Got a question.
Roadking1576
There are plants and trees that spread seeds all over the place. Some form
burr-like pods that attach themselves to passing animals....some seeds are in
tasty little berries that birds like to eat and then shit the seeds
elsewhere.....some trees form seed pods that are like little helicopters that
carry the seeds off away from the tree......some plants form feather duster
seed carriers to carry seeds away on a breeze....coconut trees form floating
seed pods to carry their seeds over the water to new lands....and some plants
even fire their seeds from their pods away from them.
This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants and trees know how to
evolve this way? I mean, how in hell does a plant know what flavor a bird
likes? Or how does another plant know that animals will be walking by? Did
early seeds just fall straight to the earth...growing up to overcrowd and
strangle the parent plant ?
And then there are some plants and mushrooms that use chemical warfare to ward
off bugs. How did they know how to do that?
And speaking of mushrooms....of a certain variety....how did they know how to
do what they do?
Thanks.
Boikat
"Roadking1576" <roadki...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030819222202...@mb-m16.aol.com...
> Hello all...just a quick question.
> There are plants and trees that spread seeds all over the place. Some
form
> burr-like pods that attach themselves to passing animals....some seeds are
in
> tasty little berries that birds like to eat and then shit the seeds
> elsewhere.....some trees form seed pods that are like little helicopters
that
> carry the seeds off away from the tree......some plants form feather
duster
> seed carriers to carry seeds away on a breeze....coconut trees form
floating
> seed pods to carry their seeds over the water to new lands....and some
plants
> even fire their seeds from their pods away from them.
> This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants and trees know how
to
> evolve this way?
They didn't "know"
> I mean, how in hell does a plant know what flavor a bird
> likes?
It's more along the lines of how does a bird know waht berry tastes good,
actually.
> Or how does another plant know that animals will be walking by?
It doesn't.
> Did
> early seeds just fall straight to the earth...growing up to overcrowd and
> strangle the parent plant ?
Some plants still do that.
> And then there are some plants and mushrooms that use chemical warfare to
ward
> off bugs. How did they know how to do that?
They didn't. Living things are chemical "factories", and inevatably, some
chemical will repel or poison other animals or plants.
> And speaking of mushrooms....of a certain variety....how did they know how
to
> do what they do?
See above. There is no "knowing" involved. It's simply a side effect.
> Thanks.
Boikat
Gyudon Z
From Boikat:
>> This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants and trees know how
>to
>> evolve this way?
>
>They didn't "know"
>
>> I mean, how in hell does a plant know what flavor a bird
>> likes?
<snip rest>
Another difficulty in phrasing the question of "How did they know?" is that one
inevitably has to ask whether they "know" what they're doing at present. If
"yes," then the problem takes care of itself, and if "no," then one has to
wonder has to wonder how they forgot...
"Between true science and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is in the middle."
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Klaus Hellnick
They don't know what they are doing. What one earth makes you think a plant
or animal has to know what it is doing for an activity to have a beneficial
effect? Do water molecules have to know that by evaporating they will come
down as rain and eventually go back to the ocean? Does gasoline know that by
releasing enery in an engine that humans will make more of it? Evolution
works the same way with organisms (actually populations). Awareness is
simply not a factor. Evolution also does not happen to individuals.
Klaus
earthli...@yahoo.com
Just because you (or plants or animals) have the ability to do
something doesn't mean that you "know" how your doing it.
You have been growing your fingernails all your life. Do you "know"
how you're doing it?
Earthling
Sverker Johansson
> There are plants and trees that spread seeds all over the place. Some form
> burr-like pods that attach themselves to passing animals....some seeds are in
> tasty little berries that birds like to eat and then shit the seeds
> elsewhere.....some trees form seed pods that are like little helicopters that
> carry the seeds off away from the tree......some plants form feather duster
> seed carriers to carry seeds away on a breeze....coconut trees form floating
> seed pods to carry their seeds over the water to new lands....and some plants
> even fire their seeds from their pods away from them.
> This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants and trees know how to
> evolve this way?
They didn't. That part of the beauty of natural selection -- you can
get systems that appear smart without anybody having to know anything.
> I mean, how in hell does a plant know what flavor a bird
Some plants had tasty berries -- their seed got spread around.
Some plants had nasty berries -- their seed didn't spread.
The next generation of plants, will they be descendants of
tasties or nasties?
> likes? Or how does another plant know that animals will be walking by? Did
> early seeds just fall straight to the earth...growing up to overcrowd and
> strangle the parent plant ?
> And then there are some plants and mushrooms that use chemical warfare to ward
> off bugs. How did they know how to do that?
Plants use a variety of chemicals for their own purposes.
Some plants just happened to use chemicals that somewhat
repelled bugs, and others didn't. Now, which plant
gets eaten by bugs, and which plant provides the seed for the
next generation?
Further natural selection has improved the insecticides
(and selection on the bugs have improved their resistance,
in an ancient arms race between plants and bugs).
> And speaking of mushrooms....of a certain variety....how did they know how to
> do what they do?
Which ones do you mean? I suspect that most of the funny
chemicals in mushrooms have evolved as insect repellants.
Their effects on us is quite likely just an accident.
Our nervous system is sufficiently like that of insects,
so that a nerve poison killing insects may well have
some effect on our nerves as well.
The same goes for many other drugs and spices that we
find in plants.
Best regards
Sverker Johansson
Roadking1576
The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was joking on
those.
One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race has
evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living oraganisms out
of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if my numbers are off), is
it the most threatening species to it's own survival and the survival of the
planet?
And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we are so
smart that Darwinism has all of its facts straight?
I don't claim to be real smart myself, but when a little plant forms burr-like
pods so that it's seed can be carried off by and animal, and that plant doesn't
have eyes or a brain, then the grand evolving design must have been thought of
and is being thought of by a higher force.
And how does a coconut tree know that there is an ocean near by?
Lenny Flank
They don't "know how to do what they do" any more than the moon "knows
how to orbit the earth".
===============================================
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"
Creation "Science" Debunked Website:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
"DebunkCreation" email list at Yahoogroups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DebunkCreation/join
TomS
<238b53a4.0308...@posting.google.com>, Lenny Flank stated..."
>
>roadki...@aol.com (Roadking1576) wrote in message
>news:<20030819222202...@mb-m16.aol.com>...
>> Hello all...just a quick question.
>> There are plants and trees that spread seeds all over the place. Some form
>> burr-like pods that attach themselves to passing animals....some seeds are in
>> tasty little berries that birds like to eat and then shit the seeds
>> elsewhere.....some trees form seed pods that are like little helicopters that
>> carry the seeds off away from the tree......some plants form feather duster
>> seed carriers to carry seeds away on a breeze....coconut trees form floating
>> seed pods to carry their seeds over the water to new lands....and some plants
>> even fire their seeds from their pods away from them.
>> This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants and trees know how to
>> evolve this way? I mean, how in hell does a plant know what flavor a bird
>> likes? Or how does another plant know that animals will be walking by? Did
>> early seeds just fall straight to the earth...growing up to overcrowd and
>> strangle the parent plant ?
>>And then there are some plants and mushrooms that use chemical warfare to ward
>> off bugs. How did they know how to do that?
>> And speaking of mushrooms....of a certain variety....how did they know how to
>> do what they do?
>> Thanks.
>
>
>
>
>They don't "know how to do what they do" any more than the moon "knows
>how to orbit the earth".
Perhaps the standard, classical example of this is the "principle
of least action".
In standard Newtonian mechanics, one can define a function called
the "action" of a particle. And then it can be demonstrated, that
under the Newtonian assumptions, a particle moves in such a way as
to minimize the action function over its path.
The question is then phrased in the form, "How does a particle
know in advance the correct path to follow to minimize its
action-function?"
I suppose that nowadays the best example would be to wonder
about the electrons in a computer. Isn't it amazing that those
electrons are able to calculate the answers to those complicated
mathematical computations? Or do you think that the answers are
designed into the computers by the computer engineers?
John Harshman
Roadking1576 wrote:
> Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.
> The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was joking on
> those.
> One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race has
> evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living oraganisms out
> of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if my numbers are off), is
> it the most threatening species to it's own survival and the survival of the
> planet?
This would seem to contradict your assertion that it must all be part of
an intelligent plan, doesn't it? Our danger to ourselves would seem to
be much more compatible with the theory that it all "just happened", and
traits that were very useful to a primate in Africa 100K years ago are
now causing problems in the modern world.
> And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we are so
> smart that Darwinism has all of its facts straight?
This argument, followed to its logical conclusion, would suggest that we
can't know anything at all. So why bother trying to find out? Perhaps
you should take a nap.
> I don't claim to be real smart myself, but when a little plant forms burr-like
> pods so that it's seed can be carried off by and animal, and that plant doesn't
> have eyes or a brain, then the grand evolving design must have been thought of
> and is being thought of by a higher force.
> And how does a coconut tree know that there is an ocean near by?
You haven't been listening to the replies to your first post. The
coconut doesn't know anything. It's all just the "blind watchmaker" at
work. All sorts of mutations happen all the time. Most of them are
useless or even detrimental in the environment they find themselves in,
and those are mostly eliminated. The occasional mutation that increases
its bearer's reproductive success is preserved and spreads throughout
the population. Like big seeds that can survive a long trip through salt
water in certain island palm trees, for example. I'm sure the original
coconuts were smaller and could survive much shorter trips than modern
ones -- but they did better than their competitors. And that's all it takes.
Steven J.
> Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.
> The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was joking
on
> those.
> One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race has
> evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living oraganisms
out
> of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if my numbers are
off), is
> it the most threatening species to it's own survival and the survival of
the
> planet?
>
current range of estimates, though probably a bit on the high side). There
are a lot of species -- our own included -- with *way* more than fifty
million organisms.
>
> And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we are
so
> smart that Darwinism has all of its facts straight?
>
know better blow their life savings on gambling? How many people diet as if
there really were no calories on Sunday? It's painfully obvious that it's
easier to discover the truth than to get anyone, oneself included, to act on
it. Part of the problem is something called "excessive discounting against
the future," in which you weigh the present pleasures of some course of
action against the future pain, and overestimate the chance that tomorrow
will never come. See? We even smart enough to figure out why we're so
damned stupid!
OTOH, very few biologists think that either the original Darwinism or modern
evolutionary theory has *all* its facts straight. They just note that the
current theory is abundantly confirmed, explains a great deal of the data,
and that its basic outline has stood up quite well to decades of testing.
You might as easily ask why, if we're so damned stupid, we think that
current physics, or current chemistry, or current anything, has its facts
straight. You'd get pretty much the same answer -- maybe we don't, but [a]
it's vastly less likely that some discarded theory or model is more
accurate, and [b] you can either assume (provisionally) that you're
competent to investigate and understand reality, or go hide in a cave and
wait for a bear to put you out of your misery.
>
> I don't claim to be real smart myself, but when a little plant forms
burr-like
> pods so that it's seed can be carried off by and animal, and that plant
doesn't
> have eyes or a brain, then the grand evolving design must have been
thought of
> and is being thought of by a higher force.
>
The plant doesn't form burr-like pods so that its seed can be carried off by
an animal. It forms burr-like pods because it underwent some mutation,
recently or untold millenia past, which altered the formation of seeds so
that they had burrs. Members of that species produced many other sorts of
mutations, many of which altered the shape of seeds or their coverings in
various ways. Most of these alterations either were useless or actively
harmful to the seed's chances of ever finding a good place to grow, and
growing there. A very few mutations happened in some way or other to
benefit those chances. The burrs just happened to catch on the fur of
animals, who carried it to new habitats, so the genes for producing burrs
thrived and spread, while other genes died out.
Remember, there are lots of mutations, in every generation. Most of these
don't affect fitness one way or the other, a large minority are harmful,
and a tiny minority are beneficial. Note that a mutation that is harmful in
one environment may, perhaps, be neutral or even beneficial in another. In
the environment in which they occurred, burrs happened to be beneficial (to
the plants that evolved them). Another plant species, living in a different
niche in a different environment, might have produced burrs, or structures
that could be refined into burrs, but if there were no shaggy animals to
carry them from place to place, such burrs would not have been an advantage,
and the mutant genes would most likely have vanished over time.
>
> And how does a coconut tree know that there is an ocean near by?
>
It doesn't. I just doesn't grow except in environments that have oceans
nearby. It's like asking how your tomato plants know they're being watered
and fertilized -- they don't know, they don't care, they just won't grow
unless they are. If their seeds end up on ground where they can't get
enough water and nutrients, they won't pack up and look for a better
environment; they'll just fail to grow.
-- Steven J.
JTEM
"Roadking1576" <roadki...@aol.com> wrote
> This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants
> and trees know how to evolve this way?
Isn't there a billy goat you could be chasing?
us...@example.com
>This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants and trees know how to
>evolve this way? I mean, how in hell does a plant know what flavor a bird
>likes?
The plant doesn't know. The plant offers a flavor to the bird. If the
bird likes it, the plant survives through its offspring; if the bird
doesn't like it, the plant doesn't survive.
The plant you see today making tasty berries for the birds didn't know;
it was just lucky.
us...@example.com
>Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.
>The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was joking on
>those.
> One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race has
>evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living oraganisms out
>of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if my numbers are off), is
>it the most threatening species to it's own survival and the survival of the
>planet?
Intelligence carries the seeds of its own destruction.
> And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we are so
>smart that Darwinism has all of its facts straight?
We're not smart enough to come up with something better than Darwinism.
> I don't claim to be real smart myself, but when a little plant forms burr-like
>pods so that it's seed can be carried off by and animal, and that plant doesn't
>have eyes or a brain, then the grand evolving design must have been thought of
>and is being thought of by a higher force.
Yes, that's what you think. Of course, like you say, you're not real
smart yourself.
Lane Lewis
It does seem amazing that a plant can grow the exact berry that a particular
species of bird needs to survive. Kill the plant and the species of bird
dies with it as it can eat nothing else. However all you have to do is go
back a million or so years and you might find that the plant didn't have
those juicy berries and the bird wasn't so particular about them.
What happened in between these two periods is the interesting part. A
mutation developed in one species of plant that made its berries taste a
little better then the rest. Naturally the birds flocked to this plant and
spread its seeds over the others. In another thousand years one of the
descendent plants had another mutation resulting in an even better tasting
berry and so on until the berries were the only ones that the birds would
eat.
Those Psilocybin Mushrooms probably followed the same pattern as many
believe that man has propagated those plants that have the most effect for
religious ceremonies. But whether man was responsible or the birds taste
buds the result is the same. both species benefit from the relationship.
in the case of the coconut tree you will see a similar relationship
with the ocean but a little more one sided as the ocean obviously doesn't
need the coconut to survive.
Lane
Pip R. Lagenta
(Roadking1576) wrote:
[snip]
> And how does a coconut tree know that there is...
[snip]
When I play poker, I wonder how the cards know what hand to give me.
When I am in the bathroom, I wonder how the water in the pipes knows
how to go to be toilet water. (Water is WAY smart. It knows that it
should flow down hill; it knows to boil at one temperature at
sea-level, and at another temperature at high altitude; it knows how
to fill a pothole of ANY shape... etc.) I wonder how a scab knows to
form just over a wound. How does a dime know to be worth ten cents?
How does the Moon know how to orbit the Earth? How does salt know to
form into crystals? How does scurvy know to go away when vitamin C
comes into the system? How does an earthquake know when to happen?
How does red know not to be green? (And where do all these things
keep their brains?) How do most human babies know to stay in the womb
for about nine months? I wonder a lot. I wonder if I have OCD.
內躬偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,
Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta
�虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌
-- Pip R. Lagenta
President for Life
International Organization Of People Named Pip R. Lagenta
(If your name is Pip R. Lagenta, ask about our dues!)
---
<http://home.comcast.net/~galentripp/pip.html>
(For Email: I'm at home, not work.)
Jim Fisher
to
> evolve this way?
This is precisely the question Intelligent Design people ask over and over
again. They do not understand the answers given so they assume there must
be intelligence behind the design. You are falling into the same trap,
friend.
I won't try to give you a full explanation but I will give you an fairly
plausible example.
Millions of years ago, there was plant. It sprouted seeds from its leaves.
Animals walked by this plant all the time, stepped on the seeds and killed
the little baby plants.
One day, a little sunspot erupted on the surface of the sun and sent a burst
of gamma radiation towards the earth. One of the gamma rays struck the
reproductive part of the plant. This caused a gene to get knocked out of
place. This gene produced a couple of seeds that, instead of perfectly
round, had a couple of small burrs growing out of it. We would call this a
deformity today.
A furry little ape-like creature walked by one day and brushed by the plant.
The poor little deformed baby seeds were ripped from the plant just as they
were ripening and got tangled on the ape-thing's thigh where they lived for
many months until the hair of the ape thing fell into some fertile soil at
another location.
The deformed seeds sprouted more deformed seeds. These new seeds were so
successful that even more burrs began to show up on seeds so that they would
attach themselves even tighter to their host.
After and unimaginably long period of time, these seeds, through natural
selection, became the furry seeds you see today.
Boikat
> Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.
> The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was joking
on
> those.
> One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race has
> evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living oraganisms
out
> of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if my numbers are
off), is
> it the most threatening species to it's own survival and the survival of
the
> planet?
Most "intelligent" is a relative term, and does not necasserily mean "wise"
or "all knowing".
> And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we are
so
> smart that Darwinism has all of its facts straight?
We aren't *that* stupid, or we would not recognize when some endevour has a
down side, otherwise. we'd still be dumping raw sewage and industrial waste
into the environment. As far as evolution, based on what we do know, it's
the best theory that explains the diversification os species through time.
Is it the final answer? The answer to that awaits further evidence that
would cause a need to modify or discard the theory as it is presently
formulated.
> I don't claim to be real smart myself, but when a little plant forms
burr-like
> pods so that it's seed can be carried off by and animal, and that plant
doesn't
> have eyes or a brain, then the grand evolving design must have been
thought of
> and is being thought of by a higher force.
If that makes you happy, however, that is simply your opinion.
> And how does a coconut tree know that there is an ocean near by?
It doesn't, but since that is where the seeds end up, that's where the
coconut tree will grow if it sprouts. But then again, from what I
understand, coconut trees are not dependant upon the ocean to distribute the
coconuts themselves. Several old friends of mine were once stationed on
Guam, and part of their yearly ritual was to gather up the coconuts they
could find, just in case a typhoon might hit the island, since flying
coconuts can be hazardous to one's health. Coconut trees can be found well
inland.
Boikat
>
Dick C
> Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.
> The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was
> joking on those.
> One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race
> has
> evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living
> oraganisms out of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if
> my numbers are off), is it the most threatening species to it's own
> survival and the survival of the planet?
Being the smartest kid on the block doesn't mean that you are the
smartest kid in the world. Nor does it mean that you have to be very
smart. It only means that you are smarter than the other kids on the
block. Just because we developed some intelligence in some areas does
not mean that we developed intelligence in other areas.
> And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we
> are so
> smart that Darwinism has all of its facts straight?
Nobody who has any understanding of science thinks that.
Science does not claim that it has all the facts straight, it only
works with what facts it has. It develops theories to explain the
facts it has and to predict finding more facts.
> I don't claim to be real smart myself, but when a little plant forms
> burr-like
> pods so that it's seed can be carried off by and animal, and that
> plant doesn't have eyes or a brain, then the grand evolving design
> must have been thought of and is being thought of by a higher force.
Being smart has little to do with knowledge. One does not need to be
very smart to learn, and I suggest you read some real science books
on evolution, not the creationist crap that you have been reading.
> And how does a coconut tree know that there is an ocean near by?
>
--
Dick #1349
"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
Andre Gide, French author and critic (1869-1951).
Home Page: dickcr.iwarp.com
email: dic...@localnet.com
SortingItOut
> Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.
> The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was joking on
> those.
> One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race has
> evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living oraganisms out
> of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if my numbers are off), is
> it the most threatening species to it's own survival and the survival of the
> planet?
> And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we are so
> smart that Darwinism has all of its facts straight?
Actually we're not stupid in those areas. Besides the fact that it
took a lot of intelligence to invent nuclear weapons, most of the
threats to ourselves and our environment come from innate behavior and
emotions rather than the application of intelligence or the lack
thereof.
We overpopulate and overdevelop because of the bahaviors related to
sex/love/family/etc. and greed/comfort/longevity/etc., respectively.
We create WMD's because of all our war-like behaviors. All of these
behaviors apparently aided our survival up until the recent past.
Only recently due to our large numbers and level of technology are we
threatening ourselves.
Also, a lot of people know we are threatening ourselves, but it's hard
to change human behavior. Besides...even if we kill off 90% of the
human population, that only gets us back to a world population roughly
equal to the year 1700, where we probably considered humans to be
fairly successful.
> I don't claim to be real smart myself, but when a little plant forms burr-like
> pods so that it's seed can be carried off by and animal, and that plant doesn't
> have eyes or a brain, then the grand evolving design must have been thought of
> and is being thought of by a higher force.
> And how does a coconut tree know that there is an ocean near by?
Please re-read all of the responses to your original post. Knowledge
is not necessary for species to evolve. If you say one more time "How
does [insert species here] *know* to [insert change here]?", then
you're not listening and/or you are failing to understand one of the
most fundamental aspects of evolution.
Keep trying to understand it, though. Help us help you. Let's break
an example down into further detail until we make it clear enough.
John Bode
[snip]
> This is all obvious evolution, but how did these plants and trees know how to
> evolve this way? I mean, how in hell does a plant know what flavor a bird
> likes? Or how does another plant know that animals will be walking by? Did
> early seeds just fall straight to the earth...growing up to overcrowd and
> strangle the parent plant ?
> And then there are some plants and mushrooms that use chemical warfare to ward
> off bugs. How did they know how to do that?
> And speaking of mushrooms....of a certain variety....how did they know how to
> do what they do?
> Thanks.
You've got it backwards. The plants didn't "know" how to do these
things, nor did they need to. Within a population, there's always some
degree of unplanned variation between individuals (slightly sweeter or
sourer berries, slightly rougher or smoother seed coatings, slightly
higher or lower concentration of chemicals that ward off insects). In
other words, all the individuals in a population basically roll their
genetic dice. Some roll boxcars, and as a result wind up more
successful at reproducing, and their genes are more prominently
represented in succeeding generations. Some crap out, don't reproduce
as successfully, and their genes are not as prominently represented in
future generations, or maybe even not passed on at all.
Okay, that was a *hideous* metaphor. Remind me to never do that
again.
It's an iterative, feedback-driven process. What comes out at the end
may look like an elegant, intelligent design, but that's only because
we don't see the millions of failures that developed alongside it.
Frank J
> Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.
> The mushrooms I spoke of were the hallucinagenic types...and I was joking on
> those.
> One other question I ponder alot lately is...why, if the human race has
> evolved into the most intelligent and conscious group of living oraganisms out
> of the over fifty million living organisms( ecuse me if my numbers are off), is
> it the most threatening species to it's own survival and the survival of the
> planet?
> And if we're so damned stupid in those areas, what makes us think we are so
I figured from the first post that this would "devolve" into an
argument-from-incredulity about "Darwinism." If you have a better
theory than evolution for the origin of species, we'd love to hear it.
(snip everything after "Darwinism")
Matt Silberstein
<morbiu...@comcast.net>:
>On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 12:13:11 +0000 (UTC), roadki...@aol.com
>(Roadking1576) wrote:
>[snip]
>> And how does a coconut tree know that there is...
>[snip]
>
>When I play poker, I wonder how the cards know what hand to give me.
>When I am in the bathroom, I wonder how the water in the pipes knows
>how to go to be toilet water. (Water is WAY smart. It knows that it
>should flow down hill; it knows to boil at one temperature at
>sea-level, and at another temperature at high altitude; it knows how
>to fill a pothole of ANY shape... etc.) I wonder how a scab knows to
>form just over a wound. How does a dime know to be worth ten cents?
>How does the Moon know how to orbit the Earth? How does salt know to
>form into crystals? How does scurvy know to go away when vitamin C
>comes into the system? How does an earthquake know when to happen?
>How does red know not to be green? (And where do all these things
>keep their brains?) How do most human babies know to stay in the womb
>for about nine months? I wonder a lot. I wonder if I have OCD.
The last one is easy. The answer is yes.
HTH. HAND. TYM.
Roadking1576
apologize if I offended any hard core Darwinites.
I have read some Stephen Jay Gould...and right now I'm reading Steve Pinker's
"how the mind works"...and Scientific American is one of my favorite magazines.
What I don't quite understand is that no matter how you explain it, there
still seems to be a driving force behind evolution and the big bang and
everything else. It's almost like it's a moral force or something...I mean if
there are laws of physics and laws of nature, then isn't there some sort of
moral force with laws behind it all? Don't laws come from morals?
Here we are...the human race....soaring through space on a planet....revolving
around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour....with infinity waiting to be
discovered...quantum discoveries...To see a world in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
( Blake)...
....just thought of another question....when a lightning bug or fire fly lights
up in it's luminous green glow, where do those little rays of light go to? Do
they stop shortly after passing our eyes? Do they continue on for a distance
before being consumed by darkness?
Speaking of light, where would we be without photosynthesis?
...well, sorry if I drifted. Perhaps my Catholic childhood pounded the creation
thing into my psyche forever....but aside from that, it just seems that there
is a higher power. Maybe evolution itself is God.
Thanks again...and have a sparkling day.
AC
Roadking1576 <roadki...@aol.com> wrote:
> Hey thanks for all of the replies once again. Interesting insight. And I
> apologize if I offended any hard core Darwinites.
What is a Darwinite? Is that like a Relativite, Geologite or a Quantum
Mechanite?
> I have read some Stephen Jay Gould...and right now I'm reading Steve Pinker's
> "how the mind works"...and Scientific American is one of my favorite magazines.
> What I don't quite understand is that no matter how you explain it, there
> still seems to be a driving force behind evolution and the big bang and
> everything else. It's almost like it's a moral force or something...I mean if
> there are laws of physics and laws of nature, then isn't there some sort of
> moral force with laws behind it all? Don't laws come from morals?
Is a lion eating a baby gazelle moral? Is a supernova blasting neighboring
stellar systems with radiation moral?
I never understand why people feel the need anthropomorphize natural forces.
> Here we are...the human race....soaring through space on a planet....revolving
> around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour....with infinity waiting to be
> discovered...quantum discoveries...To see a world in a Grain of Sand,
> And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
> Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
> And eternity in an hour.
> ( Blake)...
> ....just thought of another question....when a lightning bug or fire fly lights
> up in it's luminous green glow, where do those little rays of light go to? Do
> they stop shortly after passing our eyes? Do they continue on for a distance
> before being consumed by darkness?
Go look up "photons".
> Speaking of light, where would we be without photosynthesis?
We wouldn't.
> ...well, sorry if I drifted. Perhaps my Catholic childhood pounded the creation
> thing into my psyche forever....but aside from that, it just seems that there
> is a higher power. Maybe evolution itself is God.
> Thanks again...and have a sparkling day.
Evolution would be a very odd choice for God.
BTW. My wife is a Catholic, and she doesn't seem to have this hang up.
--
Aaron Clausen
David Jensen
John Wilkins
Duly seconded. I shall use the bon mot about dimes (shamelessly and
without giving credit).
--
John Wilkins - wilkins.id.au
[I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "...interesting
hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? ...
must have been made to have me in it." Douglas Adams, Salmon of Doubt
Roadking1576
<What is a Darwinite? Is that like a Relativite, Geologite or a Quantum
Mechanite?>
nah....a Darwinite is like a termite...they both bore.
nyuk, nyuk.
catshark
<morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>How do most human babies know to stay in the womb
>for about nine months?
And how do the others know to wait until they are in taxis?
And what do tornados have against trailer parks?
>I wonder a lot. I wonder if I have OCD.
Wasn't that a requirement on the t.o. registration form?
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Nunc Id Vides, Nunc Ne Vides
- Unseen University Motto -
catshark
[snip]
>> Speaking of light, where would we be without photosynthesis?
>
>We wouldn't.
Whatca mean 'we', eucaryote?
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
- Philip K. Dick -
Frank J
Apologies if I jumped the gun on my last response. I am getting too
troll-weary.
AIUI, your philosophical questions are yet, and possibly forever,
unanswerable. But sometimes the language of science can't avoid
sounding teleological ("self-organization," "body plan") or
"anti-teleological" ("random mutation"). And sometimes popularizers of
science stray into their own philosophy. That's why I constantly argue
against using the word "Darwinism." It's a hopelessly ambiguous word
that plays right into the hands of the pseudoscientific evolution
misrepresenters.
If you haven't aleady, you might want to read "Finding Darwin's God,"
by Kenneth Miller. Miller may not go so far as to suggest that
"evolution itself is God," but he reconciles the concepts nicely,
without pretending that there is evidence for or against "intelligent
design." Some things remain a matter of faith. Perhaps that's the
designer's intention.
John Wilkins
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 20:16:27 +0000 (UTC), "Pip R. Lagenta"
> <morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
...
> >I wonder a lot. I wonder if I have OCD.
>
> Wasn't that a requirement on the t.o. registration form?
>
I filled it out again and again, and I *still* don't know...
AC
I thought Rodney Dangerfield was still recovering from brain surgery? :-)
--
Aaron Clausen
Roadking1576
it last year, and if I remember correctly, Stephen Gould is mentioned in the
book...and I may have bought Gould's book out of curiosity...but never finished
"finding Darwin's God". I will get back to it eventually, though. Just jumping
around a bit trying to get different ideas.
It's all mind boggling sometimes to think that this all started from a point
of nothingness to a big bang to dust froming planets...ours with six constants
that keep it stable...and tiny micro-organisms coming forth out of stardust and
eventually evolving into what we see now....highways full of speeding SUV's
with strange space creatures inside on cell phones....not to mention everything
around us. How about those little organisms they found recently on the ocean
floor that thrive in 250 degree(f) heat coming up from vents in the earths
crust....and they get dormant at 185 degrees. And this is only the planet
earth. We are just a piss hole in the snow compared to the big picture....and
who knows what's beyond the big picture. Yep...evolution is fascinating
alright....but it's just hard to accept that it's without design of some sort.
Take sunflowers for instance.....at dawn, they face east...and follow the sun
across the day's sky to watch the purple red pink sunset.....and as darkness
arrives, they start their slow faces back towards the east to await what they
love the most....their God and saviour...the sun.
Now someone please tell me....how dey know how to do dat?
Okay....I'll quit with the stupid questions before I wear out my
welcome.....as I'm sure they have all been hashed out before.
Back to the books.
:)
eyelessgame
> Hello all...just a quick question.
> [snip -- bunch of stuff that's 'how did plants know to grow this way?']
Let's talk about some evolutionary change humans have caused. Maybe it
will help you see.
If you look at the nearest wild cousins of wheat and barley, they're
basically wild grass. Humans bred wheat and barley, in other words,
to be these amazingly nutritious plants you can make bread and beer
out of. Wheat and barley didn't start out that way. They were better
at being food for people than the other plants around were, sure --
that's why humans started cultivating them -- but they weren't
anything like the modern staple crops.
And over (only) thousands of years, wheat has turned into something
very different from what it started out as.
So you'll say "but human intelligence did it!" Well, sure, humans were
involved, but look at the *process*. All they did was pick the plants
that tasted the best (because there's always some random variation in
each generation of crops), and planted more of those seeds, and didn't
plant the ones that tasted less good.
And what was the result? We got better and better wheat. The wheat
didn't "know" how to make itself more like what we want, yet it did.
The environment (us) provided a selection pressure that caused the
wheat to grow more to our liking.
This same thing happens over and over and over, with all different
living things -- they happen to be something like what something else
can use, and so that something else makes do with it. And by "making
do", the second thing helps the *most useful* specimens of the first
thing reproduce, and thereby selects which ones do and don't
reproduce. The more useful genes get propagated, and over time the
species changes.
No intelligence required. It's as automatic -- as inevitable -- as a
brook "knowing" the fastest route downhill, finding the lowest part of
every valley to flow through. How can it know that? Did the brook hire
a surveyor to go scout out the landscape and plot out the quickest way
downhill, so it could follow it? No, of course not. It just went the
way it went, obeying gravity, and when it got pulled into a dead end,
the water stopped flowing that way and flowed a different way. The
path it took was the path that got it downhill fastest -- and looking
back up the path, it can seem uncanny that it "knew" which path to
take at every turn. But you don't think it's uncanny, because you know
how gravity works, and how water flows, because you can watch it
happen and it happens fast. Evolution works over huge periods of
time. We can't watch it, because our lives are way too short. But
there's no intelligence involved in plants growing better and better
means of sticking to the coats of animals, to spread their seeds
better -- because the current plant is the product of millions of
generations of plants, *all of which were lucky enough to survive to
breed*. Of course it seems odd and skewed -- because a million
generations of losers got weeded out, one after another after another.
Every single living thing is a thoroughbred, the result of four
billion years of breeding, culling out those that didn't make it in
their current environment long enough to pass on a copy of their DNA.
Of *course* it looks designed. But it's just a huge feedback loop.
And sure, it's a miracle -- it's a miracle that particle physics can
result in organic chemistry and that organic chemistry can result in
us -- all without any help. But it can, because it did.
eyelessgame
Pradera
> Take sunflowers for instance.....at dawn, they face east...and follow
> the sun across the day's sky to watch the purple red pink
> sunset.....and as darkness arrives, they start their slow faces back
> towards the east to await what they love the most....their God and
> saviour...the sun.
You're a mithraist?
--
Pradera
---
I'm going hunting.
I'm a hunter.
http://www.pradera-castle.prv.pl/earthdawn
http://www.pradera-castle.prv.pl/
http://www.tolkien-gen.prv.pl/
Roadking1576
not that I knew of...but thanks for the new word.
Just thought of something else....isn't it interesting that the seeds in the
sun flower grow in a spiral design as if they are copying the spiral galaxy of
the sun that they thrive on?
so, I'll add to my little poetic ode to the sunflower...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Take sunflowers for instance.....at dawn, they face east...and follow the sun
across the day's sky, their spiral seed design protruding like aroused nipples
seduced by galaxy lust to watch the purple red pink sunset.....and as darkness
arrives, they start their slow faces back towards the east like insatiable
lovers to await what they love the most....their God and
saviour...the sun.
*looks down at coffee cup*
hmmm...too strong?
Frank J
They are not stupid questions. Just remember though, that evolution is
about "proximate causes," not ultimate causes." Although evolution
sheds some light on the origin of life (mainly by being consitent with
it being a rare and possibly unique event), evolution is not a theory
for the origin of life, let alone the origin of the universe.
I first heard of the proximate vs. ultimate causes from this article,
in which a theistic evolutionist (who calls himself a "creationist")
criticizes an "intelligent design" advocate (who prefers *not* to be
called a "creationist"):
Andrew Arensburger
> What is a Darwinite? Is that like a Relativite, Geologite or a Quantum
> Mechanite?
I think darwinite is a mineral only found in Darwin. Ask one
of the Australian t.o readers to send you a sample.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu Office of Information Technology
If the government expects us to obey the law, it should set a better example.
Andrew Arensburger
> Just thought of something else....isn't it interesting that the seeds in the
> sun flower grow in a spiral design as if they are copying the spiral g
>alaxy of
> the sun that they thrive on?
It's not just sunflowers that grow in a spiral; it's a whole
lot of plants (take a look at pine cones, for instance).
Philip Ball spends some time discussing this in "The Self-Made
Tapestry". Highly recommended.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Decadence is its own reward.
John Wilkins
> AC <tao...@alberni.net> wrote:
> > What is a Darwinite? Is that like a Relativite, Geologite or a Quantum
> > Mechanite?
>
> I think darwinite is a mineral only found in Darwin. Ask one
> of the Australian t.o readers to send you a sample.
It comes in the shape of a fossilised beer can. Google on "Homo
micturans" and see if you get any hits :-)
catshark
<arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu> wrote:
>Roadking1576 <roadki...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Just thought of something else....isn't it interesting that the seeds in the
>> sun flower grow in a spiral design as if they are copying the spiral g
>>alaxy of
>> the sun that they thrive on?
>
> It's not just sunflowers that grow in a spiral; it's a whole
>lot of plants (take a look at pine cones, for instance).
> Philip Ball spends some time discussing this in "The Self-Made
>Tapestry". Highly recommended.
There is a nice, accessible article about patterns in nature here:
<http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/0603/0603_feature.html>
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Cogito sum, ergo sum, cogito.
- Robert Carroll -
TomS
<biglmd$jri$1...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu>, Andrew Arensburger stated..."
>
>AC <tao...@alberni.net> wrote:
>> What is a Darwinite? Is that like a Relativite, Geologite or a Quantum
>> Mechanite?
>
> I think darwinite is a mineral only found in Darwin. Ask one
>of the Australian t.o readers to send you a sample.
I see that my campaign to get an element named "darwinium" is not
progressing as rapidly as I hoped. I noticed recently that element 110
just received its official name of "darmstadtium". We're running out
of unnamed elements. The goal is to get one named in time for Darwin's
200th birthday (2009 February 12). My preference is for number 111, as
the next element in group 11 after copper, silver and gold. That would
make it nice as a symbolic element for high-value credit cards and
awards ("in recognition of your album selling its one billionth copy,
you are being awarded the first darwinium record").
Andrew Arensburger
> Andrew Arensburger <arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu> wrote:
>> I think darwinite is a mineral only found in Darwin. Ask one
>> of the Australian t.o readers to send you a sample.
> It comes in the shape of a fossilised beer can.
Great. Now I'm expecting *d C*nr*d to visit your fair country,
find one of these, and start proclaiming, "Man as old as beer!"
Actually, that might be an improvement.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu Office of Information Technology
I've suffered enough--when does my art improve?