Even so humans have a spiritual dimension and can't be complete without it as many psychologists admit, isn't it strange that evolution would produce creatures with spiritual aspirations and inclinations? When there is supposedly no spiritual world but only a material world.
Evolution still bugs me
by Geronimo 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Caedes
Deputy dog,
well? no answer?
Oops my apologies, I appear to have lost the rest of my post!
In short what the rest of that post should have said is that I read the article on thermodynamics and entropy posted by dd, It's clearly written by someone with no knowledge of thermodynamics at all and seems to have been written to try and sell the book mentioned and only includes a couple of short quotes that don't really tell you anything. Perhaps you would care for a link to a website selling books by Prof. Dawkins?!
I can only guess at the actual content of the book since the quotes are so few and so short, on the basis of the quotes included in the article I would assume the book is not technical and that the author doesn't have a good enough technical understanding of thermodynamics to understand how the laws of thermodynamics applies to other systems.
The best example I can think of is of hydroponics, when a plant grows it decreases entropy (i.e. it stores energy in an ordered state) but quite obviously it wont do that on it's own because that would be breaking the laws of thermodynamics, you have to add energy to the sytem by switching on lamps to provide the plant with the energy it needs to decrease entropy. Those lamps burn fuel which increases entropy (i.e stored energy is released from an ordered state to a disordered state) in our case the lamp is our sun.
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IP_SEC
One evolutionist book I read used snowflakes to show this is possible.
You might wanna study up on some chaos theory.The complex is bourn from the simple every day. Chaos is not unordered chaos. simple systems become very complex and orderly just not predictable. Also while entropy is a universal law of TD, it doesnt apply to everything outside TD
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Caedes
Greendawn,
The ability of humans to understand abstract concepts is an evolutionary answer to building complex social groups. We are the top predator on the planet not because we have the biggest teeth or the strongest limbs or can run quickly but because we are able to cooperate in a way no other animal can, we adapt our environment to suit ourselves and to allow us to control our food source. We are only the top animal because of our social groupings.
An ability to understand abstract concepts like morality is an evolutionary advantage in large social groups. I would imagine that it had a lot to do with the development of language. Being able to understand an abstract idea such as god is just a part of that ability. A human desire for a caring god who loves us despite growing up in an uncaring darwinian world should come as little surprise to anyone. what it doesn't demonstrate is any kind of proof of a spiritual world. So no it isn't strange that evolution has given us an ability to understand abstract concepts, it helped maintain our social groupings.
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Midget-Sasquatch
M.J.
That website on panspermia is interesting. There's alot of hurdles to overcome for the abiotic generation of even the simplest bacterial cells. How both the genome and the molecular machinery to carry out the metabolic functions of life arose naturally is a head scratcher. In essence, the position of the author of that website and of other panspermia supporters is: "we don't see how new genes can have arisen from nothing, so they must have been/are being added to the biosphere". Well I think that given enough time science can find plausible ways in which life could have arisen abiotically.
Some interesting examples to consider against the basic argument of cosmic ancestry are the nylon degrading bacteria (and how their novel genes may have evolved) as well as the anti-freeze protein in fish. These are genes with wholly new functions. If I'm not mistaken, I believe the anti-freeze protein also originated from non-coding DNA.
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mkr32208
borrowing an illustration from Douglas Adams. If you freeze a puddle of water and lift it up, you will find that the contours of the puddle perfectly fit the shape of the hole it is in. Uncanny, isn’t it? What are the odds of a puddle with exactly that shape, finding a hole with precisely the same shape? The odds of the water molecules accidentally forming themselves into that exact shape boggle the mind. Therefore all puddles are designed.
This is from the 'Salmon of Doubt' a must read for EX JW's (and I think anyone else as well)
plethora
Would you say I have a 'plethora' of gifts?
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Terry
isn't it strange that evolution would produce creatures with spiritual aspirations and inclinations? When there is supposedly no spiritual world but only a material world.
Man's imagination......can postulate.....other than reality. A nine foot killer clown with horns, for example. Isn't it strange we can imagine a nine foot killer clown with horns when there is supposedly not one?
No, nothing strange other than the implication that there is, and must be, a actual match to any/everything we imagine.
Our imagination is a workstation not unlike a drawing pad where we work out all sorts of prototypes, conceptual overlaps and outright nonsensical musings. But, in the end, we are bound by the reality which IS rather than the unreality which we might WISH there to be.
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M.J.
MS,
I believe the anti-freeze protein also originated from non-coding DNA.
What is non-coding DNA?
Why is antifreeze protein a new function? Is this a recent development in fish? Is this the same type of fish that doesn't have hemoglobin in its blood due to the high oxygen content of arctic waters?
Digressing a bit, one interesting aspect to note about anti-freeze protein in fish is that according to the WTS the whole earth was tropical before the flood...so why was a fish created with antifreeze protein?
Digressing a bit more, those arctic fish do not have red blood cells in their blood...didn't God know that he was leaving out a "primary component of blood" when he created them?
Back to the cosmic ancestry/panspermia thing. I agree it is really interesting, and to me at least at this point, puts a serious dent in the conception that Darwinian evolution is so cut-and-dry.
The way I see it from my admittedly limited vantage point, it is a waste of time to argue about abstract concepts like entropy and how it applies to the grand scheme of things (being an engineer it only makes sense to me in the context of a heat engine). How about tackling the more practical question of whether or not new genetic functions can spontaneously generate?
http://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe also broadened or generalized panspermia to include a new understanding of evolution. While accepting the fact that life on Earth evolved over the course of about four billion years, they say that the genetic programs for higher evolution cannot be explained by random mutation and recombination among genes for single-celled organisms, even in that long a time: the programs must come from somewhere beyond Earth.
...Cosmic Ancestry implies, we find, that life can only descend from ancestors at least as highly evolved as itself. And it means, we believe, that there can be no origin of life from nonliving matter in the past. Without supernatural intervention, therefore, we conclude that life must have always existed. Although these conclusions cut across the boundaries between science, philosophy, and religion, we believe they are grounded in good evidence. In fact, new data that support many aspects of Cosmic Ancestry are coming in rapidly. In the following pages we will explain how these and other recent developments support Cosmic Ancestry:MKR (El Guapo),
Seeing that I do not posess your superior intellect, could it be that you are upset and taking out your frustrations on me?
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Midget-Sasquatch
I enjoyed reading your digressions. They were thoughtful.
I'll try to answer some of your questions to the best of knowledge and ability.
What is non-coding DNA?
Sequences of DNA that apparently do not code for any enzyme or proteins. It looks like they just take up space presently, so they're often also called "junk DNA".
Why is antifreeze protein a new function? Is this a recent development in fish?
2nd ? first: As far as I know, there are two different versions of this protein, one in some antarctic and another in some arctic icefish. Both are estimated to have come about millions of years ago. One earlier than the other (can't remember which).
Scientists now have a very good idea of how one of them came about. The ends of the sequence are made up of the code for another enzyme (one from the pancreas). But its central part , the one that actually codes for the ice-binding function, is from junk DNA. So at least a part of this gene is from material that had no apparently known function. De Novo creation of code.
Is this the same type of fish that doesn't have hemoglobin in its blood due to the high oxygen content of arctic waters?
You've got it. As a group the icefish don't have hemoglobin, but I don't think all of them have the antifreeze protein though.
You'll have to verify all of this however, you know.
I agree with you that looking at the evolution and trying to trace how new genes arise is fascinating and much more relevant than going on and on about entropy. I think that these sorts of findings make a stronger case for evolution.
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Deputy Dog
Caedes
In short what the rest of that post should have said is that I read the article on thermodynamics and entropy posted by dd
The article was not about "thermodynamics and entropy", it was about information, thermodynamics and entropy. Apply what you know about thermodynamics to information (like DNA). Where did the information in DNA come from?