefulness of living things. This is another pointless statement about what exactly? The PROCESS - of evolution (which isn't a single "process", but actually more than one co-operating and competing "processes"); the PROCESS - of the hydrological cycle ... What about the carbon cycle? The orbital precession - isn't that a cycle? What about all the cycles that didn't get mentioned? What's the point here? There doesn't seem to be one..? You're going to have to do better than this nonsense, aren't you?
Because you stated that the problem with evolution is that it does not explain the origin of life. That is simply not a problem with the theory, because it is not meant to deal with origins. You seem to think it should - since you think its failure to do so is a problem. That is why I have stated the obvious - because you do not seem to understand it. The nonsense here is all one sided.
What you don't seem to have noticed, is that I've already said, several times, that Darwinism doesn't concern itself with the problem of biogenesis - it assumes existing, evolved species. The problem of biogenesis isn't the purview of Darwin's theory, or the "modern synthesis". So that isn't a problem? It isn't a little nonsensical to keep insisting "evolution is responsible"? When in fact evolving lifeforms, not a theory, is responsible. Darwinism is elegant, and explanatory; is it the whole story? Understanding what biology is, and chanting mantras, are kind of different things, by the way. You're not getting any better at that nonsense stuff, are you?
