Evolution/ Evilution vs. God's big plans

Nicely said. But at the same time I am drawn to something said on NPR recently.

Apparently people were complaining because some kind of random function on, I think, an MP3 player was bringing certain songs on a regular basis. Was it possible that some MP3s just like Steely Dan? They asked the manufacturer who thought the random cycle was indeed random, and then they ran system through a variety test, and sure enough it came up random.

So why did a person think the MP3 player preferred or selected Steely Dan so often-

Because human beings like to have a notion of an ordered universe. We instinctively look for order in nature, and will find patterns where no patterns exist.

Now take that notion of finding order and think of evolution as something happening, repeatedly, over hundreds of thousands of years. Imagine all the species that have died because they were surpassed. Perhaps the complexity you see really is the result of largely random sets of events happening in some coordination game, iterated continuously, and with some notion of path-dependence- such that the even of yesterday shapes the choices of interaction tomorrow.

Maybe evolution is some random pattern.

In this sense, I agree with Kharn. If we are looking for some notion of "truth" than the choices of science or religion are mutually exclusive.

But what if we are not just seeking some peace of mind with a notion of "truth" (which won't be perfect but only something we can live with)?

That assumes that you're goal is some notion of "truth". What if your goals are something else?

Does that mean that faith and science serve just "functional" needs of the human experience? Perhaps.
 
welsh said:
Maybe evolution is some random pattern.
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I wouldn't exactly call it random, but seems more like a response or adaptation to current environmental conditions, demands for survival and many other factors some of which we may not know at this point.

Contrary to popular belief that 'survival of the fittest' was a key factor, it seems like co-operation between species played a greater part; every organism depends on other organisms in some way or other.

My problem with religions is that they place man above everything as the centre of creation. This has caused people to act thoughtlessly through the ages leading to our current shitty situation.

We are part of this ecosystem, we are not above it or own it like most people like to believe and we fully depend on its well being; in these current times when we are experiencing the results of the abuse that has been caused to this planet, this sort of 'self-righteous' attitude that religions promote is the last thing we need.
 
QuietFanatic you read my mind!

When I was young I was introduced to science very early and under very good terms. Consequentally I tended to view most things from a purely logical perspective. When dealing with God I wanted to believe so bad, but I felt nervous saying their is a God when in fact I cant be sure and saying its true is a form of dishonesty. So I didnt...

Yet in my study of the creatures of the world I just see so much artistic influence and random hilarity I almost can't believe someone didnt create them and that they evolved that way. I mean most creatures make perfect biological sense...a few are just too offbeat though to take seriously.

The thing with scientist is that everything must have its place. Even if the existence of a God is doubtful the idea brings more order to the perception of a person's world and thus makes it somehow seem even more scientific.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
The problem with science and faith is that faith is the better motivation.

I've got yet to watch someone blow theirself up for scientific reasons.

Religion won't die out as long as humans don't evolve beyond the irrational animals they are.

Then again, maybe religion is the most rational thing to stick to. Even scientists tend to turn religious when Death is closing in on them.
 
Ashmo said:
The problem with science and faith is that faith is the better motivation.

I've got yet to watch someone blow theirself up for scientific reasons.
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I think you might have got faith mixed up with stupidity..

If science promised me thousand virgins at my disposal, hell.. I'd blow myself up anytime.
 
What is with political Ideologies?
People kill themselves for those, and most are somehow based on scientific research.
So I would say people kill themselves for scientific reasons.
And some people are willing to risk their live for "truth" gained thrugh scientific reaserches(e.g Galiliei), although I do not know if they would kill themselfes for it.
 
Gus said:
Ashmo said:
The problem with science and faith is that faith is the better motivation.

I've got yet to watch someone blow theirself up for scientific reasons.
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I think you might have got faith mixed up with stupidity..

If science promised me thousand virgins at my disposal, hell.. I'd blow myself up anytime.
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Oh, right. Gullibility. I always mix that up.

So which one was about reciting the Bible litterally and calling science evil?
 
Corpse-

Last I heard that balance of nature stuff was just crap.

Nature actually has regular catastrophe and rebuilds, and prey will be wiped out by predators if predators are left wild.

What you may see in a logical act of cooperation or balancing, may have it's basis in other micro-level relationships in which survival and extinction are constantly in play.
 
Actually welsh, you missed Corpse's main point. The major problem about how we as human societies try to create sustainable policies and resource usage is that we have to accept the fact that we are animals as well and a major part of nature too. That's pretty hard of we follow ideologies that promote the belief that the world is something to harvest.
 
Ozrat said:
Actually welsh, you missed Corpse's main point. The major problem about how we as human societies try to create sustainable policies and resource usage is that we have to accept the fact that we are animals as well and a major part of nature too. That's pretty hard of we follow ideologies that promote the belief that the world is something to harvest.
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Thanks for understanding my point Ozrat.:ok:

welsh said:
Corpse-

Last I heard that balance of nature stuff was just crap.
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Sorry but where did you hear this?

Any Links?

Welsh said:
Nature actually has regular catastrophe and rebuilds, and prey will be wiped out by predators if predators are left wild.
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I wasn't debating this, I know very well that many catastrophes have brought all life to the brink of extinction; nevertheless life has found a way to rebuild and adapt to the new resulting conditions.

I'm no expert on this subject but as far as I know no species have been wiped out by predators in their natural habitat; this mainly seems to happen mostly where species are introduced into an alien habitat.

Mmmm, makes you wonder about the origins of man.

welsh said:
What you may see in a logical act of cooperation or balancing, may have it's basis in other micro-level relationships in which survival and extinction are constantly in play.
Click to expand...

What I tried to say there is that the interaction with other organisms, is also a factor responsible for adaptations; Lamarck was partly right when he said the giraffe got its long neck from stretching it to reach distant leaves.
Whether its a predator - prey or symbiotic relationship, in the end it triggers adaptations in all parties involved.

Darwin was wrong in saying that the hereditary changes are randomised, where in fact seems to be more a responsive change (action-reaction) to its environment amongst other factors; we see an accelerated form of this in a virus for example, a virus can adapt to a changing environment in a matter of hours.
 
Corpse said:
Darwin was wrong in saying that the hereditary changes are randomised, where in fact seems to be more a responsive change (action-reaction) to its environment amongst other factors; we see an accelerated form of this in a virus for example, a virus can adapt to a changing environment in a matter of hours.
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Might be because the virus reproduces realy fast, so that there are many mutations, and if only one of this is better in surviving than the others, from now on this mutant will be the virus.
And about the virus changing in a mather of ours, I would say that the mutants having the necesary abilities already exist before, just in a very small number, similar to those rabits that survived that virus in Australia.

Edit:After rereading I have a fealing that I misunderstood you.
 
A virus does not reproduce in a conventional sense; it replicates itself.
Though the mutations may be many in order to produce a surviving strain, they are not random in the sense that they are a direct response to different variables in its environment.
 
I knew that virus replicate.
What i meant is that the mutants could as well be random, since the sheer amount with which virus replicate, should open the the possibility that one of the many mutated viruses carries a possibility to "survive" under certain circumstance with it, it is just not needed in the moment, giving it no advantages or disadvantages at the moment.
But as soon as the environment changes it has huge advantages, and while the rest of the virus vanishies, the mutant becomes the virus, which gives an illusion of a direct response.
Of course by this theory there should be a lot of mutants carrying totally useless abilities, but not vanishing because they do not give them any disadvantages.

Edit:spelling
 
Again, I'm no expert on viruses, in fact my knowledge is quite basic so correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't see how any mutant virus that carries useless traits would survive the conditions that triggered mutations in the first place (unless such traits were dormant, and the adaptations needed to survive its current environment were present). As far as I know a virus does not mutate in static conditions; normal conditions however are not static so subtle mutations may occur from time to time (themselves responses to varied elements in its environment). But in the event that you introduce another agent to fight the virus, mutations are triggered in a larger scale; this is where a direct response is observed.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of a “balance of nature.” I just don’t believe in it. Furthermore, I don’t do environmental science although I have often taught environmental law. My area is social science, not natural ones. What I get from the environmental sciences I pick up as supplemental to my study of law or personal interests.

Studies of natural of behavior have illustrated that predators will wipe out prey if possible- what limits them is that predators often wipe each other out- the way male lions will kill potential heirs, or there is conflict within hierarchical orders- such as wolf packs or killer whale pods. What saves prey is often sanctuaries or places of refuge that they can escape to. Daniel Botkin, University of California, Santa Barbara had proven that prey-predator relationships don’t reach equilibrium ponts but rather fluctuate wildly and unpredicatabily, or the prey is eliminated and the predator dies of starvation.

Link? Well I actually discourage web-research for my students but how about these sources-
Michael Crawley- Natural Enemies: The population biology of predators, parasites and diseases. – especially Carro and Fitzgibbons chapter.
Michael Hassell- Dynamics of Competition and Predation
John Holland- Hidden Order- How Adaptation Builds Complexity
Hans Kruuk, The Spotted Hyena- A study of Predation and Social Behavior.
Probably also Jarad Diamond- Guns Germs and Steel.

Balance of nature is a basis of ecology that itself is based on the Greek oikos, meaning “household” and so ecological theories seek to expand our notion of what is our “household” suggesting interaction and interdependence between different life. In other words seeks out to find interconnections and that this is morally superior- an idea expressed in Aldo Leopold’s definition of ethics- “all ethics rest upon a single premise that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.” The notion of ecology suggests that if you do one thing in one place it cascades, often through negative externalities, into unintended circumstances. Thus the moral basis to believe that things move towards homeostasis- and the balance of nature, an inherent balancing that takes place of an equilibrium between prey and predator, competition and coexistence. But this system of balancing or self-regulation is not without it’s limits and thus human action can fundamentally upset the environment’s ability to balance out, or it’s “carrying capacity.” Thus too much CO2 and you get Ozone Depletion and Greenhouse effect.

But note there is an ontological and normative bias. Like I said, I want to see this too, but we need to accept that it might not be true and needs to be tested.

Ok, a lot of this comes from Stevens, “New Eye on Nature: The Real Constant is Eternal Turmoil” published in the science section of the NY Times, back on July 31, 1990.

Here’s a few links I found-
http://www2.univ-reunion.fr/~duban/Evlm(on%20site)/Evl.%20misc./Balance_of_nature.html

Note discussion of defense of balance-of-nature - http://gadfly.igc.org/ecology/reconeco.htm
http://gadfly.igc.org/ecology/nature.htm
http://www.dhushara.com/book/diversit/restor/echaos.htm

However, this notion of the balance of nature began to get challenged in the 1990s. According to these scientists, change and turmoil rather than constancy and balance were the rule. Ecological communities of plants and animals were inherently unstable because of idiosyncratic differences in behavior among communities and individual in them. An aggressive wolf-pack leader can upset a natural balance, likewise the death of a wolfpack leader. Those would be endogenous changes. Now add exogenous forces- changes in the weather, fire, windstorms and other year-to-year variations in climate or disease seldom would give communities a chance to settle into a stable equilibrium, even in the absence of human interaction. George Jacobson, paleoecologist at the University of Maine is quoted- “There is almost no circumstance that something isn’t changing the environmental system.” Peter Chesson, theoretical ecologist at Ohio State University- on balance of nature concept’s vitality- “We can say that’s dead for most people in the scientific community.”

Consider, variations in climate patterns shape history of northern native Americans- forcing many to starve to death or wage war, or move during periods of hardship. Moving native Americans take root in new environments and potentially wipe out the indigenous population of prey before moving on. And so species of prey were wiped out.

To me the balance of nature theory suggests an teleogical assumption of reaching a natural Pareto-superior equilibrium in species interactions. But my own studies at the strategic interactions suggest that generally there may be many equilibrium on the Pareto frontier nor is that there a consistent move towards an optimal relationship. Rather, distribution variation in power shapes the ability of individual actors (or even species) to achieve their own self-interest leading to Pareto-inferior solutions for all. – God I sound like a geek!

Ok, if the science is disputed and the old theory is being contested heavily. What does that mean for environmentalism? Not much, I think unless it makes us more careful. If we should expect that our participate in the environment could have negative unanticipated consequences, than it pays us to be more careful. If we accept that ecological systems regularly get wiped out by endogenous and exogenous changes, than the challenge of stewardship is in fact more severe. Rather than see the destruction of the environment due to man’s interaction than we need to also consider the predator-prey tests which illustrate clearly that a predator may destroy itself in its’ willingness to wipe out it’s prey.
 
Well, nature itself is not static but seems to follow a chaotic pattern in most aspects if not all; evolution being one.
Different variables are always present that alter conditions constantly which I failed to consider in my previous post.
Though I was wrong about prey being wiped out by predators (thanks for clearing that up), it seems that fluctuations in environmental conditions have been the main driving factors where this has occurred. Then again I am making quick assumptions based on my observation of the articles you recommended which I haven't yet read thouroughly.

Anyway, thanks for the links and your recommendations.:ok:
 
No problem, Corpse. My research on this is a bit dated as I haven't taught environmental in about 4 years and haven't taken the time to update. So this was kind of fun.

It does seem like balance of nature theory still has some defenders out there, but it's taken a beating to new ecology. The "systems theory" defense I think is a poor one.
 
Unfortunately a lot of people seem to take a fanatical approach to ideas, even in the light of evidence which contradicts or disproves their views.

This is the wrong attitude to have in science as it is in any other aspect of life.
 
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