View Full Version : Fuzzy New Agey evolution stuff...
LoneStarHero
March 17th, 2009, 11:04 am
Do organisms really have any pressure to tend toward survival? It seems that organisms would need some sort of self awareness to have such self interest.
Why would a life form with no central nervous system have a "mission" to reproduce.
Are the mechanisms for organisms to gravitate toward survival known or even testable?
The explanation that "life finds a way" appears to be unfalsifiable.
Marleysdaddy
March 17th, 2009, 11:07 am
You should read The Selfish Gene...it would give you an entirely different perspective. I think you'd like it.
Marleysdaddy
March 17th, 2009, 11:09 am
Do organisms really have any pressure to tend toward survival? It seems that organisms would need some sort of self awareness to have such self interest.
There is no "self interest", it's just chemistry/physiology
Why would a life form with no central nervous system have a "mission" to reproduce.
There is no "mission", it's just chemistry/physiology
Are the mechanisms for organisms to gravitate toward survival known or even testable?
yes...your "fight or flight" response is one such mechanism, and its effects are easily observable and testable
Marleysdaddy
March 17th, 2009, 11:10 am
I would love to discuss this more, so please follow this thread after it is moved to General Interests.
LoneStarHero
March 17th, 2009, 11:11 am
Will do :)
Greyclouds
March 17th, 2009, 12:12 pm
You should read The Selfish Gene...it would give you an entirely different perspective. I think you'd like it.
Beat me to it :D
I believe that if people started viewing Evolution with the following in mind, they would have few if any doubts about the veracity of its predictive power:
1. Organisms live in populations; each population is not a "collection of individuals" but rather a "collection of genes." The best copies of genes survive and duplicate.
2. Genes are the basic unit of evolution, not organisms.
3. Less than 4% of the human genome codes for protein. The rest? All variable repeat regions, mobile elements and structural components. Slight modifications to ANY of these regions can enact HUGE phenotypic changes! The change of ONE NUCLEOTIDE in one copy of the beta hemoglobin gene results in this:
An erythrocyte: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Erythrocyte.svg/216px-Erythrocyte.svg.png
Looking more like this: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z7GDRdZVKnQ/RvMpS6wWjVI/AAAAAAAAAAM/r-KsKPKaqes/s320/sicklecell.bmp
One gene, one nucleotide. We have 10,000+ genes, and 3.1 billion nucleotides.
A change in physical appearance can occur that easily.