NO BLUE HEAVEN FOR ELANJO

[Bigga]

Putting the event of today's tragedy to one side, a moment, the continuing usage of comparing religious to peaceful Darwinism is farcical, in the extreme.

(1)There is NO evidence that you can offer that religion has started wars from Day One. In order for you to do that, you would have to examine the 'fantasy work' that is The Bible. Of course, in doing that you would contradict your whole standpoint of The Bible being a falsehood!

So! Let us consider that religion has been around for a few thousand years, so far and Darwinism has been a couple of hundred and growing its own sect of Believers. (2)The fact is, there WILL be other branch off beliefs from more 'radical thinkers' that deviate more and more from the 'original line'.

Isn't that the nature of Evolution?

So, for one to compare the very early comparative stages of a Belief system to a more established is folly in the extreme!

It is 'flawed'( a favourite word of mine, lately!) in its 'intellectual' base.

(1) I'd be interested to see you explain and expand on that point.

(2) I'm sorry, but evolution isn't some random belief system, unless, of course, you think knowing that the clouds are 'bags of water' in the sky, or that the sun is the centre of the solar system, constitute "belief systems". When was the last time a war was fought in the name of science? Maybe if back in ancient times, when people worshipped the Sun, as a God, and time traveling scientists told them what the sun really is, then maybe the religious people would attack the scientists.... but that would be the fault of ignorant faith based superstitions, not the scientist's knowledge (or, in your words "belief")

I think you highly misunderstand science. Belief doesn't come into it. If some scientists disagree about certain aspects of a phenomenon, they don't break up into sects and wage war on each other. They collect more evidence etc and try and prove/disprove each others hypotheses. Science isn't something that protects faulty understanding for long, and for you to compare factual religious conflicts of the past to the possibility, in your eyes, that in some far flung point in time scientists will split up into stubborn belief based sects, is highly dishonest, biased, irrational.... and, funnily enough(not) faith based(ie. belief based on no evidence) garbage.

What a highly embarrassing reposte!

An assumption on knowing the mind of Man( whom by NATURE must secure more power) that he will suddenly switch off the lust of power and everybody shall live in Peace!

You're an Idealist! An admirable trait in a believer of science. But, I'm sorry, you are indeed naive to believe there will be no future renegades of science and foolish in the extreme to believe so.

 

[pee dubya]

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

I come in peace (I am a christian) and seek understanding of Darwin.

I have read that Evolution has no purpose and is purely a series of coincidences that changes things but it seems that the moths can change colour pretty quickly. Also I am puzzled that the white moths when it was dangerous to be white moths did survive otherwise who parented the black moths and vice versa.

If moths can "engineer" this that how come man does not grow his own teeth back like sharks, I hate going to the Dentist!.

Only seeking understanding and not trying to score points!

If I have got the wrong end of the stick I am sure you will enlighten me.

It's a genetic mutation, a bit like albinos in Humans. Not every moth that carries the mutated gene is white, because they're heterozygotic (means they have a gene for dark and the mutated gene for white, the gene for dark is dominant and overrides the white gene, that allows the white gene to stay in the population despite the fact that white moths have very poor chances of survival when the environment is dark). When two heterozygotic moths with the white and dark genes mate, there's a 1 in 4 chance of the offspring being white. I'm not too sure which way round it is to be honest, whether the white gene or the dark gene is the mutated gene, but that's how it works.

It's a bit confusing if you haven't studied any genetics at all.

 

[yep]

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

I come in peace (I am a christian) and seek understanding of Darwin.

I have read that Evolution has no purpose and is purely a series of coincidences that changes things but it seems that the moths can change colour pretty quickly. Also I am puzzled that the white moths when it was dangerous to be white moths did survive otherwise who parented the black moths and vice versa.

If moths can "engineer" this that how come man does not grow his own teeth back like sharks, I hate going to the Dentist!.

Only seeking understanding and not trying to score points!

If I have got the wrong end of the stick I am sure you will enlighten me.

It's a genetic mutation, a bit like albinos in Humans. Not every moth that carries the mutated gene is white, because they're heterozygotic (means they have a gene for dark and the mutated gene for white, the gene for dark is dominant and overrides the white gene, that allows the white gene to stay in the population despite the fact that white moths have very poor chances of survival when the environment is dark). When two heterozygotic moths with the white and dark genes mate, there's a 1 in 4 chance of the offspring being white. I'm not too sure which way round it is to be honest, whether the white gene or the dark gene is the mutated gene, but that's how it works.

It's a bit confusing if you haven't studied any genetics at all.

how come the mutation coincided with the colour of the trees and then again when white was right? The mutation according to the observation is not one way street?

 

[pee dubya]

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

I come in peace (I am a christian) and seek understanding of Darwin.

I have read that Evolution has no purpose and is purely a series of coincidences that changes things but it seems that the moths can change colour pretty quickly. Also I am puzzled that the white moths when it was dangerous to be white moths did survive otherwise who parented the black moths and vice versa.

If moths can "engineer" this that how come man does not grow his own teeth back like sharks, I hate going to the Dentist!.

Only seeking understanding and not trying to score points!

If I have got the wrong end of the stick I am sure you will enlighten me.

It's a genetic mutation, a bit like albinos in Humans. Not every moth that carries the mutated gene is white, because they're heterozygotic (means they have a gene for dark and the mutated gene for white, the gene for dark is dominant and overrides the white gene, that allows the white gene to stay in the population despite the fact that white moths have very poor chances of survival when the environment is dark). When two heterozygotic moths with the white and dark genes mate, there's a 1 in 4 chance of the offspring being white. I'm not too sure which way round it is to be honest, whether the white gene or the dark gene is the mutated gene, but that's how it works.

It's a bit confusing if you haven't studied any genetics at all.

how come the mutation coincided with the colour of the trees and then again when white was right? The mutation according to the observation is not one way street?

There was always a small proportion of the population born white, it's just they were predated on so quickly that they didn't get to pass on their genes. When the environment changed in their favour, the darker moths were predated on, and the white moths survived, so over time the proportion of white moths in the population increases, until the majority of moths are passing on white genes to the offspring.

edit - just looked it up, the mutation is the dark gene.

Obviously the normal moth is 'peppered' so it has both dark and light pigments, in the dark moths only the dark pigments will be expressed.

 

[ElanJo]

Putting the event of today's tragedy to one side, a moment, the continuing usage of comparing religious to peaceful Darwinism is farcical, in the extreme.

(1)There is NO evidence that you can offer that religion has started wars from Day One. In order for you to do that, you would have to examine the 'fantasy work' that is The Bible. Of course, in doing that you would contradict your whole standpoint of The Bible being a falsehood!

So! Let us consider that religion has been around for a few thousand years, so far and Darwinism has been a couple of hundred and growing its own sect of Believers. (2)The fact is, there WILL be other branch off beliefs from more 'radical thinkers' that deviate more and more from the 'original line'.

Isn't that the nature of Evolution?

So, for one to compare the very early comparative stages of a Belief system to a more established is folly in the extreme!

It is 'flawed'( a favourite word of mine, lately!) in its 'intellectual' base.

(1) I'd be interested to see you explain and expand on that point.

(2) I'm sorry, but evolution isn't some random belief system, unless, of course, you think knowing that the clouds are 'bags of water' in the sky, or that the sun is the centre of the solar system, constitute "belief systems". When was the last time a war was fought in the name of science? Maybe if back in ancient times, when people worshipped the Sun, as a God, and time traveling scientists told them what the sun really is, then maybe the religious people would attack the scientists.... but that would be the fault of ignorant faith based superstitions, not the scientist's knowledge (or, in your words "belief")

I think you highly misunderstand science. Belief doesn't come into it. If some scientists disagree about certain aspects of a phenomenon, they don't break up into sects and wage war on each other. They collect more evidence etc and try and prove/disprove each others hypotheses. Science isn't something that protects faulty understanding for long, and for you to compare factual religious conflicts of the past to the possibility, in your eyes, that in some far flung point in time scientists will split up into stubborn belief based sects, is highly dishonest, biased, irrational.... and, funnily enough(not) faith based(ie. belief based on no evidence) garbage.

What a highly embarrassing reposte!

An assumption on knowing the mind of Man( whom by NATURE must secure more power) that he will suddenly switch off the lust of power and everybody shall live in Peace!

You're an Idealist! An admirable trait in a believer of science. But, I'm sorry, you are indeed naive to believe there will be no future renegades of science and foolish in the extreme to believe so.

Yawn... You are really tiresome, Bigga. You really are.

You are comparing the properties of Religion, something based on faith (believing something without any evidence), with Science (which is purely based on evidence) as tho to state that science will go down the same path that religion has gone (crusades, persecution, sacrifice etc). There will always be bad people, whether it be a postman, dentist, or whatever, who do bad things. However, It is faith based religion that makes good people do bad things.

I am not an idealist. I am a realist. You are a fantasist.

"in a believer of science" Are you not a believer of science? Baring in mind that science comes from the latin word: scientia, which means "knowledge".

PS. I noticed you ignored my 1st point.

 

[1.618034]

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

I come in peace (I am a christian) and seek understanding of Darwin.

I have read that Evolution has no purpose and is purely a series of coincidences that changes things but it seems that the moths can change colour pretty quickly. Also I am puzzled that the white moths when it was dangerous to be white moths did survive otherwise who parented the black moths and vice versa.

If moths can "engineer" this that how come man does not grow his own teeth back like sharks, I hate going to the Dentist!.

Only seeking understanding and not trying to score points!

If I have got the wrong end of the stick I am sure you will enlighten me.

It's a genetic mutation, a bit like albinos in Humans. Not every moth that carries the mutated gene is white, because they're heterozygotic (means they have a gene for dark and the mutated gene for white, the gene for dark is dominant and overrides the white gene, that allows the white gene to stay in the population despite the fact that white moths have very poor chances of survival when the environment is dark). When two heterozygotic moths with the white and dark genes mate, there's a 1 in 4 chance of the offspring being white. I'm not too sure which way round it is to be honest, whether the white gene or the dark gene is the mutated gene, but that's how it works.

It's a bit confusing if you haven't studied any genetics at all.

how come the mutation coincided with the colour of the trees and then again when white was right? The mutation according to the observation is not one way street?

Mutations happen all the time, naturally... What drives their success or failure is whether these mutations survive in the local conditions!

The moths don't choose what colour they're going to be! The environment they live in either makes them visible or not to predators...

It really is unbelievable that some of these creationists continue to misunderstand the basics of what mutation and evolution are but still seem to refuse to study it. But I suppose that would mean them accepting a paradigm shift which they are clearly unwilling to even accept as a possibility!

I just wonder what level of Mathematics and Science they have got to... I'm guessing nothing better than average. But they still insist on the line "well I don't understand it so it must be nonsense"...

Oh and Johnny was THAT your considered reply because you said absolutely nothing about your understanding of the article you pasted... I read it, difficult as it was, but I was willing to try to grasp the argument, flawed as it was... If you don't get evolution then sure to "god" you can't understand that drivel! But as I said it was nothing but hyperbole based on sloppy logic and little understanding!

 

[Bigga]

Putting the event of today's tragedy to one side, a moment, the continuing usage of comparing religious to peaceful Darwinism is farcical, in the extreme.

(1)There is NO evidence that you can offer that religion has started wars from Day One. In order for you to do that, you would have to examine the 'fantasy work' that is The Bible. Of course, in doing that you would contradict your whole standpoint of The Bible being a falsehood!

So! Let us consider that religion has been around for a few thousand years, so far and Darwinism has been a couple of hundred and growing its own sect of Believers. (2)The fact is, there WILL be other branch off beliefs from more 'radical thinkers' that deviate more and more from the 'original line'.

Isn't that the nature of Evolution?

So, for one to compare the very early comparative stages of a Belief system to a more established is folly in the extreme!

It is 'flawed'( a favourite word of mine, lately!) in its 'intellectual' base.

(1) I'd be interested to see you explain and expand on that point.

(2) I'm sorry, but evolution isn't some random belief system, unless, of course, you think knowing that the clouds are 'bags of water' in the sky, or that the sun is the centre of the solar system, constitute "belief systems". When was the last time a war was fought in the name of science? Maybe if back in ancient times, when people worshipped the Sun, as a God, and time traveling scientists told them what the sun really is, then maybe the religious people would attack the scientists.... but that would be the fault of ignorant faith based superstitions, not the scientist's knowledge (or, in your words "belief")

I think you highly misunderstand science. Belief doesn't come into it. If some scientists disagree about certain aspects of a phenomenon, they don't break up into sects and wage war on each other. They collect more evidence etc and try and prove/disprove each others hypotheses. Science isn't something that protects faulty understanding for long, and for you to compare factual religious conflicts of the past to the possibility, in your eyes, that in some far flung point in time scientists will split up into stubborn belief based sects, is highly dishonest, biased, irrational.... and, funnily enough(not) faith based(ie. belief based on no evidence) garbage.

What a highly embarrassing reposte!

An assumption on knowing the mind of Man( whom by NATURE must secure more power) that he will suddenly switch off the lust of power and everybody shall live in Peace!

You're an Idealist! An admirable trait in a believer of science. But, I'm sorry, you are indeed naive to believe there will be no future renegades of science and foolish in the extreme to believe so.

Yawn... You are really tiresome, Bigga. You really are.

You are comparing the properties of Religion, something based on faith (believing something without any evidence), with Science (which is purely based on evidence) as tho to state that science will go down the same path that religion has gone (crusades, persecution, sacrifice etc). There will always be bad people, whether it be a postman, dentist, or whatever, who do bad things. However, It is faith based religion that makes good people do bad things.

I am not an idealist. I am a realist. You are a fantasist.

"in a believer of science" Are you not a believer of science? Baring in mind that science comes from the latin word: scientia, which means "knowledge".

PS. I noticed you ignored my 1st point.

And it shall remain 'ignored' as I'm "Yawn... really tiresome". I really am, apparently.

There, you win.

 

[ElanJo]

If you dont know about peppered moths, what happened is they used to be light grey/brown in colour, they matched their surroundings the barks of trees and lichen they rested on, then when the industrial revolution happened, in places the tree barks where darkened by the soot in these places, the light moths stuck out and were easy prey for birds. The moths, however, survived, and over a number of years changed colour to suit their environment, the darker moths staying alive and breeding with other darker moths, this repeating itself over generations, till the moth changed colour entirely, no light coloured moths could be found. This was quite something, and was good that it was actually observed, but that in itself wasnt the whole story. When the clean air acts were passed, large carbon deposits into the atmosphere were slashed, the moths were again, easy prey for the birds when the trees reverted to their natural colour, but not to be outdone, the moths, evolved back to their light colour, by the same process in reverse. Evolution happening right in front of our eyes, in this country no less. This is natural selection in full glory, part of the evidence for evolution. Creationists call this microevolution and agree that occurs (the evidence is so massive they cant really deny it), but they say macroevolution (the same but on a wider and much slower scale) doesnt exists.

I come in peace (I am a christian) and seek understanding of Darwin.

I have read that Evolution has no purpose and is purely a series of coincidences that changes things but it seems that the moths can change colour pretty quickly. Also I am puzzled that the white moths when it was dangerous to be white moths did survive otherwise who parented the black moths and vice versa.

If moths can "engineer" this that how come man does not grow his own teeth back like sharks, I hate going to the Dentist!.

Only seeking understanding and not trying to score points!

If I have got the wrong end of the stick I am sure you will enlighten me.

It's a genetic mutation, a bit like albinos in Humans. Not every moth that carries the mutated gene is white, because they're heterozygotic (means they have a gene for dark and the mutated gene for white, the gene for dark is dominant and overrides the white gene, that allows the white gene to stay in the population despite the fact that white moths have very poor chances of survival when the environment is dark). When two heterozygotic moths with the white and dark genes mate, there's a 1 in 4 chance of the offspring being white. I'm not too sure which way round it is to be honest, whether the white gene or the dark gene is the mutated gene, but that's how it works.

It's a bit confusing if you haven't studied any genetics at all.

how come the mutation coincided with the colour of the trees and then again when white was right? The mutation according to the observation is not one way street?

It seems that they coincided, as tho the genes are aware of the industrial revolution and the subsequent clean air laws , but it is merely an illusion from hindsight. It was the birds that dictated how many, or few, of each colour there were. The light peppered moth had much more chance of not being eaten, therefore more chance of (mating with another light peppered moth) creating more light peppered moths, when the air, and therefore the tree barks, were cleaner(lighter). There would have still been darker moths, just a very small population of them (if the bird population had been bigger then chances are the dark moths would likely had gone extinct). Once the treesbarks got smoggy, the reverse occurred.
That's 1 aspect of how evolution ,through natural selection, works, in general. Im not an expert of moths tho, so im not sure of there makeup.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

Mutations happen all the time, naturally... What drives their success or failure is whether these mutations survive in the local conditions!

The moths don't choose what colour they're going to be! The environment they live in either makes them visible or not to predators...

This is the core of natural selection. The species doesn't control it's evolution. The environment does. And that includes the evolution of the other species in that environment.

Survival of the fittest really should be survival of the fittest for purpose(breeding)in the prevailing environment. If you stick out like a sore thumb you're gonna be eaten before long. If you blend in by chance with the background your gonna be eaten before longer unless you're all f*cked out first. If the nuts you eat have hard shells the guy with the strongest beak eats most and therefore lives and breeds longer than the guy with the soft beak. He produces more hard nosed kids than his soft nosed neighbour produces soft nosed kids and the hard nose kids have more hard nosed kids. Eventually there are so many kids that there isn't enough nuts for everyone and now the hard nosed kids eat the nuts faster than the few soft nosed kids until there are no soft nosed kids left.

 

[ElanJo]

This is a good little series,if abit 90's, on evolution etc. very simple and concise.

Here's 2 videos from it:

Ep2: Designed and Designoid Objects - Growing Up in the Universe:
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGyh1Qsw-Ak" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGyh1Qsw-Ak</a>
Ep3: Climbing Mount Improbable - Growing Up in the Universe
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT1vXXMsYak" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT1vXXMsYak</a>

The full playlist, consisting of 5 videos, can be found here:
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHoxZF3ZgTo&feature=PlayList&p=ED4BA3683D0273ED&index=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHoxZF3Z ... ED&index=0</a>