Comments by "MrSirhcsellor" (@MrSirhcsellor) on "Rationality Rules"
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Rogue Comet: It's a very complex system, but with enough time over billions of years, nature and the physics of our universe can lead to these outcomes, through attractive and reactive forces that occur naturally. There have even been experiments performed in labs today recreating the conditions needed for simple chemical compounds to bond and form amino acid chains, the building blocks of DNA, all by themselves through Chemistry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNijmxsKGbc
So it's a very slow step by step process, but I don't think you quite understand just how long billions of years is. I think that's where most Creationists get caught up...that and most of you can't accept that we may not be so special after all.
DNA doesn't always replicate itself perfectly, that's how we get mutations.
Cells don't think, plan or have any intelligence to create more complex life, but they don't have too be. There are so many cells and with enough time and enough changes made through natural selection, eventually more complex life will occur through an endless stream of trial and error, and the stronger traits being passed on for future generations. For millions of years, life was just simple single celled organisms, mostly bacteria. These bacteria fed on each other, constantly evolving to stay ahead on the food chain. Scientists have theorized that after enough time, eventually one such single celled organism consumed another, but by chance the bacteria that was consumed did not die, but instead formed a symbiotic relationship with the other bacteria, forming the very first multi celled organism. It is a theory of course, but it is plausible. From there, cells continued to advance in this way, mutations and errors causing chance moments to occur, that would give some cells more of an edge over others, an endless chaotic war of survival. It is a VERY slow process, not something that could ever occur over a 5000 year period or even a 100,000 year period. It's not easy to picture in your mind, because it is such a slow complex system, but it's not impossible and we are figuring it out.
Plants and animals are very advanced forms of life, but there are observable stepping stones of life in nature today that we can study and catalog to make the connections. In your mind it probably goes from single celled to multi celled to Banana....of course that doesn't make sense, but you're missing the millions of other steps of life between the multi celled organism to Banana.
Sexual reproduction is actually a pretty simple form of reproduction, it's beginnings starting way down in the evolutionary chain. Even in the microscopic world there are simple forms of life that produce sexually. It had it's advantages for survival, so it was carried on...otherwise it wouldn't exist today.
Not sure what you mean by "fast enough time", because it wasn't fast at all, and it wasn't forgiving. Life either adjusts and evolves to it's environment, or it dies. Sometimes life has very latent advantages it's not even aware of until something changes in it's environment to make use of those features. Picture a multi celled organism that does pretty well in it's current environment, but has also mutated the capability to consume and process larger amounts of CO2 than it's competing neighbors. Now picture the environment around it suddenly changing with a sudden uptick in CO2 levels. What happens is, the multi celled organisms that can't process the higher levels of CO2 will die off, while the organisms that can will now thrive and take over. This is how bio diversity works and it's how life finds a way to survive in almost any environmental condition.
DNA is just bonds of Amino Acids, which is just basic chemistry. Molecules bonding together to form more complex chains. It is impressive how they've formed together to create blue prints for life, but again, through billions of years of trial and error, they've forged bonds that work and that get passed on to the next generation.
Protections for the DNA weren't always coded into the DNA, even this had to be evolved. Again, there are Billions of little steps that had to happen over Billions of years to get us where we are today. None of it just happened over night.
If you look down the line of species, some species don't have lungs, some don't have circulatory systems, some don't even make use of any organs...like the Jellyfish, which is basically just one living organ on it's own. Simpler forms of life don't have everything that we do. When I was in high school, we took biology classes and we took a little time to study the circulatory systems of different animals. Humans have a 4 chambered heart, which is far more efficient than the 3 chambered heart of most reptiles, but the 3 chambered heart is still more efficient than the 2 chambered heart of most amphibians. So you see, it's not about what came first, the heart, the lungs or the brain...you're looking at it the wrong way, when the heart first developed in species, it wasn't even close to how a heart is today...these things start out very simple and evolve themselves to become more complex and efficient over time. The Eye is a perfect example, and here's a video you probably won't watch (but I highly recommend it if you wanna understand how this works a little better) of Richard Dawkins explaining the gradual evolution of the Eye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X1iwLqM2t0
Just like the evolution of our bodies and our genetics, knowledge takes a very long time to "evolve" as well. Yes, we were just as smart back then as we are now, but we lacked the knowledge we have today. Knowledge is a gradual thing that takes time to build...a very long time. We were just as smart 200 years ago...but why didn't we have Iphones back then? That's basically the same idea your asking with your question...do you see how ridiculous that sounds? Our earliest ancestors were more concerned with surviving than they were with discovery. But over time we did discover a great many things, such as how to produce our own fire, how to build our own shelters, how to craft our own tools...and eventually, after enough time, we were finally in a position where we had a lot more time on our hands to discover and create more abstract things such as language and writing. It's simple for you and me nowadays to imagine writing, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of a person with absolutely no prior knowledge of such a thing...do you really think you would have been smart enough to invent a language or symbols for writing? Creating even the most basic of symbols on cave walls would have been a MAJOR discovery back then....compared to today, it seems so trivial....but you didn't create your language did you? No, it was taught to you, it was passed down to you. This in itself is a form of evolution.
I'm not sure there is any cases where a T-Rex soft tissue was preserved over millions of years. If you're referring to that famous claw found in New Zealand not to long ago...it was proven to be a large bird species that was only around a few hundred years old and well preserved do to the conditions it was found in. I'm assuming you read some fake click bait article explaining it to be a T-Rex claw...and then never looked any deeper into it.
Evolution doesn't work that way...a new species doesn't just pop into existence one day. It's a very gradual change...doesn't happen over night. But, sometimes what does happen in nature, is that when an environment changes suddenly, one species that's not fit for the new shift will die off, perhaps even going extinct, while another species that is better suited for the change will begin to thrive and take over. This has occurred in our observable time frame...even without us noticing. It happens all the time in nature.
Further more, you didn't ask this question but I see it asked a lot by Creationists, a cat doesn't just magically turn into a dog...that's also not how evolution works. But look at it this way...we've been tampering with dogs for 100's of years, at what point will we have created a completely new species? The chihuahua is related to the wolf...but it's more like a rat than a wolf wouldn't you say? In just a few hundred years, we've taken a wolf and bred him down to the size of a rat or ginnea pig...this is similar in nature. The cat and the dog share a common ancestor...that's how evolution works. At some point in the evolutionary chain, there was a land mammal, that was separated in nature and had to evolve different traits to survive. One side of the genetic family eventually forming cats, the other forming dogs...probably took a couple millions years, but eventually, they split to form 2 very different species...but make no mistake, they have a common ancestor somewhere down the line. The same goes with us and say a Banana. How is that possible...well, our common ancestor in that case, is probably on the microscopic level going back a billion years. But at some point, a mulit cell organism was separated by it's environment and one side evolved over billions of years to form us and the other evolved over billions of years to form what we call the banana...do you see how that works yet? No...evolution doesn't say we're going to magically turn into a banana someday...thinking that's what we mean...is not understanding how this system works at all. :/
Evolution does work and it does make sense, that is why we study it and teach it. It works in nature on so many levels...not just the biological either, but as I said, the passing down of knowledge as well. That in itself is a form of evolution. The dominate genes will be passed on for the future generations, just like the dominate ways of thinking will be passed on for future generations.
That being said, your questions are legitimate questions, you're not wrong to ask them, far from it. We asked these very questions at some point, but now we have answers.
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Mike S. The Chihuahua is related to the Wolf, but it sure doesn't share many traits with the Wolf. And that's just over a few hundred years...after a few more hundred years, at what point will the Chihuahua become a new species? This is why it's hard to observe Macro Evolution, because at what point do you draw the line on a new species?
The reason we can't observe the Macro evolution, is because no single human being can live long enough to observe it happening...at least not yet...and where do you draw the line on a new species? Evolution theory is only about 200 years old...and we've only been cataloging different species for around that long as well. So we don't have enough data right now for something that takes thousands to millions of years to occur. So just because we haven't observed evolution on the macro scale yet, doesn't mean we're wrong about it. Creationists didn't accept the micro evolution either, until we had enough data around to prove its existence...now they can't deny it as being true...so just how long do you think it'll be before we're right about the macro evolution as well?
Also, we actually have come pretty close to creating life from non life. Here's a video explaining an old experiment that successfully formed Amino Acid chains (the building blocks of DNA), by simply simulating the environmental conditions and reactions necessary and then introducing the proper molecules found in nature, to form these more complex chains by themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNijmxsKGbc
Once these Amino Acids are formed in nature, they can go on to make more complex chains, which could eventually lead to single celled life. So it is possible and we have done experiments proving it's possible. I'd suggest, rather than bluntly stating there has never been any experiments done to create life from nothing....maybe look into it first before making that claim. Just because you're not aware of these experiments yourself, does not mean we haven't tried and succeeded in making some pretty good discoveries in these fields of research.
Yes, mutations are the result of an error in the DNA, and more often then not, it creates a disadvantage for that creature. But sometimes, it can help. Such as the moth he pointed out adapting to its environmental changes. To blindly state that mutations are always to a species disadvantage, is just ignorance. It may be hard to accept that errors or failures drive something as complex as the evolution of life...but it's actually pretty necessary, and therefore our non-perfect world is ironically perfect, and it's the flaws that have helped it along.
I think this is where a lot of Creationists get hung up. They want to believe they are special, that we were created by a perfect creator who made us for a reason. But more and more, we discover that we are not special. We are an insignificant creature, born out of chance, on an insignificant rock, lost in a vast insignificant galaxy, which means nothing to the universe that could really care less if we were here or not.
Evolution does make sense and we learn more and more about it every day. Give it time, we'll find your "proof" of Macro Evolution....even though as far as I'm concerned we pretty much have already.
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Ok, but it’s not just about whether God exists, in many cases it’s what version of him is correct. Your end conclusion is looking at it thinking in 50/50 odds...when in actuality there are thousands of different religions, all with their own interpretation of God and the after life, many of which believe with absolute certainty that you MUST believe in THEIR version of God, not just believe in a God.
So that actually lowers your odds quite a lot...to 1 in thousands, cause who’s right? Could be any of them...or none of them, who really knows? Every single one of them thinks it’s them...sone will even kill for that belief. Which means it’s either a sick game gods playing on us, where only the winners of the religious lottery get into heaven...or it’s all bullshit and you have nothing to fear.
Given the scientific evidence that’s revealed more and more that most of religion is just made up fiction, shining light on the stories that once were true now are false, I think it’s a safer bet not to waste possibly the only life you have, on praying too something that most likely doesn’t exist anyway, or if it does is most likely indifferent to us. But to each their own, spirituality can have a positive effect on ones life, so by all means, don’t listen to me, I don’t really know shit either. Just live a good life however you choose.
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