I think evolution is a self-organising force, driven by chance because of environmental conditions.
The self-organising force driving evolution, I think, is similar to entropy, nature's tendency to smooth things out to get an equal energy balance, in
turn driven by thermodynamical laws.
If you look at nature as a whole then you can see the entire earth, without humans or only a small population of humans, is a perfectly stable and balanced biotope with a netto energy excess of 0. Everything is recycled or re-used.
Within this biotope we can see "evolution", where one creature is adding to the left side of the scale/balance and the other to the right side of the scale balance. Their netto result is still 0.
That's what nature is about.
It doesn't like to have a whif of gas sitting in a corner of your room, it makes it spread everywhere.
That spread happens kind of randomly and similar to evolution it IS that aspect which makes it difficult to accept for many people, because when applying evolution you will have to accept that at least a part of the driving mechanism is chaos/randomness and that's exactly what religious people don't believe in.
Quote from: TheBadger on July 21, 2013, 01:25:59 PM
Thanks guys!
actually I am pretty neutral. I don't have a problem with the truth whatever that is. For me there are two fundamental questions, the how and the why.
The how is biology/science, and the why is metaphysics/philosophy/religion.
I am neutral because I am not bothered by the seeming conflict between Science and metaphysics.
You can easily substitute metaphysics with religion here or rather philosophy.
Metaphysics is metaphysics, because it can't be called science since metaphysics doesn't use certain steps involved to call the findings "scientific".
Actually there's no real conflict between the two because metaphysical thinking is essential to (performing) science.
Metaphysics is about the questions, the why, and science is about both why and how where it lends it's "why" from the metaphysical approach, but uses methods (experiments) to support the metaphysical core of why we're performing science -> to understand (our) nature.
This is reasoning from the scientific point of view, but there's hardly any arguing possible against science, since it has proven itself zillion times to be a truthful method of describing the universe we live in and all we see and do (not) understand.
Quote from: TheBadger on July 21, 2013, 01:25:59 PM
But what sparked this post (besides the conversation I heard and mentioned in the OP) is that the more I read about the how/science the more I am seeing that it reads an awful lot like religion. Can you believe that as I begin to explore this all with an open mind, I am finding just as many fanatics in "science" as religion?
Science is not religion. Period.
However,....defending the scienfitic methods can be seen like being religious over it.
But then one can ask why a person would consider such a person being religious over it.
Because he can't persuade him? Because he can't deny that science gave as so much to make our lives easier and better.
(except for PRISM and the global crisis, lol)
See the above paragraph. Science has proven itself way too much to be questioned at all.
That we can't explain all aspects of our universe by using science, yet, does absolutely not mean that science is a believe or not a good tool.
Science and technology go hand in hand and it is especially this bond which allowed us to progressively acquire knowledge.
Science needs to evolve too
Following this topic, for example:
The first human genome to be sequenced cost >$100k and took many months.
Now it costs <$5000 and takes a couple of days.
Improved technology as a product of science.
Not only does it allow to do more in less, eventually it will allow us to explore the most complex interactions and connection of genes with their environment.
We will just have to wait for more computing power and more cheaper and faster sequencing to then analyze this huge heap of genetic information. And interesting answers and questions will be found, no doubt.
Quote from: TheBadger on July 21, 2013, 01:25:59 PM
My problem is, the more I learn about Darwinism, and modern sciences continued relationship with darwin's ideas. The less I think the study of evolution is about the how, and more about rejecting any claims of why.
Why do you think so?
Do you think scientist who research evolution are actually researching to disprove religious people?
Don't worry, they absolutely don't waste their time on this.
The continued relationship between darwinism and science is only because scientific methods support the idea by providing proof/evidence, not only from the biological realm of science, but also geology for example.
Geologists study the drift of continents, for example, and using genetic studies you can show when certain species with a common ancestor became separated and you can overlay that with geologists data.
Quote from: TheBadger on July 21, 2013, 01:25:59 PM
Basically I think evolution is a real biological process, my problem is darwinism makes understanding it impossible.
Darwin understood almost nothing about genetics, and yet everything I have been reading about evolution is based entirely on the racist nut-bags ideas. I just don't get that!? Genetics proves there is no such thing as race, or rather, genetics proves there is only one human race.
You should really stop calling it darwinism, but rather "evolution". Since that's the easiest concept and basically what this whole discussion is about: is evolution true or not.
Darwinism is a populistic term.
Quote from: TheBadger on July 21, 2013, 01:25:59 PM
Yes I put it simply. But I think fundamentally correctly.
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-help/about-cancer/what-is-cancer/cells/how-cancer-starts
Can you explain again, why you think it's fundamentally correctly?
Because I think it is not.
You imply all cancers are genetically inheritable.
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What you are saying here is that because man is here, and man evolved, therefore evolution is true.
No we're not. That's what you make of it.
We applied your reasoning to how the world would look if it would be true.
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If you can find me one example of a positive genetic mutation in a lab study I would be grateful.
Seemingly you still didn't let the positive/negative mutation thing go. It's pretty senseless Michael. Evolution can't be understood by scoring individual outcomes of genes. It's the end result which matters, because that determines survival.
You should keep another thing in mind:
You have evolution and you have evolution.
The evolution we're discussing here, I THINK, is the "big one" of the two.
Why do animals have certain traits, how did those improve their survival and how does these mechanisms work.
The evolution you're sometimes trying to mix into here is the "small one".
If I were to have cancer, then that cancer has evolved (evolution) in my body.
That's a different kind of evolution, small scale, in a different context.
There may be overlap with the "big one", but there are plenty of environmental factors present causing cancer, like smoking/drinking/drugs.
There doesn't have to be an evolutionary (big one) mechanism behind it. Not all cancer, at all, is inhereted.
However, some are, like some forms of intestinal and breast cancers.
And it's hard to say, so forgive me for that, but in a natural environment, without medical science, those persons would die and thus the genetic background causing that cancer will also disappear.