Origin of Life (Pt2) (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 21:58 (5441 days ago) @ David Turell


> > I've more or less given up following all the posts that DT makes that give links to work on biology and evolution, since they are mostly perfectly valid work-in-progress. Inevitably there are many alternative hypotheses put forward, and rival research teams enthuse over their own ideas. This is the way science is done these days. Eventually as more evidence is accumulated a clearer picture will emerge.
> 
> Part of the problem you describe is the sensationalism required in today's newsmongers. With TV, print papers, and 24-hour news channels and the internet blogs, etc. everyone is vying to sell their story. Remember the IDA fossil hysteria. I post these findings because I have time to hunt them up and I think many of them do provoke discussion. 
> > 
> > Quote: Although each species emits sound signals that resemble signals of other species, the animals never mistake the sounds for those of other species...Harmony between sounds and sound-receiving organs likewise presupposes the...requirement of simultaneous appearance, while excluding the possibility of gradual evolution.
> > 
> > This seems to me to be an exceedingly weak argument. Do they also apply it to birds? Do they apply it to humans and other apes? I would have thought the sounds that animals make could quite easily evolve gradually, and their ears likewise. 
> 
> You are making the Darwinian assumption of gradualism in development. If you note my other recent entry, there is much less gradualism than originally proposed. In that view their argument has a point.-I actually side with David on this: Punctuated Equilibrium was an attempt by Stephen Jay Gould to explain why evolution sometimes moves at a breakneck pace. I admit to being hostile to David's ideas at first in regards to a deeper (and I'm not talking mystical) mechanism that helps drive change. But I agree that Natural Selection is too passive; I don't think it describes *enough* in terms of change and that some deeper mechanism must be at work. Eukaryotes aren't as subject to random mutations as bacteria are due to sexual reproduction, and sexual reproduction itself doesn't guarantee that a beneficial trait WILL be carried on to the next Gen.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"