The universe, designed to support life? (page 5)

seattleniceguy

One,

All your "speculative" words were there to propose a scenario and imagine how it would play out. I'm not saying this exact scenario happened with humans. I was describing a theoretical mechanism of evolution. Here's a similar scenario:

Genetic Drift and the Founder Effect:

Eastern Pennsylvania is home to beautiful farmlands and countryside, but it's also a gold mine of information for geneticists, who have studied the region's Amish culture for decades. Because of their closed population stemming from a small number of German immigrants -- about 200 individuals -- the Amish carry unusual concentrations of gene mutations that cause a number of otherwise rare inherited disorders, including forms of dwarfism. One form of dwarfism, Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, involves not only short stature but polydactyly (extra fingers or toes), abnormalities of the nails and teeth, and, in about half of individuals, a hole between the two upper chambers of the heart. The syndrome is common in the Amish because of the "founder effect." When a small part of a population moves to a new locale, or when the population is reduced to a small size because of some environmental change, the genes of the "founders" of the new society are disproportionately frequent in the resulting population. If individuals in the group tend to marry within it, there's a greater likelihood that the recessive genes of the founders will come together in the cells that produce offspring. Thus diseases of recessive genes, which require two copies of the gene to cause the disease, will show up more frequently than they would if the population married outside the group. In the Amish, in fact, Ellis-van Creveld syndrome has been traced back to one couple, Samuel King and his wife, who came to the area in 1744. The mutated gene that causes the syndrome was passed along from the Kings and their offspring, and today it is many times more common in the Amish population than in the American population at large. The founder effect is an extreme example of "genetic drift." Genes occurring at a certain frequency in the larger population will occur at a different frequency -- more or less often -- in a smaller subset of that population. As in the example of human diseases, genetically determined traits that would ordinarily be uncommon in the overall gene pool might crop up with distressing frequency in a small subset of that pool.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/06/3/l_063_03.html

SNG

outbutnotdown

Elsewhere,

A very profound question, with many profound answers. I especially liked this one:

Edit: One of my profs once said: Is the universe adapted to life or is life adapted to the universe?

Which is the answer? Or is it neither?

I just know that I am and my kids are (and they exist partly because of that crazy ex-wife of mine, so I have to acknowledge her existence too... ).

What came first?... God or life?.... If anybody could ever convince me that they knew the answer I would not only follow them but I would make a killing convincing others of my opinion.

Brad (of the "being slightly facetious" class tonight)

Simon

Edit: One of my profs once said: Is the universe adapted to life or is life adapted to the universe?

Well, it's quite simple - life adapted to the universe.

Why so simple? Well, the universe contains "life" and had to exist before life did. Therefore it is impossible for the universe to have adapted to life. Instead, life developed and adapted to an already existent universe.

Naturally, only life that could exist in that universe could develop.

ballistic

It's times like these when we see natural disasters wipe life away on a grand scale we are reminded of the power of nature.

I once badly planned a mountain climbing trip which resulted in us being cut off by rising rivers. And at the point where my wife broke down and said "just leave me here to die!", I had a very cold sobering thought as I stared at the stars (yes it was now dark and 100 miles from anywhere) that we are just specs of dust on this planet, and we don't stand in the way of nature.

I think its not just self centered to suggest the universe is designed around us, it's just plain stupid. Ask Scott of Antarctic.

frankiespeakin

Yeah I really like that quote too.

Is the universe adapted to life or is life adapted to the universe?

That will get you thinking outside the box alright.

But how about this question:

Is the Universe and Life both the same thing? I mean is there really duality in life and universe? What if everything that exisited was just "it" or "life". Just pure existense that would not be possible without consciousness. Because without consciousness nothing exists.

one

one more thing,

most likely you have noticed that, no matter what, there is always a group of humans that do no follow the trend. Therefore there is always a group, big or small, that stand apart in just about any issue or trend.

Contrary to such a realistic logical fact, some here want to propose, not prove, that somehow we devoloped thin skin just because some humans decided to design and were coats to "protect" from cold weather,

not really, let me take that back, actually it was suggested, by frank i belive, that the reason was to have better sex, elimating bodly hair and thick skin, yeah right.

like body hair and thick skin disappeared as soon they started wearing coats, and happly they started having better sex without any body hair and thick skin which prenvented them from having better satisfyng bodly contac,

but according to the proposed theory they they actually did it so that future generations could benefit (better sex) from their unselfish efforts (designing and wearing coats), all of which presuppose they have no better priorities. ... .

seattleniceguy

LOL....one, you have just managed to totally misstate the arguments of several posters. Strawman, anyone?

SNG

one

SNG,

All your "speculative" words

LOL....one, you have just managed to totally misstate the arguments of several posters. Strawman, anyone?
SNG

Your are entitled to an opinion, post whatever you want, but I have no respect for statement such as the above. They are extremely general in nature, do not actually refute, provide no quotations or references for your readers to consider AND i feel inclined not to continue replying to that kind of statements.

The universe, designed to support life?

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