sarahiki Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 (edited) Meme explains this stuff better than I do, but I guess I'll give it a shot. I think you are thinking about it from the wrong perspective. It's not so much that there was a NEED for change, and so beings evolved. Rather, variability is inevitable, because of mutations and sexual selection. From that vast sea of variability, certain traits were useful. It's a long term process, but condense it and magnify the scale of the mutation, and imagine a person born with a mutation that gives them an extra arm. Useful! That three-armed dude is able to get a ton of work done, plus is quite attractive to women for his abilities & wealth. He has lots of babies, some of whom inherit the third arm. They also find the third arm to be a useful trait to have, and it allows them to succeed and reproduce. It's not that anyone NEEDED a third arm to get by, but once it was introduced, it was "selected for." This is probably a terrible example since in fact mutations and variations happen on a much smaller scale over a much longer period of time, but I think it still illustrates the process.(edited to remove weird duplication of text) Edited March 31, 2009 by sarahiki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
memebag Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 It isn't logical to say that whale fingers show the consistency of a single creator, but squid eyes show the inconsistency of an all powerful creator. If inconsistency is evidence for a creator then consistency isn't. You can't have it both ways.Competition is unavoidable. All life is in competition with all other life because resources are limited. If I eat that cabbage then no one else can eat it.If a bird has two offspring and they aren't identical, then one of them will have a slightly better chance at survival and reproduction, increasing that childs genes' chances to multiply. Over multiple generations you see the genes that get themselves copied the most thrive, while the other genes fail.There is no "need" to evolve. It's just the inevitable outcome of the math and physics. As long as there is replication, variation and limited resources, evolution happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihop Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 But why didn't evolution produce just one single thing and then simply reproduce it over and over? I understand that things evolved according to their environment, right? Well, if they were all in the same environment, why did they change so drastically from each other? I guess they wondered off into different parts of the world? If there was a logical answer, I guess that's it?It goes back to the source of the changes: random mutations. Plants/animals/bacteria change in small ways. After mass extinctions, it appears that there was less competition for resources, and species that might not survive otherwise flourished. But in a competitive environment, only the "good" changes that produce species that have an advantage will survive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lockmat Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 It isn't logical to say that whale fingers show the consistency of a single creator, but squid eyes show the inconsistency of an all powerful creator. If inconsistency is evidence for a creator then consistency isn't. You can't have it both ways.Competition is unavoidable. All life is in competition with all other life because resources are limited. If I eat that cabbage then no one else can eat it.If a bird has two offspring and they aren't identical, then one of them will have a slightly better chance at survival and reproduction, increasing that childs genes' chances to multiply. Over multiple generations you see the genes that get themselves copied the most thrive, while the other genes fail.There is no "need" to evolve. It's just the inevitable outcome of the math and physics. As long as there is replication, variation and limited resources, evolution happens.It's not logically inconsistent that GM make cars, SUVs, hybrids, electric cars, race cars, commercial trucks and fork lifts. They have the same basic functions yet are all built differently and have one maker. It's their prerogative to make different kinds of things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
memebag Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 It's not logically inconsistent that GM make cars, SUVs, hybrids, electric cars, race cars, commercial trucks and fork lifts. They have the same basic functions yet are all built differently and have one maker. It's their prerogative to make different kinds of things.It's logically inconsistent to say that both consistency and inconsistency in biological forms are evidence for a single creator, unless that creator is a prankster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Julio Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 I believe that the moon is made out of green cheese, because when I look up at the night sky, it looks exactly like a ball of green cheese. I'm just going to pretend that 500 years of physics and astronomy don't exist, because that would upset my Green Cheese Theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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