Was there enough time in the 'family tree' of evolution to create the diversity.... [Archive]

Iamme

10th August 2006, 05:05 PM

..of life that ranges from molds, to grass, to trees, to flowers, to snakes/poisonous fangs, to walking sticks, to octopus tentacles...and on and on.

I was watching a tv show the other night about the reputed giant squid whose legendary stories have been told, and of which some 35 foot? carcass had actually been found and is now in the Smithsonian? Museum. When I saw that show and thought about the squid and the design of it's suckers, and how this creature supposedly evolved, like everything else, from just one thing (so they say)...that this really seems a stretch that all this could have happened, to get the diversity of everythigng we have, in the time frame they say it happened in.

We have found actual specimens of prehistoric creatures that have lived millions of years ago, who are a far cry from the originating amoeba form everything pretty much came from (so they say). If there were these mammals and reptiles millions of years ago...doesn't it seem like there wasn't enough time for these creatures to have come about since 1 or 2 or whatever billion years ago?

And how is it explained how things forked off to go the way of plants, fish, animals...all these things that went in completely different directions. Like...what do yo think the coconut tree is relative of...down the chain? Have you ever thought about the HUGE differences...the variety amongst all living things on the earth?...that we could possibly believe in the one common ancestry theory? I have sat and just rattled off a list of living things in my head and the diversity, where there are basically no resemblances... is what makes this seem unexplainable.

It seems more reasonable to think that something great and powerful is out there that decided to have a see- how- many- different- things- I- can- make contest, by designing all these different seeds, and then kicking back and watching what would happen if they were all put on the same planet. THAT almost seems plausible. Heck...if *I* was godlike...that would be something *I* might try to do.

Some have theorized that a more intelligent form of life gathered up the various living things that specialty-grew on other planets in other galaxies and either brought them here or teleported them here genetically on asteroids and stuff. THAT even seems plausible. But to think all things on earth just kept forking off (like some family tree) new things from the one thing, to diversify like this, seems preposterous.

I know we have talked about this before, but there are always new posters and I think this is one of the more interesting subject mysteries.

ImaginalDisc

10th August 2006, 05:26 PM

Yes.

Terry

10th August 2006, 05:26 PM

.Was there enough time in the 'family tree' of evolution to create the diversity.....of life that ranges from molds, to grass, to trees, to flowers, to snakes/poisonous fangs, to walking sticks, to octopus tentacles...and on and on.

Yes. Yes there was.

Amapola

10th August 2006, 05:28 PM

Yep! Next question?

Jeff Wagg

10th August 2006, 05:37 PM

*shakes magic 8 ball*

Signs say YES

Boo

10th August 2006, 05:38 PM

*Hands Iamme a copy of Origin of The Species by Charles Darwin*

Read this, the answer to your question is in it.

Boo

PS: The answer is yes.

Wolverine

10th August 2006, 05:39 PM

And how is it explained how things forked off to go the way of plants, fish, animals...all these things that went in completely different directions.

It may help to study the phylogenetic tree (http://tolweb.org/tree/), and, speciation (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html).

...that we could possibly believe in the one common ancestry theory?

At the risk of seeming pedantic, it's not a belief system (nor is any scientific discipline). It's overwhelmingly supported by evidence (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/).

I have sat and just rattled off a list of living things in my head and the diversity, where there are basically no resemblances... is what makes this seem unexplainable.

It's not unexplainable. You may improve your understanding by studying the subject matter -- consult legitimate scientific resources (of which there are many).

It seems more reasonable to think that something great and powerful is out there that decided to have a see- how- many- different- things- I- can- make contest, by designing all these different seeds, and then kicking back and watching what would happen if they were all put on the same planet.

Not so. That'd be an epic non-sequitur (http://skepdic.com/dvinefal.html).

Some have theorized that a more intelligent form of life gathered up the various living things that specialty-grew on other planets in other galaxies and either brought them here or teleported them here genetically on asteroids and stuff.

Speculated would be a much better term in order to avoid confusion. Theory in a scientific context should not be intermingled with unsubstantiated assertions, or WAGs.

Edited to add summary: The simple answer to the OP is yes.

fribble

10th August 2006, 05:45 PM

doesn't it seem like there wasn't enough time for these creatures to have come about since 1 or 2 or whatever billion years ago?

Er, a billion years is a rather long time... It's difficult to comprehend just how stonkingly long a billion years takes to go by.

Yup!

Gwyn ap Nudd

10th August 2006, 07:04 PM

A while back, I read somewhere (unfortunately I can't remember where) about a group who programmed a computer to model the evolution of the eye. They took extremely conservative figures for the occurance of mutations, the likelihood that a new (mutated) allele would be recessive to the original, etc. They fully expected that the model would take well more than three times as long as estimates and evidence place the actual evolution of the eye, but were hoping that it would occur quickly enough to show that it could occur naturally and to debunk the claim by the ID-ers that all of time since the Big Bang is not enough for it to evolve without design.

Every time they ran the model, no matter what restraints they placed on the population and the mutation rate, once it got to a certain point the development of the eye was inevitable and swift.

A point of clarification: There was no design to create an eye. All mutations were random and the only pressure determining whether a mutation was good or bad was its survival in the population. The program did track those mutations related to light sensitivity and sight, but did not influence their progress or direction, or that of any other mutation.

Grimoire

10th August 2006, 07:25 PM

Er, a billion years is a rather long time... It's difficult to comprehend just how stonkingly long a billion years takes to go by.

Yup!
Stonkingly is my new favourite word.

A billion is a lot. Yeah, sounds pretty obvious, but really, you need to consider just how big a billion really is. In this day an age, when we can fit billions of bits of information onto a small disc or keychain, it is easy to lose sight of just how much a billion really is.

I can go into all the comparisons about how big a billion is, about how high a billion pennies stacked on top of each would be (1450 kilometers, or about900 miles) or how much they would weigh (2,350,000 kg or 2600 short tons), but that still doesn't really do it...

The best way is this: count from one to a billion. When you finish you will have an excellent idea of just how big a billion is.

Oldpossum

10th August 2006, 08:04 PM

YES IT IS.

For starters, every single living thing on this planet uses the same 5 Nucleotide bases, and the sugar Ribose, for making up DNA and RNA, and the same 22 Amino Acids, for making Proteins.
That fact alone, is strong evidence that all living organisms share a common ancestor.
Why?
Because there are quite a number of other sugars, nucleotide bases and amino acids that could be used but are not, and if life on earth came from multiple origins, then we would expect to see some organisms use a different set of sugars/nucleotide bases/amino acids, or even expect some organisms to use a compeatly different system of organizing their genetic data/enzymes, like for example, using a set of amino acids as a DNA/RNA analogue, and making their enzymes up from a selection of pollysaccarides, rather than amino acids.

Further evidence is that all organisms, except for the Archea, and their decendants (and these include the Mitochondria and Chloroplasts BTW)
Use the same "language", for transcribing DNA/RNA into proteins, and even the Archea have many of the same "Words" in their "Dictionary" that mean the same, as those used by the rest of us!

I recommend, for further reading pertaining to this subject, obtaining a copy of "The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins.

Filip Sandor

10th August 2006, 08:29 PM

Well, apparently it takes several million strands of DNA arranged in the right way to produce the most basic single-celled organism and all this came together via natural selection (the better equiped survives and the others die off) and random mutation (ie. cosmic radiation splicing genes randomly and occasionally causing a 'good mutation' which continues on). The only problem with this model is that the ratio of negative mutations needed to completely destroy a set of genes alligned to form a living thing (in other words to destroy the living thing itself) is far, far, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar fewer than what is required to form anything living or a part thereof in the first place.

Obviously, there must be some kind of bias for genes to allign themselves in a way that life is possible. How it works... I don't know.

ynot

10th August 2006, 08:39 PM

Kaylee

10th August 2006, 08:59 PM

The best way is this: count from one to a billion. When you finish you will have an excellent idea of just how big a billion is.

Lol! And if anyone does do this, pls post and let us know how long it took. :)

Dark Jaguar

10th August 2006, 09:01 PM

Consider speciation in this way. Don't think of it as completely empty random wanderings of speciation like the normal tree seems to be artistically represented as. Think of a wide girth of variation from that first "bud", or maybe just think of a massive block of concrete and the forces of selection acting on it to chissel away most of it except for small twigs and such here and there. Now, try applying that as a gradual thing as species slowly develop. There will be a slight drift with a lot of things across the drift and selection acts like a wedge just slamming down between the two extremes and those extremes are what survive, and from there they go off in different directions, wash rinse repeat, now envision it in even more graduated less "steppy" manner.

I really need to learn how to express myself better sometimes, but that's the way you need to think of it. Those branches didn't occur in a vacuum. Forces of selection weeded out a lot of "in between" stages and foced them to diverge.

Horatius

10th August 2006, 09:09 PM

Stonkingly is my new favourite word.

A billion is a lot. Yeah, sounds pretty obvious, but really, you need to consider just how big a billion really is. In this day an age, when we can fit billions of bits of information onto a small disc or keychain, it is easy to lose sight of just how much a billion really is.

I can go into all the comparisons about how big a billion is, about how high a billion pennies stacked on top of each would be (1450 kilometers, or about900 miles) or how much they would weigh (2,350,000 kg or 2600 short tons), but that still doesn't really do it...

The best way is this: count from one to a billion. When you finish you will have an excellent idea of just how big a billion is.

This bears repeating. A lack of feeling for "deep time" is probably one of the biggest reasons people not familiar with science have a problem with evolution.

Consider the 2000 years since Jesus was around. Most people think something 2000 years old is pretty ancient. A billion years is 500 000 (five hundred thousand) times longer than that. And the Earth is 5-6 times that in age! Even knowing science, it's hard to wrap your head around that length of time.

TobiasTheViking

11th August 2006, 03:04 AM

yes

fribble

11th August 2006, 04:14 AM

The best way is this: count from one to a billion. When you finish you will have an excellent idea of just how big a billion is.

:D

For anyone too lazy to do the maths - At the (somewhat optimistic) rate of 1 number a second, this would take 32 YEARS of non-stop counting!

Soapy Sam

11th August 2006, 04:17 AM

No.
It all happened since the flood , around 3000 BC.
Everything (except fish and giant squid and anything that can swim in brackish water presumably), has evolved from a bunch of critters on a wooden cruise liner run by eight Palestinians. (You know, those people who really know how to run stuff).

Geologists refer to this as the Palestinianocene Explosive Radiation. There's fossil evidence for it all over the place.

Ceritus

11th August 2006, 04:39 AM

politas

11th August 2006, 04:39 AM

How many times can one poster ask simplistic questions about evolutions before they are identified as a troll?

And yet we cherish the hope that Iamme will one day bother to actually listen to the answers.

Ceritus

11th August 2006, 05:13 AM

Yes there has been enough time. If you would seriously take the time to read and comprehend "Origin of The Species" by Charles Darwin you would agree.

Without a comprehensive understanding of evolution, it is much like a complex function equation being presented to a 5 year old who is just learning the basics of adding and subtracting.

If you believe God did it and do not need a rational or logical explanation for why things are the way they are then I suggest you continue believing God did it.

If you believe God did it and you do need a rational or logical explanation for why things are the way they are, then I suggest you learn about the basics of math and science and progress through it until you cannot progress any longer.

People fall victim to so many pseudoscientific terms with such ease simply because most of these people have a very poor understanding of science in general. It is also very possible their vocabulary is so limited they believe any definition of any cumbersome word that is real or invented without taking time to research what is actually being said.

It seems more reasonable to think that something great and powerful is out there that decided to have a see- how- many- different- things- I- can- make contest, by designing all these different seeds, and then kicking back and watching what would happen if they were all put on the same planet. THAT almost seems plausible. Heck...if *I* was godlike...that would be something *I* might try to do.

It does not seem more reasonable in any sense. You have to think one step further. If there was something great and powerful out there how did it get here? Does it seem reasonable to believe that this great and powerful being evolved from a single cell somewhere else in outer space and through billions of years evolved into being great and powerful enough to scatter a plethera of different species here on earth?

Quit trying to focus on what is unknown and learn from what is already known.This needs to be done inorder to progress to the point of having the understanding of what is unknown amongst the known when you see it.

Just like a 4 year-old who see's a possum for the first time and excitedly tugs his mothers arm trying to show her the possum because it is new and it is odd.

All that I am saying, is that before trying to explain the unknown try and learn what is already at your fingertips. Don't let the exitement of learning something new fade, give in to it, nourish it and become addicted to it.

I dare you.

Beady

11th August 2006, 07:40 AM

This bears repeating. A lack of feeling for "deep time" is probably one of the biggest reasons people not familiar with science have a problem with evolution.

Yippee! Another opportunity to haul out Sagan's Cosmic Calendar, where everything from the Bang to Now is compressed into a single Earth year.

See here (http://home.pacific.net.hk/~paulchui/cosmic.html), here (http://school.discovery.com/schooladventures/universe/itsawesome/cosmiccalendar/page2.html), and here (http://www.art.com/asp/mountshop/default-asp/_/pd--10119720/sp--A/Carl_Sagans_Cosmic_Calendar.htm). I have the last one on my wall at home (the unmounted version).

Fengirl

11th August 2006, 09:33 AM

Sorry to nitpick, but there have now been two references in this thread to a book allegedly called "Origin of The Species" (sic) by Charles Darwin.

I believe that the book being referred to is Charles Darwin's "(On the) Origin of Species".

I hate to be pedantic, but arguments against Iamme's trollish waffle would carry more weight if we could at least all agree on the name of this seminal work. There is no "the" before "species" because Darwin was not addressing the origin of a particular species in the book in question.

KingMerv00

11th August 2006, 09:36 AM

This bears repeating. A lack of feeling for "deep time" is probably one of the biggest reasons people not familiar with science have a problem with evolution.

Consider the 2000 years since Jesus was around. Most people think something 2000 years old is pretty ancient. A billion years is 500 000 (five hundred thousand) times longer than that. And the Earth is 5-6 times that in age! Even knowing science, it's hard to wrap your head around that length of time.

Richard Dawkins came up with a good way to visualize the time required for humans to evolve.

Imagine that the evolution of the modern dog as a single step. Granted, the speed of dog evolution was enhanced by artificial selection but the premise still holds.

The evolution of all life would be like taking a walk from London to Baghdad.

Molinaro

11th August 2006, 09:57 AM

Every time they ran the model, no matter what restraints they placed on the population and the mutation rate, once it got to a certain point the development of the eye was inevitable and swift.

The fascinating thing about the evolution of eyes is how many times it has hapened, independantly.

It was a decade or so ago when I read about it, but I seem to recall that there are in fact 17 different types of eyes out there. Each of them evolved independantly of each other.

So yes, there has been more than enough time.

Horatius

11th August 2006, 11:22 AM

Yippee! Another opportunity to haul out Sagan's Cosmic Calendar, where everything from the Bang to Now is compressed into a single Earth year.

See here (http://home.pacific.net.hk/~paulchui/cosmic.html), here (http://school.discovery.com/schooladventures/universe/itsawesome/cosmiccalendar/page2.html), and here (http://www.art.com/asp/mountshop/default-asp/_/pd--10119720/sp--A/Carl_Sagans_Cosmic_Calendar.htm). I have the last one on my wall at home (the unmounted version).

I've see these sorts of things before. Is there any that shows these events as a timeline with a uniform scale? Seeing everything we consider to be important in human civilization crammed into a thin slice at the end might help understanding...Assuming you could even see them on any kind of managable scale!

drkitten

11th August 2006, 11:43 AM

I've see these sorts of things before. Is there any that shows these events as a timeline with a uniform scale?

Er, no.

That's kind of the point. Theyr'e not even possible to make.

"Everything we consider to be important in human civilization" -- well, let's say that that's the last 5000 years of history. And let's say that we cram that into a 1cm "slice" (because thinner than that, we can't see anything).

5000 years is about one millions of the 5 billion years that the Earth has been around. So using a uniform scale, that timeline would need to be one million cm long -- call it ten kilometers. Many of my friends would be physically unable to walk from one end to the other in a single afternoon.

ETA: I'm just running this calendar back to the formation of the Earth. If you want it to stretch all the way to the Big Bang, triple the length, please. And then tell me where you're going to get a 30km long strip of paper to print this on?....

Of course, we could use a 1 mm slice instead, which would basically just be a thin strip the width of a small coin. Then the timeline would "only" be a kilometer instead.

Cynric

11th August 2006, 12:11 PM

It's worse than that Iamme.

Just think of the average lifespan of a mouse and a human being from conception to death. They start out as one cell, which would be basically indistinguishable even with a microscope, but then as if by magic they both start to copy themselves, organise themselves, and turn into completely different organisms in a matter of weeks or months!

Just think how busy God must be making all those changes in all those animals all over the world. It's mind boggling!

Unless there was some sort of common mechanism for making all of forms of life on earth - say some sort of molecule that could replicate itself and code for the various body plans observed. That way it would work by itself, and lazy old God would only have to create DNA and the rest would follow :rolleyes:

Horatius

11th August 2006, 12:48 PM

5000 years is about one millions of the 5 billion years that the Earth has been around. So using a uniform scale, that timeline would need to be one million cm long -- call it ten kilometers. Many of my friends would be physically unable to walk from one end to the other in a single afternoon.

Of course, we could use a 1 mm slice instead, which would basically just be a thin strip the width of a small coin. Then the timeline would "only" be a kilometer instead.

I've just had a really good idea for a theme park.....

Amapola

11th August 2006, 02:43 PM

I've just had a really good idea for a theme park.....

Well be sure and pay your taxes and get a building permit. :D

Soapy Sam

11th August 2006, 03:18 PM

Fengirl- I believe the full title was " On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection , or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"

I feel "Origin of Species" is acceptable.

sphenisc

11th August 2006, 03:36 PM

I feel "Origin of Species" is acceptable.

Oh, the irony.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

11th August 2006, 05:51 PM

Consider not only a few billion years, but perhaps around 10^30 organisms all trying various evolutionary experiments.

~~ Paul

Soapy Sam

11th August 2006, 05:57 PM

Oh, the irony.

Mind you- I'd prefer "Distribution of Allelles" , but postmodernist deconstructionism is not necessarily everything.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

11th August 2006, 06:26 PM

Obviously, there must be some kind of bias for genes to allign themselves in a way that life is possible. How it works... I don't know.
The bias is that the beneficial mutations are selected and the neutral mutations don't matter. Might I humbly recommend that you trying running a few Evj simulations?

http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/evj/

Also, a big complicated genome is not produced by random mutations from a big random genome. It is pieced together by combining small genomes.

~~ Paul

Schneibster

11th August 2006, 06:54 PM

I dunno, I guess it's just random chance that every single living organism we have ever found uses the same twenty-seven possible codons to select among the same twenty amino acids to build all of the proteins it uses, out of the trillions of possible amino acids and nucleotides.

Soapy Sam

13th August 2006, 03:25 PM

I explained this above. They were the ones that could swim!

Wowbagger

13th August 2006, 04:40 PM

I might add a couple of things here:

Life forms appear very diverse to us, but from a cellular perspective, all life forms are really very similar to each other. It was merely the survival strategies the cell forms took up, that ultimately decided what they would "look" like. Many cells figured out a good strategy would be to form into cohesive groups, to what we refer to as multi-cellular life forms. But, given how little difference there is, at fundamental levels, I'd say there was plenty of time for this diversity to come about.

From a biochemical point of view, things are even simpler. (Note: The idea of "biochemical complexity" being some sort of proof of an ID, does not work from a scientific perspective: the biochemicals are not that complex, and the evolution of such apparent complexity has already been worked out, to a certain degree.) There are only a few handfuls of chemicals making up life forms, and more than enough time (Billions of years) to shape themselves into all sort of neat structures.

That is only a nutshell assessment. Reality is a bit more complicated. For more info, read a bunch of evolution books, by real evolutionary scientists. Richard Dawkins has many to choose from, for example.

Is Iamme ever going to respond to anyone?

Beady

14th August 2006, 02:34 AM

Is Iamme ever going to respond to anyone?

Why break a pattern?

hgc

14th August 2006, 08:33 AM

...
Some have theorized that a more intelligent form of life gathered up the various living things that specialty-grew on other planets in other galaxies and either brought them here or teleported them here genetically on asteroids and stuff. THAT even seems plausible. But to think all things on earth just kept forking off (like some family tree) new things from the one thing, to diversify like this, seems preposterous.
...Let's see...

Teleporting life from asteroids to earth (mechanism never observed): Plausible

Naturally occurring biodiversity (mechanism observed daily): Preposterous

Wait a minute! I think I've got it figured:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/54344e08a8e684c0.jpg

Nancarrow

14th August 2006, 09:55 AM

If there were these mammals and reptiles millions of years ago...doesn't it seem like there wasn't enough time for these creatures to have come about since 1 or 2 or whatever billion years ago?

And how is it explained how things forked off to go the way of plants, fish, animals...all these things that went in completely different directions.

SEX.

bruto

14th August 2006, 06:40 PM

Some have theorized that a more intelligent form of life gathered up the various living things that specialty-grew on other planets in other galaxies and either brought them here or teleported them here genetically on asteroids and stuff. THAT even seems plausible. But to think all things on earth just kept forking off (like some family tree) new things from the one thing, to diversify like this, seems preposterous.

AAAARGH!

Some have theorized....indeed.

Let's see now. Theory one. Things happened the way the appear to have, in the abundant several million millennia that it seems to have taken. Theory two. It couldn't have happened here, so it must have happened all over the universe and some kind of superpower scooped all the bits up and used his imaginary superpowers to defy all known physical laws, and to drop the stuff here on earth because, though a superpower of awesome capability, he couldn't do anything the simple way, and although presumably divine and awesomely intelligent, his thought processes were otherwise not readily distinguishable from those of a 12 year old reading a science fiction comic book. OF COURSE! Why didn't I think of that? It's all so clear now.

Mr. Scott

15th August 2006, 06:11 PM

Consider not only a few billion years, but perhaps around 10^30 organisms all trying various evolutionary experiments.

~~ Paul

Yes, the OP seems to not consider that all these life forms are evolving in parallel, not just sequentially.

Beady

16th August 2006, 04:12 AM

Yes, the OP seems to not consider that all these life forms are evolving in parallel, not just sequentially.

And yet, in fairness, it seems to have been one particular group that really took off. For example, if I ask you to draw one generic face, that could represent any/all of the more complex creatures on the planet, you are almost certainly going to put two eyes centered over a nose, with a mouth centered under the nose, and an "ear" on either side.

Coincidence?

MRC_Hans

16th August 2006, 04:27 AM

The best way is this: count from one to a billion. When you finish you will have an excellent idea of just how big a billion is.That is an extraordinarily good idea! Let us hope (and, if necessary, pray) that Iamme takes the advice, and stops posting till he (/she/it) has counted to one billion :D .

Hans

Mr. Scott

16th August 2006, 08:54 AM

And yet, in fairness, it seems to have been one particular group that really took off. For example, if I ask you to draw one generic face, that could represent any/all of the more complex creatures on the planet, you are almost certainly going to put two eyes centered over a nose, with a mouth centered under the nose, and an "ear" on either side.

Coincidence?

I don't understand your point and don't know if the question is rhetorical.

That configuration of eyes, nose, mouth, and ears seems to have evolved independently (humans, bugs), so it must have an intrinsic advantage. One eye couldn't see in 3D. Eyes under the mouth wouldn't see the world very efficiently. Ears on the sides will better pick up sounds from all around. Main sensory organs in the front near the brain are an obvious advantage, as is a mouth. Bi-symmetry has an obvious genetic and developmental economy.

Yet there are other creatures that "really took off" like the octopus, which don't have faces anything like ours.

Again, I'm not sure I understand your point, Beady.

Mr. Scott

16th August 2006, 09:00 AM

Sex really is the best answer to this. It allows advantages discovered independently (in parallel) to be combined as if accumulated serially. Think hybrid vigor. Even the lowly bacterium has been spotted exchanging genes. That would allow thousands (millions?) of evolutionary developments that happened in parallel to be merged into a single descendent. Considering that happening millions of times over a billion years, and it seems downright medieval to view evolution as a serial process.

Cuddles

16th August 2006, 09:09 AM

SEX.

Best reply ever. :p

And yet, in fairness, it seems to have been one particular group that really took off. For example, if I ask you to draw one generic face, that could represent any/all of the more complex creatures on the planet, you are almost certainly going to put two eyes centered over a nose, with a mouth centered under the nose, and an "ear" on either side.

Coincidence?

All the animals with noses coming out the side of their heads died out from acute embarassment.

drkitten

16th August 2006, 09:14 AM

I don't understand your point and don't know if the question is rhetorical.

That configuration of eyes, nose, mouth, and ears seems to have evolved independently (humans, bugs), so it must have an intrinsic advantage.

Did it? My understanding -- which admittedly is mostly from Dawkins Ancestor's Tale -- is that Bilateria constitute a clade (more or less); insects and humans both share a common ancestor that was also bilaterally symmetric, with eyes at the front above a mouth, anus in the back, ears at the side, &c.

Beady

16th August 2006, 10:35 AM

That configuration of eyes, nose, mouth, and ears seems to have evolved independently (humans, bugs)...

Upon what do you base this?

Yet there are other creatures that "really took off" like the octopus, which don't have faces anything like ours.

Yes, nothing in my post denied this.

My point is that it wasn't necessarily several cases of parallel evolution that resulted in faces as we have come to know and love them. It may be that the configuration is the result of some incredibly basic shared DNA. That is, facial configuration may be evidence that we are cousins of the housefly, an obscene number of times removed.

politas

16th August 2006, 01:02 PM

politas

16th August 2006, 01:05 PM

Beady

16th August 2006, 02:27 PM

You're just plain wrong. The one group that really took off are bacteria. Bacteria outnumber all other lifeforms. We humans are just a tasty snack to them.

I'll take it easy on you, and won't haul you over the coals for inattention and/or cherrypicking and/or quoting me out of context. However, the passage you cite continues:

If I ask you to draw one generic face, that could represent any/all of the more complex creatures on the planet...

Taken in context, and addressing what I plainly meant, you are wrong.

politas

16th August 2006, 04:00 PM

I'll take it easy on you, and won't haul you over the coals for inattention and/or cherrypicking and/or quoting me out of context. However, the passage you cite continues:

Taken in context, and addressing what I plainly meant, you are wrong.
Well, ignoring the fact that insects don't have noses, contrary to what you said, I still think you are misrepresenting evolution. Most multi-celled organisms are extinct. Bilateria's trunk of the evolutionary tree has far more withered and dead branches than thriving twigs. To say that the pattern you mention is "a winner" is to say that it is the only form of multi-celled life that still struggles on.

Face it, in the ongoing search to find effective ways to make a living, bacteria are the big winners. They always have been.

bruto

16th August 2006, 07:57 PM

To say that the pattern you mention is "a winner" is to say that it is the only form of multi-celled life that still struggles on.

Well, that certainly doesn't define a loser, does it? The bacteria may be the overall champions, but at least the critters with faces have a minor league pennant.

Mr. Scott

16th August 2006, 08:53 PM

Upon what do you base this? [bug and people faces evolved independently)

I'll need to do more research, but a quick google session suggests I may have misremembered some evolutionary detail. People and bugs appear to have a common ancestor, a flatworm, which had two eyes above its mouth. So much for a "face." Indeed, the nose and ears appear to have diverged between insect and human lines. Insects often smell with their antannae, and hear in places like the sides of their abs. From The Wonderful World of Insects: (http://www.4to40.com/earth/geography/index.asp?article=earth_geography_insects)

I hope you’re all ears for what comes next, because it may surprise you to hear that only a few insects have ‘ears’. Among the insects that have hearing organs are the grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, cicadas and some moths. The short-horned grasshoppers, often called locusts have their hearing organs located on the side of their abdomens.

Recall also that humans have excessive ability to imagine "faces" where there are none, like in Rorschach patterns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_inkblot_test).

Did the Mars Face (http://www.msss.com/education/facepage/face.html) evolve from the flatworm, too?

Mr. Scott

16th August 2006, 09:03 PM

Lowly bacterium? You're thinking wrong. Bacteria are the rulers of the world. They're totally outside the "food chain". They eat everything.

The phrase "really took off" is loaded with assumptions and bias. Same for "lowly." Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that bacteria are more lowly than less lowly life forms, whatever we mean by "lowly." :D

bruto

16th August 2006, 10:26 PM

Random digression: I remember many years ago reading a little snippet of interview with George Wald after he won a Nobel prize, in which he observed that we share something like 80 percent of our genes with yeast, so in a sense we are more like yeast than unlike it.

Beady

17th August 2006, 02:32 AM

Well, ignoring the fact that insects don't have noses, contrary to what you said...

Aside from the nose, an insect's face is completely recognizable as a face. That is all I was saying. Live with it.

Face it, in the ongoing search to find effective ways to make a living, bacteria are the big winners. They always have been.

This is completely irrelevent to the point. Since I plainly limited my remarks to "the more complex creatures," a point you have repeatedly ignored despite reminders, I can only assume that you either have trouble with focus, or you're attempting to set up a straw man. I'm not going to deal with either possibility.

StewartP

17th August 2006, 03:44 AM

The fascinating thing about the evolution of eyes is how many times it has hapened, independantly.

It was a decade or so ago when I read about it, but I seem to recall that there are in fact 17 different types of eyes out there. Each of them evolved independantly of each other.

So yes, there has been more than enough time.

I was going to post a similar point. I'm in the middle of Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" and he covers this. The weird thing is that mammalian eyes have evolved "backwards" with the nerve endings in the surface of the retina, and this our "blind spot" where all these nerves dive thru the surface of the retina to form the optic nerve. Octopus eyes, and others have evolved seperately and have the photo cells the right way round.

Some fundi argued that if any 1 component of the eye was not as it is today the eye would not work. The "irrudicable complexity" argument. Dawkins points out that all life is evolving together, so all that is required is that any proto eye gives its owner and advantage and a greater chance of passing on its DNA. There are people who through accident or disease have eyes with no lenses. Their sight is poor. But it is better than no sight at all. Obviously having 75% vision is better than 74%, and so on right down to an "eye" being a rudimentary light sensitive spot in a cell.

politas

17th August 2006, 04:37 PM

This is completely irrelevent to the point. Since I plainly limited my remarks to "the more complex creatures," a point you have repeatedly ignored despite reminders, I can only assume that you either have trouble with focus, or you're attempting to set up a straw man. I'm not going to deal with either possibility.I'm not setting up a straw man, I'm accusing you of cherry-picking.

Beady

18th August 2006, 04:20 AM

I'm not setting up a straw man, I'm accusing you of cherry-picking.

Sigh. I was discussing faces. Why in hell would I even consider bacteria? How is it cherrypicking to ignore bacteria when you are discussing facial similarities? Is it your contention that bacteria have faces?

You introduced a group outside that which is under discussion, attempting to make my statements refer more generally than I intended. That is a straw man.

You're rapidly becoming a candidate for my Ignore list.

BPScooter

18th August 2006, 04:56 AM

Holy smokes, you guys, you really know how to get a discussion going. No kidding. I lurk and read this stuff, and before you know it I went to the local library and checked out D. Dennett's book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" and started to read it. He writes well and so far as I can tell the material is not dated beyond its shelf life. It's funny and a good read. Most of it reminds me of something someone here said at one point or other. He talks normal and provides good footnotes. The dangerous idea is not too scary, in his hands.

Cuddles

18th August 2006, 08:57 AM

Aside from the nose, an insect's face is completely recognizable as a face. That is all I was saying. Live with it.

Aside from the nose, ears, eyes and mouth. http://www.earthlife.net/insects/anat-head.html

No nose, no ears, entirely different eyes, entirely different mouth at the bottom of the face (no chin below it), antennae.

Rocks and clouds are completely recognisable as faces due to the human ability to see familiar patterns pretty much everywhere. This doesn't mean they are actually similar to a human face.

Beady

18th August 2006, 09:48 AM

entirely different eyes, entirely different mouth

The configuration! Not the development of each individual piece. See #51. If your going to attack what I said, attack what I said and not what you want me to have said.

cloudshipsrule

18th August 2006, 10:19 AM

Beady

18th August 2006, 10:26 AM

Frankenmicrobe and a miniature tesla coil?

Essentially, yes, allowing for hyperbole. In actuality, neither element would have been that complex, since each (as you have expressed them)implies a Creator of some sort.

Second, when did the evolutionary chain of any organism create male and female so that reproduction became possible?

Sagan's Cosmic Calendar (http://home.pacific.net.hk/~paulchui/cosmic.html) puts that at about November 1.

TobiasTheViking

18th August 2006, 10:31 AM

naught

drkitten

18th August 2006, 11:42 AM

This thread poses two questions for me.

What was the mechanism that actually sparked LIFE in that first organism? Prior to that, nothing was LIVING at all. Even if the first organism was one cell, something caused it to live. Frankenmicrobe and a miniature tesla coil?

Second, when did the evolutionary chain of any organism create male and female so that reproduction became possible? The odds of that seem to defy even the given amount of time available for chance/mutation/selection. (course' I'm no statistician) There is a difference between a microbe splitting and copulation of separate sexes.

We do not have definitive answers to any of these questions (yet). There are several competing theories about abiogenesis. They basically all start by observing that the relevant property of life for evolution to happen is the ability to self-replicate. We are aware of other kinds of self-replicators that are not alive. For example, crystal structure. There are a number of competing theories about how a not-living self-replicator started to replicate its structures in organic substances that eventually became things like RNA and DNA.

The answer about male and female is a little easier to answer (but still not definitive), because we have a number of intermediate steps that are well-known in the biological literature. For example, some animals are hermaphrodites, where they reproduce with each other, but individual animals are both "male" and "female" --- they produce both sperm and eggs. There are also animals that are known to be male or female but capable of switching between the two. So a plausible scenario would involve a mutant hermaphrodite that ceased being female (or ceased being male) and got an advantage out of that. Once a population of (e.g.) males was established, other mutants could become solely female, and thus sex is establshed.

This implies that the "timing" varies from line to line, of course.

cloudshipsrule

18th August 2006, 12:12 PM

Thanks for the reply! It gives me something to think about.

politas

18th August 2006, 09:36 PM

Sigh. I was discussing faces. Why in hell would I even consider bacteria? How is it cherrypicking to ignore bacteria when you are discussing facial similarities? Is it your contention that bacteria have faces?

You introduced a group outside that which is under discussion, attempting to make my statements refer more generally than I intended. That is a straw man.

You're rapidly becoming a candidate for my Ignore list.

Because if you want to talk about faces, and talk about how everything has a basic face structure, it is cherry-picking to ignore the vast majority of life forms that don't have any of the features you are talking about. It's like saying that blonde is the perfect hair colour because all scandinavians are blonde.

Beady

19th August 2006, 02:40 AM

Because if you want to talk about faces, and talk about how everything has a basic face structure...

I said (again, for the 3rd or 4th time), "all of the more complex creatures." I have absolutely no idea how any reasonable person could understand that to mean "everything" or "bacteria." I don't want to talk about "everything;" I never wanted to talk about "everything;" I never said I wanted to talk about "everything."

At the very least, especially by now, a reasonable person should have understood my intention. Lord knows, I've stated it plainly enough multiple times. You apparently either do not understand, or will not, and there seems little hope that is going to change. Which leads me to believe you are not a reasonable person. There's no reason to talk further with you, about "anything."

You are about to disappear forever from (my) existence). Goodbye.

Jon the Geek

19th August 2006, 11:10 AM

Iamme

19th August 2006, 06:44 PM

*Hands Iamme a copy of Origin of The Species by Charles Darwin*

Read this, the answer to your question is in it.

Boo

PS: The answer is yes.

Hmmm. That simple eh? Remember what page it is on? I can then go to the library and solve this puzzle quickly.

Iamme

19th August 2006, 07:05 PM

It may help to study the phylogenetic tree (http://tolweb.org/tree/), and, speciation (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html).

At the risk of seeming pedantic, it's not a belief system (nor is any scientific discipline). It's overwhelmingly supported by evidence (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/).

It's not unexplainable. You may improve your understanding by studying the subject matter -- consult legitimate scientific resources (of which there are many).

Not so. That'd be an epic non-sequitur (http://skepdic.com/dvinefal.html).

Speculated would be a much better term in order to avoid confusion. Theory in a scientific context should not be intermingled with unsubstantiated assertions, or WAGs.

Edited to add summary: The simple answer to the OP is yes.

I just now read a section of your enclosed link. Pretty lengthy. Very wordy/scholarly...yet it does not say how grass forked off to be bushes one direction and became bees in another direction...or spiders, snakes, skunks, octupuses, fish, mosquitoes, alligators, hippos, lions, palm trees...just on and on with huge diversification where things ares so different from each other. Like...I can't picture how the ancestery went between let's say even a dandelion and a rose, or say a sunflower. These things are so very different.

Do you know of a reference where researchers in this subject area have made even a crude map of how everything known forked off from some amoeba to go in all the different directions to become what they did, and what the time spans were in between these changes?..to get to where we are today?

I am used to hearing how sharks have remained the same for many, many, many millions of years. And if this is so, I can't see how these creatures could have come from some cellular life form in the specified time frame unless I see some sort of demonstration of this.

How can these authors act so knowing about all this without some ability to actually demonstrate beyond verbiage? And if this knowledge IS out there? Then why the relative secrecy where you have to so hunt for the answers? How could we possibly have guys like Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum believe that evolution is false, if scientists can map it out?

bruto

19th August 2006, 11:16 PM

I just now read a section of your enclosed link. Pretty lengthy. Very wordy/scholarly...yet it does not say how grass forked off to be bushes one direction and became bees in another direction....etc

So who on earth ever suggested bees evolved from grass????? Is your understanding of the whole process that deficient, or are you being purposely and disingenuously obtuse?

I am used to hearing how sharks have remained the same for many, many, many millions of years. And if this is so, I can't see how these creatures could have come from some cellular life form in the specified time frame unless I see some sort of demonstration of this. So if you cannot believe scientists who say that they evolved, why are you willing to believe the same scientists when they say they have remained the same for millions of years? Besides, many many millions of years can go by, and there will still be many more millions left in a couple of billion, right? Do you really understand how many millions there are in a billion?

How can these authors act so knowing about all this without some ability to actually demonstrate beyond verbiage? And if this knowledge IS out there? Then why the relative secrecy where you have to so hunt for the answers?
Most good answers require a little hunting. It doesn't take some kind of cabal to produce ignorance if you have not made an honest effort to understand.
How could we possibly have guys like Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum believe that evolution is false, if scientists can map it out?

Have you seen a demonstration of interstellar teleporting that is more convincing than the evidence for evolution? Have you seen an actual demonstration of creationism that is more convincing? What honest standards are you using here? On what other than the "verbiage" of the bible does creationism depend? There is absolutely no reason to believe in so-called creation science outside of reliance on scripture. It is purely a religious construct. If you do not depend on scripture, there is no other reason to reject the scientific evidence for evolution in favor of creationism, and if you can find one honest creationist who is not a bible believer, please come forward with a name.

As to why guys like Carl Baugh maintain that evolution is false, it would not matter what scientists can or cannot map out, any more than it matters that they believe in other things, such as the earth once standing still, which scientists have rather convincingly suggested violate physical law. Fundamentalist Christians cannot and will not believe anything that contradicts scripture. They reject science. What they pass off as science is at best a misunderstanding, and often enough just plain lies.

If you made a real and honest attempt to research the subject using sources other than those who reject it pre-emptively, I surmise that your questions and arguments would be less preposterous, and others here would be less inclined to think you a troll.

burrahobbit

20th August 2006, 03:19 AM

So Iamme actually replied and succeeded in looking as much a fool as usual.

Read " The Ancestors Tale" by Dawkins. Read the WHOLE DAMN THING not "a page". The answer is not in page number whatsit but the whole book.

Unfortunately it is more difficult than reading fairy tales so should take you some time. But better than counting to a Billion.

And why on earth should I worry about what Carl Baugh claims to believe.

Soulend

20th August 2006, 07:02 AM

How could we possibly have guys like Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum believe that evolution is false, if scientists can map it out?

For the same reason people can study the Bible and have utter faith in it, yet somehow miss or rationalize the hundreds of contradictions therein. For the same reason they conveniently skim over the murders, rapes, and genocide to proclaim 'God is love'.

I recently had a short exchange with a tool that insisted that the earth is 6,000 years old. He believes that Noah took a pair of representative 'types' of each animal onto the ark (a wolf to represent all canines, etc.) To him, the millions of species we have today (micro) evolving in only a few thousand years is more believable than evolution of billions of years.

Surely there is some sort of wormhole spewing people from the Iron Age into our own time.

marting

20th August 2006, 11:24 AM

It seems more reasonable to think that something great and powerful is out there that decided to have a see- how- many- different- things- I- can- make contest, by designing all these different seeds, and then kicking back and watching what would happen if they were all put on the same planet. THAT almost seems plausible. Heck...if *I* was godlike...that would be something *I* might try to do.

What does God have to do with it? Already some are saying we need to think about colonizing other habitable planets. Colonizing with humans (and support critters) would be hard and we would have limited reach. Ensuring survival of life (which would then evolve) would be far easier. We have made huge strides in genetic engineering and we will likely be able to create life that can have reasonable possibilities of finding suitable planets and plopping down these highly survivable, DNA based lifeforms selected and modified from existing life.

Given that we are nearly able to do this now, it becomes quite reasonable that we would not have been the first, of zillions of worlds, to do so and may have even benefited from such an effort.

"Though art God" -Michael (to the grasshopper), "Stranger in a Strange Land"

bruto

20th August 2006, 01:05 PM

Aside from Iamme's apparently fundamental misunderstanding of how branching might work, from which he ponders how grass might have evolved into bees, I think there is a fundamental lack of understanding of some of the simple arithmetic involved. Here for Iamme's contemplation is a thought exercise. Please note that it is not meant as an attempt to explain how evolution works or has worked, but just an attempt to convey and understanding of just how big two billion years is.

Imagine, if you will, that two billion years ago, there was a single species of organism. Imagine next, if you will, that evolution is possible. Imagine next, if you will, that on average, it takes a cool million years for a single species to differentiate itself into two species. That could be the old species surviving and a new variant evolving, or it could be the old species going extinct and two variants evolving, it doesn't matter. Whether or not this is how it happens, I think it plausible to imagine that some kind of evolution can occur over a span of a million years, and the evidence seems to suggest that it has so occurred. So that means after a million years there are two species on earth, and after two million, there are four, and so forth. A simple doubling scheme. OK, now, Iamme, are you ready to understand what happens over even a simple single one of those two billion years we're talking about? If that doubling scheme continues unabated, what do we get?

1.07 x 10^301 different species would exist on earth at the end of the first billion years. Round it down if you wish for convenience. Write that number out. It is a "1" with 300 zeroes following it.

Imagine now, if you will that a mere one trillionth of the species evolved in this scheme had actually survived. Right? Only one in a trillion species has managed to get through the evolutionary seive. How many species would be left? a "1" with 288 zeroes after it.

Perhaps that is too generous an estimate, so let us make the thought experiment more stringent: let us surmise that the number of species doubles only once every 10 million years! It takes a cool ten million years for that little unicellular organism to evolve into two little unicellular organisms, etc. Only a hundred iterations in the first billion years. Even so, after assuming that the odds of making it all the way to year one billion are a trillion to one, you are left with 1280000000000000000000 surviving species.

The time frame for which you find diversity so unimaginable is twice that billion. I realize that this is a primitive and simplistic way of looking at the mathematics of evolution (statisticians and mathematicians and biologists etc. please note this and save your breaths), but the point is not to try to convince anyone that evolution occurred in one manner or another. The point is just to convey the possibility that if any kind of branching occurred in the evolutionary tree, two billion years is a long enough period to make considerable diversity quite conceivable. More conceivable, in my opinion, than an imagined superpower using imaginary powers to farm the galaxy.

politas

20th August 2006, 04:22 PM

I said (again, for the 3rd or 4th time), "all of the more complex creatures." I have absolutely no idea how any reasonable person could understand that to mean "everything" or "bacteria." I don't want to talk about "everything;" I never wanted to talk about "everything;" I never said I wanted to talk about "everything."

At the very least, especially by now, a reasonable person should have understood my intention. Lord knows, I've stated it plainly enough multiple times. You apparently either do not understand, or will not, and there seems little hope that is going to change. Which leads me to believe you are not a reasonable person. There's no reason to talk further with you, about "anything."

You are about to disappear forever from (my) existence). Goodbye.

Wow. What a great debating tactic. You are saying things that seem irrelevant to me, so I will stop listening to you. Never mind that you are saying them in a polite and rational way.

I understand your intention. You say there is something special about the basic shape of faces. Never mind the fact that the human mind is hard-wired to recognise faces, to the extent that we can see faces in random patterns on rock faces. Never mind that the largest group of "complex" multi-celled life forms have no noses and eyes that have very little in common with ours. Never mind that most muti-cellular life forms are plants, since they aren't "complex" enough, obviously.

No, you want to focus in on the minority of life forms that still survive from the largely unsuccessful development of multi-celled lifeforms which actually support your bizarre assertion.

Multi-celled lifeforms split off from single-celled life-forms. They were a minority, an aberration. They had a difficult time surviving, so they continued evolving, finding new ways to make a living. Some of them took up stationary existence, and from them come plants, which has been a pretty successful strategy, though nowhere near as successful as the single-celled life forms. Other multi-celled life-forms developed muscles and from them come animals. At some stage, a form appeared which was bilaterally symmetrical, and some of them developed two basic eyespots near its mouth. From that population of critters is descended almost every form of "complex" multi-celled life, including us. But this is a minority of a minority of a minority.

Claiming that there is something special about faces because most complex multi-celled lifeforms have something resembling a face is like saying there is something special about blonde hair because most Norwegians are blonde.

But of course, you're not listening to me any more. Perhaps I'm speaking far too rationally and objectively to be worth listening to.

Wolverine

21st August 2006, 12:50 AM

I just now read a section of your enclosed link. Pretty lengthy. Very wordy/scholarly...yet it does not say how grass forked off to be bushes one direction and became bees in another direction...

Surely you cannot expect to skim a few paragraphs and emerge with a working knowledge or understanding of the subject. If you wish to understand evolution (or its components) you must make an effort to study the material . The TalkOrigins (http://talkorigins.org/) site is incredibly comprehensive. You won't be able to digest everything with only a fleeting glance. There is no secrecy involved. You must study. Or, you could opt to remain wilfully ignorant.

drkitten

21st August 2006, 08:12 AM

Do you know of a reference where researchers in this subject area have made even a crude map of how everything known forked off from some amoeba to go in all the different directions to become what they did, and what the time spans were in between these changes?..to get to where we are today?

Yes. I recommend The Ancestor's Tale, by the inimitable Richard Dawkins.

I am used to hearing how sharks have remained the same for many, many, many millions of years.

They haven't (that's a common misconception).

But even if they had, that doesn't mean much. Because we're not talking about how sharks have developed, but about how other animals or plants that aren't sharks have.

A friend of mine has a car up on blocks in his garage. It's a 1926 Ford. It hasn't moved an inch in something like fifty years. So if it hasn't moved an inch, how is it possible that my old Honda managed to get something like 300,000 miles on in in only thirty years?

How can these authors act so knowing about all this without some ability to actually demonstrate beyond verbiage?

They've got lots that they can demonstrate. Read Dawkins.

And if this knowledge IS out there? Then why the relative secrecy where you have to so hunt for the answers?

Yeah. It's so difficult to find Richard Dawkins' books....

What a tribulation.

How could we possibly have guys like Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum believe that evolution is false, if scientists can map it out?

Because he's a quack, a fraud, and a lying cheeseweasel.

Iamme

21st August 2006, 05:41 PM

Why break a pattern?

Yes. I had a long busier work week than expected and skipped posting at my friendss house in thge evening for like a week. Sorry. ( I have no computer of my own. I have been using his for about 6 years.)

Iamme

21st August 2006, 05:50 PM

Aside from Iamme's apparently fundamental misunderstanding of how branching might work, from which he ponders how grass might have evolved into bees, ...

Here is from what I actually said:

"...yet it does not say how grass forked off to be bushes one direction and became bees in another direction...".

So you misinterpreted what I said. You WOULD have made the right assessment IF I had said that BUSHES forked off from grass in one direction and bees in another direction. That said...I wil return to read the rest of your post because it does sound like you are formulating something that might make some sense, maybe.

Iamme

21st August 2006, 05:56 PM

Iamme

21st August 2006, 06:07 PM

Yes. I recommend The Ancestor's Tale, by the inimitable Richard Dawkins.

They haven't (that's a common misconception).

But even if they had, that doesn't mean much. Because we're not talking about how sharks have developed, but about how other animals or plants that aren't sharks have.

A friend of mine has a car up on blocks in his garage. It's a 1926 Ford. It hasn't moved an inch in something like fifty years. So if it hasn't moved an inch, how is it possible that my old Honda managed to get something like 300,000 miles on in in only thirty years?

Wouldn't your point have been better taken if you said that the Honda has since come into being, and along with it an entire new batch of cars from many other companies that weren't even around at the time of the '26 Ford...with contents and appointments on the newer cars that did not exist during the time of the '26 Ford. ?.

DrKitten's remark regarding Iamme's remark about Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum.:

Because he's a quack, a fraud, and a lying cheeseweasel.

Even a cheeseweasel? I'm in Wisconsin and have never seen one of these. :)

bruto

21st August 2006, 07:58 PM

I see whart you are getting at here. But I keep getting stuck thinking about those dinosauers and sharks who seemed to go unchanged for millions of years...or so someone is misinforming us about?

As far as all the math logic goes, the comprehension is easily understood if one just realized there are 2000 of those millions in a 2 U.S. billion (British billion is different).

I can't help what gets you stuck,obviously, but you probably are misinformed about what has and has not gone unchanged. I suspect you are misinformed about many things. Even so, a species remaining unchanged does not prevent others from changing, nor does it prevent others from branching off. the evolution of one species does not set the pace for all others. You do, I hope, at least understand that if some species has branched off at an early date, it proceeds independently of those it branched off from. The fact that (to pick what I think might be a better example) horseshoe crabs have remained substantially the same for something like a hundred million years does not mean that evolution stopped with them. It does not mean that all other evolutonary changes occur at the same rate. It does not mean that the evolution of crabs stopped with them. It does not even mean that the evolution of offspring of horseshoe crabs stopped with them. It certainly does not mean that the evolution of other creatures who might have shared a common ancestor with the horseshoe crab must be as reluctant to evolve as that creature has. It doesn't even mean that the evolution of the horseshoe crab will remain as sluggish as it has hitherto been.

bruto

21st August 2006, 08:07 PM

Wouldn't your point have been better taken if you said that the Honda has since come into being, and along with it an entire new batch of cars from many other companies that weren't even around at the time of the '26 Ford...with contents and appointments on the newer cars that did not exist during the time of the '26 Ford. ?.

Actually, perhaps more apt yet would be the point that (until the tinworm ate the rear axle off this spring) I was regularly driving a 28 year old car. On the evolutionary scale of cars this might be thought the horseshoe crab of automobiles, a big old Mercedes diesel with a cast iron engine and nothing electronic in it except for the radio. Yet, as this car continued to clatter its way down the roads of yesterday and today, others came and went. Hondas were introduced, changed, and some, like the late lamented "lunchbox wagon," went extinct. As you can see, the longevity of one species has had absolutely no effect on the evolution and diversity of others.

Cuddles

22nd August 2006, 05:24 AM

The configuration! Not the development of each individual piece. See #51. If your going to attack what I said, attack what I said and not what you want me to have said.

And if you had quoted my whole post it would have said "No nose, no ears, entirely different eyes, entirely different mouth at the bottom of the face (no chin below it), antennae."

The mouth is not in the same configuration. If you look at the link I posted you can see an insect's madibles extend from the bottom of the head, while an animal's mouth has a large portion of the face (the jaw) below it. And you completely ignored the point I made about the lack of ears and nose and the extra antennae. I attacked exactly what you said and showed it was completely wrong. Now how about you try attacking what I actually said and not just partial quotes.

Cuddles

22nd August 2006, 05:30 AM

I see whart you are getting at here. But I keep getting stuck thinking about those dinosauers and sharks who seemed to go unchanged for millions of years...or so someone is misinforming us about?

Dinosaurs did not go unchanged. Think of all the different species of dinosaur that you have heard of. Most of these did not live at the same time as each other. One of the biggest complaints about Jurassic Park was that most of the dinosaurs weren't Jurassic, and in fact most of them would never have seen any of the others.

As far as all the math logic goes, the comprehension is easily understood if one just realized there are 2000 of those millions in a 2 U.S. billion (British billion is different).

A billion is defined as 109, in Britain and everywhere else. There used to be a billion defined as one million time one million, but this has not been used for decades, especially since SI was created.

Ririon

22nd August 2006, 05:33 AM

Claiming that there is something special about faces because most complex multi-celled lifeforms have something resembling a face is like saying there is something special about blonde hair because most Norwegians are blonde.

What? I'm not special after all? :( And I thought the Swedes were the stereotypical blondes... :confused:

Grimoire

23rd August 2006, 04:46 PM

But I keep getting stuck thinking about those dinosauers and sharks who seemed to go unchanged for millions of years...
As someone else mentioned, those species haven't remain unchanged for millions of years, rather the basic "design" if you will was the same. There have been many different species of dinosaurs and sharks.

The first species of sharks evolved about 400 million years ago. They aren't the same sharks we see today. The basic modern shark evolved about 100 mya. Even modern sharks evolved. For example, the "modern" shark megalodon evolved about 5 mya, and died out about 1.6 mya, and was about 3 times bigger than the largest current shark.

So what makes a shark a shark: jaws, replaceable teeth, tooth-like scales, paired fins, internal fertilization, and a cartilaginous skeleton. If they have those basic elements, they are considered a shark. Even with those similarities, many of the older species of shark look completely different than the modern sharks.

For example, an early shark, cladoselache looks like a cross between catfish and a piranha, and not much like a shark at all... This hardly qualifies the statement that sharks are unchanged for millions of years.

Even if they went unchanged, it would only imply one thing: that there was no evolutionary pressure for them to change. They suited their environment.

PS: So, how is the counting to a billion coming along? Gotten past 100,000 yet?

Loss Leader

23rd August 2006, 05:00 PM

I feel like Bruno Kirby in City Slickers. "Shut up! Just shut up! He doesn't get it! He'll never get it! It's been 4 hours! The cows can tape something by now! Forget about it please!"

NotJesus

23rd August 2006, 05:40 PM

I seems that most Iamme threads are simple variations on a basic premise which goes something like, "I'm woefully ignorant about _____ and I'm far too lazy to learn anything about it for myself. Please explain to me why I should believe the (to me) unlikely-sounding claims of people who actually know what they're talking about."

politas

23rd August 2006, 10:06 PM

Kotatsu

24th August 2006, 04:00 AM

A billion is defined as 109, in Britain and everywhere else. There used to be a billion defined as one million time one million, but this has not been used for decades, especially since SI was created.

Sidetrack:
In Swedish, a billion is, indeed, one million times one million. 109 is a "miljard". 1015 is thus a "biljard".

Other than that, I could imagine that an amateur (or similar) might find a rose and a dandelion dissimilar, but a dandelion and a sunflower? They are practically identical!

I am also curious to learn how Iamme's reasoning in post 86 works out. The original quote ("...yet it does not say how grass forked off to be bushes one direction and became bees in another direction...") suggests:

(A)
Some grass -> bushes
Other grass -> bees

Bruto paraphrased this to "Aside from Iamme's apparently fundamental misunderstanding of how branching might work, from which he ponders how grass might have evolved into bees, ...", which suggests:

(B)
Some grass -> Bees

Which is consistant with (A) above. Yet Iamme's reaction to this is "You WOULD have made the right assessment IF I had said that BUSHES forked off from grass in one direction and bees in another direction" which, to me, suggests (although I find the wording somewhat ambiguous):

(C)
Some grass -> bushes
Other grass -> bees (1)

Which, you will find, is identical not only to (A), but also to (B) (though the fate of the bushes is regrettably left out). I thus become confused, and - to forestall the little "you have not posted for some time; why not do so?"-message that I sometimes find at the top of the forum, I'd appreciate an explanation as to what it is I am overlooking in this reformulation of statements.

---
(1) My initial interpretation of Iamme's sentence would have worked out as:

(D)
Some grass -> ½ bushes
Bees -> the other half of the bushes (perhaps indicating that bushes are, essentially, halfbreeds between grass and bees, which is a novel concept, and an understandable if somewhat prosaic description of roses)

Though this seems to be an even more ludicrous interpretation, and is probably wrong.

Grimoire

24th August 2006, 11:31 AM

He's a very successful troll.

Perhaps, but in researching his claim that "sharks have remained the same for many, many, many millions of years", I learned something about sharks. While I seriously doubt he will ever actually learn anything, I certainly did.

BPScooter

4th September 2006, 02:49 AM

Hey now, everybody, I need to show off what I learned from Daniel Dennett's book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea." It may be 10 years old but some of it is new to me.

The idea of Design Space (what are the possibilities, how many more meaningless sentences there are than meaningful ones)
A Vast number
a Vanishing probability
Cranes vs. Skyhooks
Algorithms and Heuristics

These are nice ideas! They explain stuff to me, and there is no need for "faith"! Alan Turing needs to be on a stamp, or something!

bruto

4th September 2006, 07:37 AM

Iamme

4th September 2006, 11:56 AM

And why on earth should I worry about what Carl Baugh claims to believe.

Nothing to "worry" about, actually. It's just interesting getting other takes on evolution. If it is as cut and dried as say our Earth rotating around the sun rather than the other way around...then how in the world could some Ph.D who USED TO BE an evolutionist himself, now conclude that there are many falacies in the theory. Eh?

Aren't you the kind of person that likes to get other opinions before you way out the presented evidence? It's like when I listen to talk radio and some expert guest is on that makes it sound like everything he says is correct. Yet I know full well from the experience I have when I have seen showed when there are TWO guests on with differing views, that only then can one learn both sides of the issue. With just one opinion, it is just slanted.

Iamme

4th September 2006, 12:27 PM

I can't help what gets you stuck,obviously, but you probably are misinformed about what has and has not gone unchanged. I suspect you are misinformed about many things. Even so, a species remaining unchanged does not prevent others from changing, nor does it prevent others from branching off. the evolution of one species does not set the pace for all others. You do, I hope, at least understand that if some species has branched off at an early date, it proceeds independently of those it branched off from. The fact that (to pick what I think might be a better example) horseshoe crabs have remained substantially the same for something like a hundred million years does not mean that evolution stopped with them. It does not mean that all other evolutonary changes occur at the same rate. It does not mean that the evolution of crabs stopped with them. It does not even mean that the evolution of offspring of horseshoe crabs stopped with them. It certainly does not mean that the evolution of other creatures who might have shared a common ancestor with the horseshoe crab must be as reluctant to evolve as that creature has. It doesn't even mean that the evolution of the horseshoe crab will remain as sluggish as it has hitherto been.

I definitely see what you are saying. Now...if what you say is true...I wonder what driving forces were involved to cause some OTHER creature or plant life to say evolve at 20 times the rate, or whatever.

Don't most organic species evolve certain ways out of need, more than say mutation? If it was mutation, you'd think every species would mutate the same way at the same rate (approximately), in a set randon fashion...like every so many cells in so many generations would be changed? But evolution-by- necessity is probasbly more difficult to quantify, and hence gives theoriticians greater latitude in not having to explain all the minute details of how various species evolved how they did.

I have never heard or figured out why some species would develop these additional functions while others are content to just survive. Take an oyster or worm that survive and reproduce just fine with their simplistic life form. Then look at us that went onto develop arms, legs, fingers, extra senses like taste buds and nerves, sweat glands and tear drops-etc, ability to talk, random thinking, etc.

I have heard the argument somewhere on this board where someone asked something similar to why something like grass did not evolve to anything higher by now; and the answer given had something to do with analyzing the common ancestry of the grass rather than looking at just the grass.

Hasn't someone tried to make a map that shows everything forking off of some one-cell creature and then carefully scrutinizing the logic of how something on one set of branches (of the evolutionary tree) only got to the grass or perhaps moss stage...while something else had branches upon branches forking off that caused *US* to get to where we are today?

Isn't it more plausible that during the formative years of life on earth there were various cell-building life ingredients/forms around that could have explained a more diversified family rtree, rather than the theory or notion that *EVERYTHING* we see around us today came from just *ONE* (a specific) one-celled organism?

Iamme

4th September 2006, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by politas
He's a very successful troll.

Gerimoire:
Perhaps, but in researching his claim that "sharks have remained the same for many, many, many millions of years", I learned something about sharks. While I seriously doubt he will ever actually learn anything, I certainly did.

You mean NOT that I won't learn anything...but that I won't ever learn anything about evolution.

I don't think you want to challenge me on stuff I have learned, in general. I have done too many different things, and been around both the rich and the poor...and have been a tenant and landlord both, and homeowner, and home builder...in my 53 years.

These loose blanket statements some of you people make, regarding myself, only make yourselves look silly.

Foster Zygote

4th September 2006, 02:07 PM

How could we possibly have guys like Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum believe that evolution is false, if scientists can map it out?

Because Carl Baugh hates, hates what science has revealed. He is offended that science has contradicted his superstitious fairy tales and will go to any length to remain willfully ignorant of the science that shows Biblical creation to be myth. No amount of evidence is sufficient to convince him. He has no formal training in biology (his doctorate is in theology, as I recall) and is no more qualified to give information on evolution than I am qualified to tell a surgeon how to transplant a kidney.

Steven

Loss Leader

4th September 2006, 02:21 PM

Isn't it more plausible that during the formative years of life on earth there were various cell-building life ingredients/forms around that could have explained a more diversified family rtree, rather than the theory or notion that *EVERYTHING* we see around us today came from just *ONE* (a specific) one-celled organism?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean but the answer is no.

Foster Zygote

4th September 2006, 02:21 PM

Here's some further insight (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/degrees.html) into Carl Baughs relevance to biological science.

Steven

Iamme

4th September 2006, 03:07 PM

Because Carl Baugh hates, hates what science has revealed. He is offended that science has contradicted his superstitious fairy tales and will go to any length to remain willfully ignorant of the science that shows Biblical creation to be myth. No amount of evidence is sufficient to convince him. He has no formal training in biology (his doctorate is in theology, as I recall) and is no more qualified to give information on evolution than I am qualified to tell a surgeon how to transplant a kidney.

Steven

Very well put. So...if his doctorate has really nothing to do with biology, then TBN network should be upfront honest about this. You raise a very valid point.

But even if his Ph.D is in theology...wouldn't you think that in order to attain that degree that they need to do research to prove that their theological beliefs are correct over that of other beliefs?

I wish I could give some good example. (Hmmm. Thinking.) This is off the cuff,... but this would be like someone getting their doctorate in wood fabrication and doing their thesis on superior-strength bridge making and completely disregarding the fact that metal and cable bridge building trumps that of strong wooden bridges. Something like that.

Iamme

4th September 2006, 03:14 PM

Foster,

Thanks for the link. I skimmed through it at twice my normal reading speed, but got the jist. I want to study more about this supposed archeology degree plus read all the numbered footnotes better. But I got to get out of this smoke-filled apt. now and do some shopping for what I have left of this Labor Day weekend.

Loss Leader

4th September 2006, 03:18 PM

Very well put. So...if his doctorate has really nothing to do with biology, then TBN network should be upfront honest about this.

Carl Baugh's doctorate is in ... Education. He received it from the prestigious Texas Extension of Pacific International University (Missouri Charter). And his doctoral dissertation was: "Academic Justification for Voluntary Inclusion of Scientific Creation in Public Classroom Curricula, Supported by Evidence that Man and Dinosaurs Were Contemporary." According to Wikipedia, the university has no academic accreditation, and offers doctorates for a lump sum payment. He also received another doctorate in Theology from a similarly unaccredited diploma mill.

Not since I found out Dr. Laura's doctorate was in gym have I been less impressed with a person's academic credentials.

Iamme

4th September 2006, 03:19 PM

I'm not sure I understand what you mean but the answer is no.

Now just how do they know that life didn't spring forth from more than one exact-looking cell. And maybe some of you have read some of my other posts where I have made this point:

Just because we have frying pans and kettles...does not mean man evolved the kettle from the frying pan. In similar fashion, why could not the forces of nature, or god, have created things that share common ingredients, yet to be totally differrent entities?

Iamme

4th September 2006, 03:20 PM

Not since I found out Dr. Laura's doctorate was in gym have I been less impressed with a person's academic credentials.

Shame on her for even using that title. That is even MORE misleading. Are you sure about this?

Foster Zygote

4th September 2006, 03:30 PM

Carl Baugh's doctorate is in ... Education. He received it from the prestigious Texas Extension of Pacific International University (Missouri Charter). And his doctoral dissertation was: "Academic Justification for Voluntary Inclusion of Scientific Creation in Public Classroom Curricula, Supported by Evidence that Man and Dinosaurs Were Contemporary." According to Wikipedia, the university has no academic accreditation, and offers doctorates for a lump sum payment. He also received another doctorate in Theology from a similarly unaccredited diploma mill.

Not since I found out Dr. Laura's doctorate was in gym have I been less impressed with a person's academic credentials.

Beyond the dishonesty of representing themselves as authorities, they genuinely seem to think that they can get away with it. Given the controversial nature of their claims do they really think that no one will investigate their credentials? Are they really that stupid? I can only conclude that they are, unless they simply plan to ignore those who expose them safe in the knowledge that those who believe them need to believe them so much that they will rationalize their deception for them.

Steven

Loss Leader

4th September 2006, 04:24 PM

Shame on her for even using that title. That is even MORE misleading. Are you sure about this?

Oh, yes. Dr. Laura has a Ph.D. in Physiology from Columbia University. That's physiology, not psychology.

bruto

4th September 2006, 04:56 PM

Very well put. So...if his doctorate has really nothing to do with biology, then TBN network should be upfront honest about this. You raise a very valid point.

But even if his Ph.D is in theology...wouldn't you think that in order to attain that degree that they need to do research to prove that their theological beliefs are correct over that of other beliefs?

Absolutely and demonstrably not. A theologian does not in any way need to acknowledge that theology is "correct" in relation to anything else. In the case of "doctor" Baugh, you must also consider that as far as I can determine, at least, his credentials are a pile of [rule 8]. His claims of credentials are inconsistent, and the institutions he cites appear to be either unaccredited, fictitious, or "diploma mills." If you're willing to pay a small fee, you too could become "Doctor Iamme." It would not, in my mind at least, qualify you as a scholar worthy of serious consideration.

I wish I could give some good example. (Hmmm. Thinking.) This is off the cuff,... but this would be like someone getting their doctorate in wood fabrication and doing their thesis on superior-strength bridge making and completely disregarding the fact that metal and cable bridge building trumps that of strong wooden bridges. Something like that.

You don't get a doctorate in wood fabrication. You might get a doctorate in engineering. In that case, of course, you'd have to know a good deal about engineering, which would be applicable to various materials, and we might hope also that in so doing you'd learn how to study the strength of materials and make rational judgments with regard to good engineering practice. In any case, a thesis must be defended. An engineering doctoral candidate presenting a thesis on superior-strength bridge building would have to face some pretty tough challenges if he made extraordinary claims.

That said, do not discount the possibility that certain very advanced methods of wood lamination might indeed trump steel and cable construction in certain applications. Some years ago the small town I lived in had a failing bridge, and entertained several alternatives, one of which was a quite attractive proposal for a glued-laminate structure. Another proposal won out, not because the laminate bridge was unsuitable, but largely for aesthetic and sentimental reasons. In this case the failing bridge was a historic iron truss bridge with sound abutments, and a contractor came up with a plan to build what was essentially a new steel truss arch inside the structure of the old one, leaving the old one intact but relieving it of much of its structural duty. The job ended up being well done, and the resulting bridge looked quite at home in its historic location.

Loss Leader

4th September 2006, 05:26 PM

But even if his Ph.D is in theology...wouldn't you think that in order to attain that degree that they need to do research to prove that their theological beliefs are correct over that of other beliefs?

You know, even putting this guy and his fake degrees aside, I find it amazing to think there'd be a theology program where one "proves" his theological beliefs are more correct than other beliefs. In order for anything like it to work, there would have to be some scientific measure of a religion. There is no such thing. Theology is basically only the study of what one or more religions say, how they evolved and maybe the biographies of their contributors. One cannot comparie religious beliefs for "correctness" any more than one can compare muppets to see which one is most alive.

However, I think the answer is obviously:
Big Bird. Because there is an entire living human inside of him.

bruto

4th September 2006, 06:13 PM

Big Bird. Because there is an entire living human inside of him.

But did the human being get there via grass or bees?

Foster Zygote

4th September 2006, 06:19 PM

You know, even putting this guy and his fake degrees aside, I find it amazing to think there'd be a theology program where one "proves" his theological beliefs are more correct than other beliefs. In order for anything like it to work, there would have to be some scientific measure of a religion. There is no such thing. Theology is basically only the study of what one or more religions say, how they evolved and maybe the biographies of their contributors. One cannot comparie religious beliefs for "correctness" any more than one can compare muppets to see which one is most alive.

However, I think the answer is obviously:
Big Bird. Because there is an entire living human inside of him.

What about Snuffy? There are at least two people in there. I think we have the makings of a serious Muppet/theology dispute here.

Steven

bruto

4th September 2006, 06:47 PM

Oh my gawd! Maybe Doctor Baugh was right!

http://static.flickr.com/4/8693097_70496eacf6_m.jpg

Loss Leader

4th September 2006, 07:32 PM

What about Snuffy? There are at least two people in there. I think we have the makings of a serious Muppet/theology dispute here.

Steven

Two people are by no means a single living organsim. In fact, two people stuck inside a big elephant-thing costume will be competing for resources - air, the little tv monitor, the kitkat bar. Big Bird is one single living person - whole and complete - and that is the most alive a muppet can be.

Except for Kermit. Kermit is real.

Foster Zygote

4th September 2006, 08:33 PM

Two people are by no means a single living organsim. In fact, two people stuck inside a big elephant-thing costume will be competing for resources - air, the little tv monitor, the kitkat bar. Big Bird is one single living person - whole and complete - and that is the most alive a muppet can be.

Except for Kermit. Kermit is real.

I stand... corrected, I think? =0)

Steven

Oldpossum

4th September 2006, 08:52 PM

Now just how do they know that life didn't spring forth from more than one exact-looking cell. And maybe some of you have read some of my other posts where I have made this point:

Just because we have frying pans and kettles...does not mean man evolved the kettle from the frying pan. In similar fashion, why could not the forces of nature, or god, have created things that share common ingredients, yet to be totally differrent entities?

Did you not read my answer to this question, very early on, in this discussion?

BPScooter

5th September 2006, 03:19 AM

This is so great because I feel like I learned something from Dennett's book that I just read yesterday. He has a ton of interesting stuff about how we actually do this speculation about the original tree of speciation. "Mitochondrial Eve" can never be found in the before-our-eyes fossil record, but we can be certain that something like this did happen. We can never prove that other things didn't happen... but based on our current cells and thanks to the new ways of observing, we can rule out the idea that there are utterly different systems at work. There could have been others, but they died out. Leafless branches on the tree of life, forever forgotten. I find some sort of Buddhist comfort in this notion--that far, far beyond the idea that "all men are brothers" we have the idea that "all cells that have mitochondria are brothers". That makes me feel warm and nice inside. But then I turn around and eat my burger, chips, take an antibiotic, and feel nice again realizing that I'm playing my part in naturally selecting a few multicellular life forms into my tummy and providing an evolutionary challenge to a very nice bacterial strain. Nature red in tooth and claw, in the Scooter household.

:-) (and yes, I always complete a course of antibiotics, since everybody knows how quickly bacteria can develop resistance under the pressure of natural selection)

drkitten

5th September 2006, 08:12 AM

Oh, yes. Dr. Laura has a Ph.D. in Physiology.

Except that "gym" is not "physiology."

Loss Leader

5th September 2006, 09:04 AM

Except that "gym" is not "physiology."

You caught me. I was being disrespectful to Dr. Laura by minimizing her academic credentials. In reality, I should have been disrespectful to her for her lack of training in psychotherapy, bad life choices, shameless self-promotion and poor advice.

bruto

5th September 2006, 09:04 AM

Except that "gym" is not "physiology."

Picky picky pickey!

NotJesus

5th September 2006, 11:36 AM

But did the human being get there via grass or bees?

Don't you mean via bushes or bees? All muppets are descended from grass, or maybe it's Astroturf.

Loss Leader

5th September 2006, 11:45 AM

Don't you mean via bushes or bees? All muppets are descended from grass, or maybe it's Astroturf.

Do not confound the two subjects of evolution and muppets. My muppet analogy was merely a metaphor for ... um ... something or other. Anyway, the question is not how the muppets evolved (they were made by Jim Henson), the question is which muppet is the most alive.

The answer is Kermit followed by Big Bird.

Hawk one

5th September 2006, 11:53 AM

HeyLeroy

5th September 2006, 12:00 PM

Best reply ever. :p

All the animals with noses coming out the side of their heads died out from acute embarassment.

And the ones with upside-down noses drowned when it rained.

Loss Leader

5th September 2006, 12:05 PM

Kermit -was- alive, but his lifeforce (or whatever you call it) was irrevocably linked with Jim Henson, whom we all know is not amongst the living anymore (and a big loss that was. :( ). These days, the frog's just a puppet.

That is the single stupidest post that has ever been written on any message board since the DARPANet went online in the '70s. If Jim Henson were the "life force" behind Kermit, then Kermit would have ceased to exist when Jim Henson did. It is the very fact that Kermit lives on past the death of Jim Henson that proves that he is a unique living creature. Jim Henson was no more the "life force" of Kermit than your father is the "life force" of you.

Let me further prove my point (as though you could even hope to understand it) by asking you this question: By what physical mechanism does a living creature "become" a puppet? Living things can die but they cannot become inanimate. (And I swear to G-d if anyone suggests that the corpse of the dead Kermit has been hollowed out, stuffed and is now being worked by puppeteers, I will drive down to the JREF and personally put my foot through their server.) The only conclusion is that Kermit the Frog is alive in his own right.

Don't bother to argue. Your meager rhetorical skills will only embarrass you further.

If I get kicked off for this stupid joke muppet rant, I am really going to feel like an idiot.

sphenisc

8th September 2006, 04:42 AM

I find some sort of Buddhist comfort in this notion--that far, far beyond the idea that "all men are brothers" we have the idea that "all cells that have mitochondria are brothers". That makes me feel warm and nice inside.

Actually, it's the mitochondria that make you feel warm and nice inside.

bruto

8th September 2006, 08:12 AM

That is the single stupidest post that has ever been written on any message board since the DARPANet went online in the '70s. If Jim Henson were the "life force" behind Kermit, then Kermit would have ceased to exist when Jim Henson did. It is the very fact that Kermit lives on past the death of Jim Henson that proves that he is a unique living creature. Jim Henson was no more the "life force" of Kermit than your father is the "life force" of you.

Let me further prove my point (as though you could even hope to understand it) by asking you this question: By what physical mechanism does a living creature "become" a puppet? Living things can die but they cannot become inanimate. (And I swear to G-d if anyone suggests that the corpse of the dead Kermit has been hollowed out, stuffed and is now being worked by puppeteers, I will drive down to the JREF and personally put my foot through their server.) The only conclusion is that Kermit the Frog is alive in his own right.

Don't bother to argue. Your meager rhetorical skills will only embarrass you further.

If I get kicked off for this stupid joke muppet rant, I am really going to feel like an idiot.

You are, however, assuming that it's the same Kermit. What if the so-caclled Kermit we now see is a cleverly fabricated pseudo-Kermit?