Evolution Discussion

[Rinpun]

Mainly because yours doesn't make an attempt to stand out. Right now, Wiccan ideas are simply saying "I'm a Wiccan", like being a Goth. A style of life that doesn't very much change how you act doesn't gain much speed.

In fact, you're the most "devout" (if you'd go along that term) Wiccan I've seen so far

Just a random note

 

[DM Cross]

Wrong.

You obviously have no idea if you think you can simply call yourself a Wiccan. I'm going to allow your ignorance to be your excuse, but don't talk about something if you really have no idea. If people in your town are calling themselves Wiccans because they wear the pentacle, or something like that, then they're not Wiccans, they're just another poser in the crowd.

For some REAL information about being a Wiccan, go here:

www.spiritonline.com

Alexander
Don't insult my religion, and I won't have to disembowl you

 

[The Helper]

Ha, you really want to know about Wicca check this out

http://dmoz.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Pagan/Wicca/

More information than you can shake a stick at.

 

[DM Cross]

I skimmed through it (I might look back later) but most of it seemed like the information I've found. Have to watch out for those posers out there...Wicca DOES practice "magic" (personally, I call them rituals, but whatever) and people are always looking to ... "sell" their abilities. Bullshit, I say.

But this isn't about Wicca! (You can PM me if you want to ask anything...I never mind answering questions, I've helped two of my friends start on the Wiccan path)

Alexander
Shocked The Helper knows about Wicca!

 

[ThE-eNiGmA]

I know a couple of wiccans...but it is something I honestly know next to nothing about. My stance on religion is obvious (i am an athiest) but I don't necessarily overtly hate it. In other words, I believe in personal choice. It is the only thing that you can really have left in the world. Despite what others may tell you "you don't hav e a choice" you always do...even if the choices may not be the ones you want to make. It is a matter of willpower.

Personally I do have a beef against Christianity, but mostly because it is the most pervasive where I live. Most other religions I have respect for. In all honesty, people are entitled to their beliefs. I just think that picking on an otherworldly being(s) to blame for all your probs is lazy and wasteful. But that is just me.

What I am trying to say is, why can't we all just get along?

 

[DM Cross]

I have my own personal "beef" with Christianity (possibly because my parents are Christian). I've grown to really love my religion. I admit that at first, the only thing fueling my ideas and loyalty to it were the fantasies of magic. Now, however, I hardly practice, and I actually love the sabbath rituals. They're fun! I don't try to get the Goddess to do my laundry, or solve my other problems. (Hey, laundry's a pain in the <BEEP!>) I'm not even sure where I stand on belief in A diety at all.

Want to know what really endears me to Wicca nowadays? Christians have 10 commandments. We have 1:

Harm none, and do what you wish.

Alexander

 

[Rinpun]

And because it's good for YOU you're into it?

Well, whatever. The Christian belief is that it is not YOU getting the real bonus.

 

[ThE-eNiGmA]

Uh huh, well, that is not what I see around me. Hypocrites, all of them. At least you cant accuse me of being a hypocrite on religious grounds, lol.

 

[DM Cross]

Whoa, whoever said Wiccans were considered only with themselves? The law says harm NONE, buddy, that isn't restricted to human beings...It's every living thing.

Alexander...

 

[Marksman]

Well Alexander is right about one thing, enthusiasm for religion is definitely pretty weak in our day and age. I know many people who do not take an active role in their proclaimed religion, mostly because they were pressured to believe something by their parents.

By the way this conversation is swinging dangerously close to flaming other peoples religion, this is supposed to be about Evolution. Some of you say, close enough, but I think Rinpun still has a lot of convincing to do to convert us to creationism (enough with these "you dodged my question so I'll dodge yours" responses.)

 

[Shadowy Fear]

:banghead: I :banghead: thought :banghead: I :banghead: made :banghead: it :banghead: clear AGH! Ok, maybe enthusiasm for religion is rather stunted because the church became corrupt and started disemboweling people either way they went (protestant or catholic)?! Ummm ... that doesnt really correspond to the whole 'god is a wonderful being who, although he wants us to suffer, is really quite a nice guy and his disciples are too!' (so lets just let them take our money and torture us to death) sort of image lol. Just a side note, sorry that was sort of a flame and I dont mean to offend anyone, and if I do I apologize, I really am just kind of annoyed at the whole 'dodging the question' sort of thing. Well, WHICH question have I been dodging? Iv tried to maintain a positive attitude til now, but this is just getting frustrating!

Ok, as iv stated before (lol) changes like noses and ears DO NOT POP UP OVERNIGHT! These things take MILLIONS, EVEN BILLIONS of years ... bacteria didnt grow noses overnight, lol. The larger ones engulfed the smaller ones to gain nuclei, etc. etc. and became multicellular GRADUALLY. Eyes most likely came about from patches of cells sensitive to light lol. Ears are actually one of the most complex structures in the human body besides the brain; they consist of many multiple, individual parts working together as a whole! Some cells amplify the sounds waves, some recieve the sound waves, some interpret these and send them in the form of neural inpulses to the brain ...

Sorry if I lost my temper there lol it just gets frustrating answering the questions --- maybe people are too busy laughing at my posts to take me seriously

You know though, we really need to take this thread more lightly :/. I mean, come ON, we are all playing the same game, and we likely we never convince each other of our beliefs! We need to add some humor intot his, as I have diligently tried (lol : P) but it is getting to frustrating for me alone to handle lol!

Sigh, if people dont seriously read my posts, or at least TELL me that they are ignoring them, or acknowledge me somehow, then I wouldnt be some annoyed, but a lot of people seem to be skipping past some things : ( perhaps I should stop trying to be funny if nobody will actually consider all of my ideas otherwise (nobody even ACKNOWLEDGED that tidbit on the Homeo Florensis species that I posted : \ meh iv been nice for too long)) Grrrr...

-Shadow Fear out -​

 

[DM Cross]

Whoa, dude, chill!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not really THAT strung up about the topic.

I just like to argue!

Shadowy, calm down dude. Not everyone is heard, you should know that if you've ever been to a high school history class. And hey, I DO read your messages! Not right away, I admit, but I do, eventually! So chill!

I COMMAND YOU TO CHILL!

Alexander
I am chilling...

 

[Marksman]

I was not referring to you when I said dodging question, I was talking about Rinpun. Sorry for any problems caused....

 

[Shadowy Fear]

*locks self in freezer*

.........

*freezes to death*

.........

Ok im feeling much better now thanks for listening to that outburst

I know about you marksman lol I was referring to rinpun lol when he keeps saying 'dodging the question'. Im not really sure which one that is, maybe ill just go search this thread back from the beginning (took me almost 45 min to read from before my very first post here). I like arguing too lol thats why im here . Yes I just get frustrated sometimes when certain parts of my post are read, and then others are just ignored ... even when those others correspond to my 'evolution evidence' (LOL ) and dodging the question, and some new interesting things.

Lets see, the Island Theory, based off of the various species found on the island of Florensies or something like that, states that large animals grow smaller as there are no major predators, and small ones get bigger because bigger is more effective for them. Hence, rats the size of dogs and tall men the size of Girl Scouts lol .

Yes I should and will chill, ill try not to let that happen again, but if you want this to be so then PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE MY EVIDENCE lol ! Iv answered the dodging part (I think ...) so lets move on to the otehr things.

Hmmmm ..... not to flame Catholism, but I think the whole system is corrupt. I mean, they DISEMBOWELED people for their beliefs ... then again, so did certain Protestants, and jungle island cannibals, and several species of platypuses (those POOR platypuses, we should start a thread for poor abused creatures; we can add the dodo bird and neaderthal as secondary conversations LOLOL ). That doesnt sound very holy to me, trying to convert somebody and then, failing that, tearing out their small intestines and sending them to Hell with that excruiatingly painful final moment of their existence (or they might even have keft their insides like that *shudders* ) and after Martin Luther religion split and branched so much that some people think they are middle ground between Prot. and Cath. although that is fine, I am just backing up my statement .

Religion was begun by primitive people, to explain what they could NOT explain, and to help them understand the world; now that we understand it (mostly) it seems childish to cling to religion like a stubborn old hound clinging to a piece of meat. Of course, I dont mean to offend anyone in any way here; this is merely my outlook on religion vrs evolution, and I again apologize for anyone I offended.

---This has been a slightly random opinion from Shadowy Fear---

 

[SilverHawk]

Has anybody ever read Angels + Demons? In that book, a scientiest/priest proves the existence of God using particle physics. Although more relevant to the Bug Bang and such, it just goes to show that there can be common ground.

 

[RealmRPGer]

Okay, well, this thing is long as hell, so I think I better note that I only read the first two pages. =( Sorry, I have a plane to catch tomorrow, so I need my sleep. I'll retrace everything tomorrow. I just have a couple (haha, yeah...) things to say.

Has anybody mentioned homo erectus yet? I mean, that's been considered the "true" missing link. (In case you don't know, it's basically an ape that walks upright. I think that's pretty strong evidence myself. Granted, they only found a skull...But considering that there's a distinct difference in the head-backbown connection between apes and humans, as well as features of the skull, it made it quite clear).

The original poster MENTIONED whale evolution in one of his posts. I think this is definately the strongest little piece of evidence that there exists for evolution. The whale evolved from a wolf-like creature into a fish-like one over just thousands of years! Now, that definately makes going from amoeba to human in 5 billion convincingly plausible, eh? National Geographic had a VERY good article on whale evolution a few years back. I really wanna see if I can dig that up. They had photos of all the variations. Some of them were extremely long and serpent-like. =)

As for asexual to sexual, there are several theories, but the most accepted is thus. Firstly, multi-celled organisms came about by means of efficiency. IE, one cell was in charge of the food, and the other was in charge of, say, moving or reproducing. This now meant that one organism was twice as "powerful" as another. It could flee from enemies while at the same time digesting its food!


Now, let's say there was a "healer" cell. This cell was in charge of recovering lost data, so to speak. If there's a problem, go to another healer cell, and using the tools of the reproductive cell, fix the problem. But, what if the OTHER healer isn't exactly like you? What happens? It doesn't take long to figure out that my awesome speed and your awesome food efficiency makes for a much better organism. BUT, a pure copy doesn't solve this. I'll get your eating skills, but lose my speed. If, however, the reproduce cell kicks in at the same time, I can a mixture of the two...The first half of the reproduction gets my speed, the second half gets your energy efficiency. Now we have sexual reproduction, and I don't have to spend another 5000 years trying to figure out how to eat like you.

Micro-evolution is evolution of a species. I'm sure you'll easily retort this, but the black-tailed dears on the west of the US are a different species than the white-tailed dears on the east. They both look pretty much the same. But they can't reproduce. That's kindof odd, don't you think? Obviously SOMETHING pretty big changed.

Oh. You kept talking about energy. What does that matter? I don't see how energy is relevent to evolution at all. This isn't a discussion on life, nor on death(unless you want to talk about the evolution of the kill-switch...). Since EVERYTHING is energy, I don't think I can believe that the sun gives us warmth...Because, obviously, that's energy...and we don't know where energy came from...therefore the belief that fire gives off heat can't be trusted.

Oh, you think that eyes are only useful as eyes? Well, there's actually a lot of convincing reasoning there IS use to "half" an eye (so to speak). Firstly, creatures would obviously have developed light-sensitive receptors. When I see light, things are good. When I don't see light...uh-oh, SOMETHINGS blocking the light! Better move FAST in case that "something" can eat me! Develop a little bit more, and now you can see the rough size of said blocking object. If it's huge, it's probably just a wall. If it's tiny, it's no threat (likely), maybe it's even food! If it's bigger than you, flee! Now, just keep making incremental steps, and, again, it's not hard to see how eyes developed.

I'm sure I missed some things...But I spent quite a while discussing some key topics. It's time for some sleep. =)

 

[ThE-eNiGmA]

Very nice post. I agree on the eye bit, though the reproductive section is a bit muddy. I havent read the last few posts either, just yours. What do you mean, the sun doesn't give us energy? One of the laws of thermodynamics pretty much spells it out...with no energy, no "stimulus" to a system, it will eventually settle. As long as there is energy coming in, we will keep on living. Again, energy DOES come from the sun. Why do you think plants do photosynthesis? They don't have chlorophyll for nothing. Why do we eat plants? Because they stored the energy they got from the sun in molecules that we can use to extract energy (anybody want sugar?).

Why do we have reproduction? It is a way of ensuring that future generations will have variations, and perhaps those generations have USEFUL adaptations.

Regardless of the source of life, whether you believe it to be dirt, volcanic ocean vents, primordial swamps, a deity/deities, it is irrevalent. Evolution is real, people. You can see it in yourself, you can see it in your kids, your families, the environment, just about everything with carbon in it. Even CO2, lol. Many might be dismissive the of speculation and hypothesises of the scientific establishment, but realize this: the scientific community can be compared to a pack of pirhanas, like lawyers and media. They will turn on their own in a flash if they smell blood. If a scientist doesn't offer logic that will support their theories, evidence that supports it, he will be ripped apart. Although they may quibble over the details, they pretty much agree that it is a very real process.

Evolution is both a blessing and a curse, in some ways. In many cases, organisms spend SOOO much time adapting to each other, living in harmony and whatnot, that a sudden intrusion can destroy them utterly. We see that kind of scenario all over the world. Unfortunately, we, the "monkey geniuses" are often the instrument of natural destruction. We are the most out of tune species on the planet. Granted, take some species, put themselves elsewhere, and havoc ensues. But we are the only species that willingly causes havoc, and has very little to pray on it. Evolution, it seems, has played a dirty joke. Monkeys, that most unlikely of species, has conquered the world.

 

[RealmRPGer]

Okay, first off, the energy thing was a retort to the original poster. He was asking us to explain the origin of energy, because he thought it was relevant to evolution. So that section was simply mocking him saying that NOTHING could be taken as true if the knowledge of the origin of energy was required.

The original poster (sorry that I forgot his name, btw) said he believed in micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution (evolving into a new species). I gave two proofs: whales, which there is EXTENSIVE proof of and a vastly large number of fossils, simply because that entire evolution happened so currently. I also mentioned how two very similar deer variations became seperate species, showing that large changes can be made in short amounts of time, and with little immediate effect on the species.

I'll see if I can find a link to the various theories behind the evolution of sexualism. That will hopefully make my babble a bit more clear.

I disagree that humans are the least optimized for the environment. For starters, humans are EVERYWHERE. Not many species (and NO larger ones) can attest to that. We have the ability to "adapt" to most any environment (proving that the brain is best adaptation tool). Not to mention that if the world were to explode (with enough warning time), humans are the only species that can survive it (obviously, we'd get our asses to Mars).

 

[ThE-eNiGmA]

What I mean about adaptablitity is that we dont specialize. We are in general the best adaptors, thanks to our brains. But I am talking about from an evolutionary, biological standpoint. We aren't evolved to thrive in any particular environment, which in itself is our strength. As for the getting ourselves to Mars...we can't even survive the trip yet. Cosmic radiation is still a big problem. I actually don't know about the whale, so I can't comment on it. I find it highly doubtful it occured over "thousands of years." More like millions. It just doesn't happen that fast in organisms with longer periods between generations.

 

[RealmRPGer]

Alright, my bad, 5-10 million years.

Yes, humans have the ability to adapt...But that in and of itself was an evolutionary trait. Therefore, humans EVOLOVED the best adaptation methods. Now, when you think about it, that's the BEST thing you CAN evolve...Hence why so many creatures have the ability.
You can't argue against adaptation coming about from evolution, now can you?


Oh yes, the original poster also posted the question why haven't amoebas evolved. Well, that's so simple I shouldn't even need to explain it. They DID evolve. And they evolved some more. And more...and more...and you get the picture. The amoebas that WEREN'T part of the original evolution remained the same. Think logically next time, eh?