I have cosmolearning bookmarked, I love that place. I love free lectures, but there is always a difference between getting to watch a free lecture and spending months doing assignments, research, and being forced to memorize terminology and write papers using it. I liked biology before I started college, read books and watched lectures, but in a few months of actually taking a college biology class, my knowledge has increased dramatically. Namely because I've been forced to learn things that before I would've skimmed over because they were boring, or looked too confusing. Knowing all those little pieces that I would've skipped before has given me a much more thorough knowledge of the topic, which will be immensely benefical going forward in my studying and reading. I am definitely intrigued to go watch some biology lectures though, now that I understand alot of things better than I used to. I love college, everybody should go.
What is the spark that powers Evolution?
by N.drew 173 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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breakfast of champions
There are also free university lectures on iTunes University. I've listened to/ watchd several from Berkeley. Fun stuff!
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NewChapter
I love college, everybody should go
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JonathanH
Khanacademy.org is also a great place, but mostly if you want to learn math. It has stuff on science, economics and the humanities also, but it's a fantastic resources for teaching yourself math.
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N.drew
Time I have a lot of, but concentration I have little. If it's not for anything, I can't do it. Thanks for the link. I still think there is no one who can explain how evolution knows where it is going. Also, in higher life forms why do we see little to none systems that are in the evolutionary development stage. It should be something that I have actually heard of, not some obscure bacterium, or mold. Something like a zebra or bat or even a worm. I don't think old bones will do it. Something alive and big enough to see without a microscope. Just one thing. Then I'm yours (that's kidding).
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NewChapter
Ugh, I better bookmark that one too. My math skills are truly disappointing. I'm in the honors program with an honors scholarship, but they have told me that when it comes to math, I have to take TWO remedial courses! That is incredibly frustrating for me, and I'm trying to go through some methodical programs on my own so that I can restest and at least get into some college level math. What an embarrassment.
NC
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NewChapter
I still think there is no one who can explain how evolution knows where it is going
I can't explain it because I have already explained to you that evolution does not know where it is going. It is a process that simply responds to selective pressures. It will go in whatever direction it needs to, and there is no forethought. THIS IS NOT INTELLIGENT DESIGN. There is no intelligence behind the process.
Also, in higher life forms why do we see little to none systems that are in the evolutionary development stage.
What does this even mean? Everything is in an evolutionary development stage. A trait that is benficial now, could suddenly become a liability. Nothing is stationary and unchanging. The fact that current systems are compatible with life and reproduction is proof that they are in a developmental stage. They have adjusted as needed, and will do so again if needed.
Take a look at humans. They are a higher life form. Now look at the populations that have been in different areas for a very long time. You must look at these populations before they were disrupted by modern migration. Equatorial Africans are very, very dark. Their skin is black. Scandinavians are extremely light. Why? Because dark skin along the equator is advantageous, so darker skinned individuals are more successful there. Natural selection, over thousands of generations, has chosen the darkest skin. Scandinavians live in an area devoid of much sun. They also don't expose much of their flesh to the sun because it is cold. In order for them to absorb enough sun to produce vitamin D, they must be extremely light, and they are. Natural selection chose lighter skin over thousands of generations, because lighter skinned individuals are more repoductively fit in that environment.
So there you go. For your very own eyes to examine. An evolutionary process in a developmental stage. If the weather were to change, those populations would respond. If Scandanavia got more sun, natural selection would begin choosing darker individuals. Darker individuals would have more protection from the sun. If Equatorial Africa cooled, then evolution would select lighter individuals who would be better equipped to absorb more of a less abundant sun.
NC
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JonathanH
N.Drew, what you want isn't an answer or understanding. What you want is somebody with knowledge of biology to throw their arms up and say "Nobody knows! It's a bizarre mystery! It's completely illogical that things would evolve like they would given our current understanding of chemistry, physics, and biology! It's almost like there is some secret X factor that we can't pin down driving the whole thing.....strange....."
That isn't going to happen. You need to (A) stop anthropormophising biology. Asking how does something "know" to evolve a "finished product" is like asking how a ball "knows" to fall to it's "most desired position." A ball doesn't know to fall, and it doesn't desire to be anywhere. It's physics. Evolution doesn't know anything, and it's not working towards anything. It's chemistry and natural process. and (B) pay attention, and do it honestly. Your questions have been answered a hundred times in a hundred topics like these. If you can't see the answer, it's because you don't want to.
But in good faith I will give it another shot. There are no "unfinished" products in evolution. In order for a trait to be carried forward it either has to be so benign that it can hitch a ride by means of genetic drift, or it has to be beneficial. Which means any trait is already a "finished" product, no matter how flawed it might be. You don't see any "in development" traits because you don't know what they will be a million years from now. Your appendix is virtually useless, your eyes are a mess of engineering, your back isn't built for bipedal movement, the list goes on. But you don't see those as "unfinished" because they still work. In a million years human vertebrate may be vastly superior and better suited for upright bipedal movement, but right now that is not the case. If we were the finished product, then fuck us because our bodies are riddled with anatomical and biochemical problems. But we still work, at no point have we been an "unfinished product" and at no point will we be a "finished product." But all through our genetic legacy that has been the case. A light sensitive patch was not an "unfinished" eye, it was a useful aspect that helped an organism's reproductive success, and it just so happened that after a hundred million years or so, it was an eye. It's like asking for a transitional form, when everything is a transitional form, because there is no final or finished products. You're not going to find a lizard with only half a leg evolving into a whole leg, that doesn't even make sense. But you can find animals like the yellow bellied skink, that are gradually evolving to be more like snakes than lizards over a long period of time.
I don't know what you expect to see when you say you want to see something new evolving. I can point to monotremes that are mammals with venomous claws, duck bills, and lay eggs but you will probably just say "Well that's already a finished product, I want to see something NEW evolving." There are no finished products.
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N.drew
You are comparing one biological system to another and the difference you call evolutionary process in it's development stage.. I am taking about an organic thing that hasn't been finished yet by evoluton. For instance primate speech adaptation. It should be in it's development stage by now, don't you think? It has been some hundreds of years that higher animal life forms have been bred in captivity. The offspring should by now, according to time of past evolutionary development, in my opinion, be developing the organs and brain function for speech. Not because humans did, and now they should. It is because they should bring us to the World Court, so that their children can be free. Are they adapting quite well to being put in small cages with cement to sit on all day? No, I don't think so. I would like autopsy evidence that some animal somewhere is starting to develope something new. Not something different. Something that will adapt them better to life.
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JonathanH
New chapter points out an important fact, development depends on environment. What may look like a "finished product" in one environment may be an "unfinished product" in a different environment. That is to say it is not as well suited and needs to change for that environment. Our blood is one such example of a "developing system." A single point mutation in the gene that codes for hemoglobin changes the shape of our red blood cells from round, to sickle shaped. In the US or other developed countries the sickle shape is a bad thing, we call it sickle cell anemia. But in african countries sickle cell anemia is growing in the population because it protects against malaria. But Sickle cell anemia still is still not great for the body, but it improves reproductive success. If that spread through the population, then malaria would no longer be a problem, and future mutations would probably be able to weed out the negative symptoms of sickle cell anemia while keeping the benefits of preventing malaria. Our blood is a developing system, flawed and improvable.
