zound

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Posts by zound

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  96

  Let's Talk About Sex

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a old thread was bumped recently in which posters from 9 years ago raised objections to evolution basesd on personal incredulity regarding sexual reproduction.. i remember an elder in one of my old congregations saying something to the effect that "how could evolution be true, if men evolved before women...blah blah" you get the picture.. i have refreshed my memory of a chapter in nick lane's excellent book "life arising - the ten greatest inventions of evolution" and put together a summary.

  it would be great if others would add to it - cantleave, adam, tiktaalik, s&r, bohm et al?.

  here is my starter focusing on the problem with non-sexual selection.... if the driving force in evolution is the struggle of selfish genes to pass on copies of themselves to future generations, then sex seems counter-productive.

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  zound

  Bumparoonie.
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  12

  Update on Ark Encounter (YEC theme park): creationist Ken Ham offering junk bonds

  by adamah in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  seems the ark encounter project is having a hard time raising funds, but ken ham doesn't miss a chance to bash obamacare to help raise funds.

  ham is pushing junk bonds to help finance the project:.

  http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/11/ark_encounter_finances_obamacare_sank_ken_ham_s_creationist_theme_park.html.

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  zound

  So with all our technology and knowledge , in 2013 the ark would cost 73 million dollars, but a drunkard old man managed with his inbred family thousands of years ago, noooooo problem....

  Noah didn't have to also build anamatronic dinosaurs to go inside the ark.
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  28

  Photo of Russel Exploring Giza Pyramids

  by Gerard in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i found this in a french web site, i thought it was interesting.. .

  french text (original): http://pages.globetrotter.net/mleblank/doctrine/pyrwt.html.

  translation: http://www.letusreason.org/jw16.htm

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  zound

  Anyone have an updated link to Russel in the pyramid?
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  96

  Let's Talk About Sex

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a old thread was bumped recently in which posters from 9 years ago raised objections to evolution basesd on personal incredulity regarding sexual reproduction.. i remember an elder in one of my old congregations saying something to the effect that "how could evolution be true, if men evolved before women...blah blah" you get the picture.. i have refreshed my memory of a chapter in nick lane's excellent book "life arising - the ten greatest inventions of evolution" and put together a summary.

  it would be great if others would add to it - cantleave, adam, tiktaalik, s&r, bohm et al?.

  here is my starter focusing on the problem with non-sexual selection.... if the driving force in evolution is the struggle of selfish genes to pass on copies of themselves to future generations, then sex seems counter-productive.

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  zound

  WHY it evolved is a pretty easy one - and there are many reasons - but HOW it evolved is a bit harder to find an answer. I'm interested in cofty and others info on this.
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  96

  Let's Talk About Sex

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a old thread was bumped recently in which posters from 9 years ago raised objections to evolution basesd on personal incredulity regarding sexual reproduction.. i remember an elder in one of my old congregations saying something to the effect that "how could evolution be true, if men evolved before women...blah blah" you get the picture.. i have refreshed my memory of a chapter in nick lane's excellent book "life arising - the ten greatest inventions of evolution" and put together a summary.

  it would be great if others would add to it - cantleave, adam, tiktaalik, s&r, bohm et al?.

  here is my starter focusing on the problem with non-sexual selection.... if the driving force in evolution is the struggle of selfish genes to pass on copies of themselves to future generations, then sex seems counter-productive.

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  zound

  So when did sex evolve and what were the pressures that led to its invention?

  Looking forward to this bit. Great topic.
• 
  96

  Let's Talk About Sex

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a old thread was bumped recently in which posters from 9 years ago raised objections to evolution basesd on personal incredulity regarding sexual reproduction.. i remember an elder in one of my old congregations saying something to the effect that "how could evolution be true, if men evolved before women...blah blah" you get the picture.. i have refreshed my memory of a chapter in nick lane's excellent book "life arising - the ten greatest inventions of evolution" and put together a summary.

  it would be great if others would add to it - cantleave, adam, tiktaalik, s&r, bohm et al?.

  here is my starter focusing on the problem with non-sexual selection.... if the driving force in evolution is the struggle of selfish genes to pass on copies of themselves to future generations, then sex seems counter-productive.

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  zound

  As to the origins of sex:

  It is supposed to have begun with single celled organisms that reproduced asexually. When a predator is introduced into their environment (like a parasite) the cells learnt (I use this in an evolutionary sense) to group together - which provided them with greater security from a parasite. When the parasite left they would go apart again, but during this grouping they would mix DNA.

  As predators became more prevelant the cells would group together for longer periods of time. They did not at this point become a multicelld organism - still just a colony of single celled, but they began to adapt to this formation to better conserve energy - they worked together to mutual benifit. For example in a 'colony' of eight cells the front two cells would be responsible mostly for using their eye spots to see danger and navigate etc (which later became eyes). The back two cells were responsible for reproducing (genitals) - they still reporoduced asexually, but when they reproduced, they cloned the ENTIRE colony, not just themselves.

  All this is replicated in the lab.
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  48

  Why Sex??

  by PopeOfEruke in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  since being de-borged, i have come to appreciate that the answer to the old blue book "did man get here by evolution or by creation" is probably "evolution".. one thing about evolution which is still hard to explain is why or how did sexual reproduction evolve?

  of course now that we have it, i guess most of us would not like to go back to the "old" way, of either dividing ourselves into 2, or else self-fertilizing ourselves from our own 2 sets of sex-organs (ewwww!!!).

  i know a lot of men try this anyway but to no avail.......... but what motive force could have existed to actually evolve sexual reproduction in the first place?

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  zound

  Sex began because of the advantages of mixing dna (for reasons I described in part above). The ins and outs of how that evolved over time (pardon the pun) I only know bits and pieces.
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  48

  Why Sex??

  by PopeOfEruke in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  since being de-borged, i have come to appreciate that the answer to the old blue book "did man get here by evolution or by creation" is probably "evolution".. one thing about evolution which is still hard to explain is why or how did sexual reproduction evolve?

  of course now that we have it, i guess most of us would not like to go back to the "old" way, of either dividing ourselves into 2, or else self-fertilizing ourselves from our own 2 sets of sex-organs (ewwww!!!).

  i know a lot of men try this anyway but to no avail.......... but what motive force could have existed to actually evolve sexual reproduction in the first place?

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  zound

  I'll add a few comments / examples, maybe those with greater knowledge could weigh in:

  There is an example of two fish species in ponds in mexico that are very closely related but one species reproduces asexually, and the other sexually. These fish are victims of parasites that are in the ponds which attack them and cause them to get sick - also the parasites produce black spots on the fish as a byproduct.

  The fish that reproduced asexually were targetted almost exclusivley by the parasite because all they did was clone themselves, not introducing new genes and dna into the mix. Mutations occurred relatively rarely because of this - so the fish were not able to adapt to protect themselves from the parasites.

  The fish that reproduced sexually however were constantly mixing dna, and causing more mutations and adapted to fight off the parasites better.

  A drought hit the ponds and cut off a section of it. In this section the sexual reproducing fish soonafter became targetted by the parasite - which at first puzzled scientists. It turned out however that these fish had a very small pool of dna to share and were in effect "inbreeding" - swapping the same dna amongst themselves almost like the asexual fish. The scientists took a bucket of fish from another cut off pond - pored them in, and a year later the fish population was again fighting off the parasites - due to new dna thrown into the mix from the new bucket of fish.

  Sexual reproduction mixes dna, and causes higher chance of mutations. As to how it began I'll describe part of that later - my knowledge is a little patchy on this, which is why I bumped this thread.
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  48

  Why Sex??

  by PopeOfEruke in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  since being de-borged, i have come to appreciate that the answer to the old blue book "did man get here by evolution or by creation" is probably "evolution".. one thing about evolution which is still hard to explain is why or how did sexual reproduction evolve?

  of course now that we have it, i guess most of us would not like to go back to the "old" way, of either dividing ourselves into 2, or else self-fertilizing ourselves from our own 2 sets of sex-organs (ewwww!!!).

  i know a lot of men try this anyway but to no avail.......... but what motive force could have existed to actually evolve sexual reproduction in the first place?

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  zound

  Thought I'd bump this thread.
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  21

  jw.org BREAKING NEWS (erm... almost a year later...)

  by konceptual99 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/activities/help-community/suicide-prevented-sky-tower/.

  posted 21 nov 13. actual event.... 5 jan 13. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10857849.

  perhaps this is why is does not appear in the news headlines.... http://www.jw.org/en/news/.

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  zound

  No one's mentioned this part:

  "Then I realised he was sitting there on the edge waving his arms around, and talking. I knew he couldn't be talking to the people on the ground because they were more than 200m below. "I've seen people like him in other situations and they've got voices in their heads - they're hearing things.

  "I said to the negotiator, `There are evil spirits talking to him ... and we've got to beat them'. So I just kept telling him to stop listening to those voices. "I read the words from the Bible again and said, 'These are the words you've got to remember ... That's the truth, that's from God, not these evil spirits talking to you'."

  Are we back in the dark ages again?