There is no evidence of life on Mars. — Hanover

Agreed, but that is not the same as "no organisms developed on Mars."

I'm not arguing either. Buti if I've misunderstood probability theory, then correct me. — Hanover

It doesn't matter how many universes there are, one or 10^100, it doesn't change the probability that life will develop in any one particular universe.

Evolution, creationism, intelligent design, Big Bang, whatever can't offer an explanation for the first cause. — Hanover

Of the theories you listed, only one, the big bang, is a cosmological theory. It is my understanding that, as you say, we don't know what happened before the big bang or what caused it.

For evolution to work, you must have billions of years of trial and error. — Hanover

We know that evolution has been working here for about 3.5 billion years.

A snowflake doesn't have a soul, is not alive

It doesn't matter how many universes there are, one or 10^100, it doesn't change the probability that life will develop in any one particular universe. — T Clark

This isn't relevant. While it is true that If the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 1 million, it doesn't matter how many others play, my odds remain fixed, but the more I play, the higher my odds of winning.

If there is a random array X that must exist for life to occur, the more attempts made to create X, the higher the chance of life.

No one particular universe ought have better odds (as you note), but a system with more universes would have better odds for life to exist. That's why I say your comment isn't relevant.

This is why many argue there is probably life outside earth. They reasonably argue that due to the vastness of the universe it is unlikely there is life somewhere else.

Jeffrey Skilling was inspired by Richard Dawkins "The Selfish Gene"

"Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene was Skilling's favorite book and served as the foundation of his managerial philosophy.[45][46] Skilling held, by his own interpretation, a Darwinian view of what makes the world work. He believed that money and fear were the only things that motivated people"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling#Philosophy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal

We had Social Darwinism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

I think we should be cautious about theories that have had or may have seriously negative consequences. I don't think science and it theories is just unbiased and not without moral import.

The Nazis produced "Das Erbe"

"The plot was written by Walter Lüddeke.[5] The basic message, that only the strong and healthy are victorious, is demonstrated by fighting stag beetles commented on by a "professor"

Along with "Alles Leben ist Kampf" and "Erbebank" and more to justify involuntary Euthansia and eventually The Holocaust..

There is no plausible explanation of why things should get more complex over time. — Andrew4Handel

Thermodynamics is just one variable or constant in the equation. There are also the forces of nature (strong, weak, EM, and gravity). — punos

What we see in organisms is incredibly useful order and is any of it predictable?

It seems like there is so much going on upon earth from conscious minds to DNA to eco systems and society that no single (reductionist) model would suffice to explain it and may be inexplicable by law based models.

I am a gay a man (an evolutionary genetic dead end I suppose) apparently serving no biological purpose. Evolution has not only to create the two sexes male and female and keep their reproductive biology compatible but also instill a sexual desire between the two sexes which has bypassed me.

There is so much that can go wrong but does it matter are we progressing? Is that a biological idea?

In the light of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. Current species replicate inbuilt complexity. We have massive diversity and interdependencies on earth apparently derived from the first RNA molecule in a primeval soup.

No one particular universe ought have better odds (as you note), but a system with more universes would have better odds for life to exist. — Hanover

But the odds of any particular universe, e.g. ours, having life would not change. Therefore, this argument can't be used as an explanation for so-called fine tuning. Perhaps I've misunderstood what you are trying to show.

This is why many argue there is probably life outside earth. They reasonably argue that due to the vastness of the universe it is unlikely there is life somewhere else. — Hanover

Do you mean "likely" rather than "unlikely?" If so, I agree.

If you really want to know, information is readily and freely available. — Vera Mont

God is merciful! El Rachum!

:fire: :up: Evolution may be blind but we definitely are not (re Gregor Mendel and his peas, dog/horse/sheep/cattle breeders and dogs/horses/sheep/cattle). The next step is both exciting and also worrying - designer babies, ethically very suspect.

---

As for evolution, I'm happy, nay, more than happy to go extinct! Momma nature agrees. It's a kinda suicide, but I don't want to end up in a B grade movie, although I don't actually mind a few sex scenes with a pretty lass.

What we see in organisms is incredibly useful order and is any of it predictable? — Andrew4Handel

I would suggest you check out Michael Levin's work in regards to that.

It seems like there is so much going on upon earth from conscious minds to DNA to eco systems and society that no single (reductionist) model would suffice to explain it and may be inexplicable by law based models. — Andrew4Handel

Let's look at the parts or things you mentioned: minds, DNA, ecosystems, society. How do these relate to each other? They have an order of dependence; society depends on minds, minds depend on DNA, and DNA depends on ecosystems. Each is made of the other. Is there a pattern?

The best thing to do as i see it is to use the reductionist and holistic methods together. It is important to take note not just of the parts but how the parts fit together as you discover or extract the parts from the whole. Think about what you would need to do to effectively disassemble a watch and then reassemble the watch. Armed with this understanding of how the parts fit together a holistic picture or pattern can emerge which can be used for predictive purposes. There is a fractal rule that runs through the whole thread of evolution.

I am a gay a man (an evolutionary genetic dead end I suppose) apparently serving no biological purpose. Evolution has not only to create the two sexes male and female and keep their reproductive biology compatible but also instill a sexual desire between the two sexes which has bypassed me. — Andrew4Handel

Biology is simply one layer of your existence, what about the effects that you can have in the world to further its evolution? Evolution happens everywhere not just in biology. Nature has elevated man above the animals on this planet, above biology. If you were an animal maybe you'd be in trouble, but lucky you that you're part of the human enterprise.

Out of biological organization emerges psychological organization. Man lives in the mind more than any other organism, and thus a complex symbolic society has emerged with culture and technology. The kind of affordances available to humanity is a more fertile ground i think than even in biology or biological reproduction.

There is so much that can go wrong but does it matter are we progressing? Is that a biological idea? — Andrew4Handel

A lot of times part of what goes wrong turns out to be what went right. I wouldn't worry too much, just know you're lucky to be where you are as opposed where you're not. Yes i think we are progressing, and the golden age of biology is coming to an end soon - not to say that it's the end of biology. We are already living a few emergent levels above biology.

While it is true that If the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 1 million, it doesn't matter how many others play, my odds remain fixed, but the more I play, the higher my odds of winning. — Hanover

Gambler's fallacy. :roll:

But if I've misunderstood probability theory, then correct me. — Hanover

See link above.

Does it matter whether or not you believe in evolution? — Andrew4Handel

No. The theory demonstrably works better than any of the alternatives whether or not you believe it's true.

I have not seen a satisfactory answer concerning the conflict between evolution and the second law of thermodynamics — Andrew4Handel

Well, that's because there isn't any "conflict": evolution (i.e. variable descent of self-replicators (i.e. dissipative systems) via natural selection) is emergent along entropy gradients. Consider this summary on complex adaptive systems or, if you prefer to cut to the chase, dive into the deeper end with Why the argument that evolution is in conflict with increasing entropy is certainly False.

My point was that a soul is irreducibly complex. It's amazing how many people here don't believe in philosophy or even care what it is. Moderators included. If you don't believe philosophy has insights that transcend the physical and make it null, you're still at the beginning. You're Cartesian and interpret matter thusly. Matter is not pure extension. A soul transcends those domains because it is greater. Scientists seldom meet what they study and scientific tools cannot analyze what is non physical. I recommend Hegel's Philosophy of Nature over Darwin's book.

Saying minds are based on DNA is the rejection of the entire global philosophical movement throughout history. It's logical positivism which is nothing but decay

“Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

The experiences - and therefore the realities - of two different organisms are incommensurable with one another. In the world of a fly, says Uexkull, we find only "fly things"; in the world of a sea urchin we find only "sea urchin things.”
― Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture

In a world of God, we see only God things

"Becoming is conscious, being unconscious.”
― Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World

@Banno - Are you aware of Mary Midgley's criticisms of Richard Dawkins?

Saying minds are based on DNA is the rejection of the entire global philosophical movement throughout history. — Gregory

Oh was i not supposed to reject that? My apologies, i will renew my subscription as soon as humanly possible. I never gave myself any label but if i had to i guess "logical positivism" sounds better than "illogical negativism", but that's just me. Isn't logical positivism a kind of philosophy anyway? Did it get kicked out of the global philosophy movement club? What would be the right label for the right philosophy in your opinion?

My point was that a soul is irreducibly complex. — Gregory

The term 'soul,' only has meaning, if you add 'ar' or 'as', to the front of it.
Different spellings for a very good waste disposal system.

In the human embryo, the anus happens first, we belong to the class 'Deuterostomia.'

From wiki:
Deuterostomia (/ˌdjuːtərəˈstoʊmi.ə/; lit. 'second mouth' in Greek) are animals typically characterized by their anus forming before their mouth during embryonic development. The group's sister clade is Protostomia, animals whose digestive tract development is more varied. Some examples of deuterostomes include vertebrates (and thus humans), sea stars, and crinoids.

10 out of 10 for effort friend! :clap:

What I was trying to say in my earlier post was, don't look to evolutionary theory to try and find the meaning of existence. Evolutionary biology is not concerned with any kind of meaning beyond explanations of how species procreate, develop, and survive (or not). But on the other hand, it's a mistake, and one made by many, to look to evolutionary theory to disprove anything in particular about the meaning of existence. Science has a deliberately limited scope - it deals with specific issues, even if it asks very broad questions within those constraints. As Steven Weinberg said, the more the universe is comprehensible, the more it seems meaningless. But then he was a cosmologist, and his discipline deliberately excludes any discussion of meaning, so duh! But all kinds of meanings are read into it on both sides of the debate.

There is professional evolutionary biology: mathematical, experimental, not laden with value statements. But, you are not going to find the answer to the world's mysteries or to societal problems if you open the pages of Evolution or Animal Behaviour. Then...you have evolution as secular religion, generally working from an explicitly materialist background and solving all of the world's major problems, from racism to education to conservation. — Michael Ruse, Is Evolution a Secular Religion?

Besides, a lot of people have an interest in denying that evolution could have any purpose or goal besides procreation and survival. After all if life is a meaningless accident, then any anxiety about the possibility of not knowing what it is, is alleviated. I'm sure that's a factor too.

The odds that everything had to happen exactly as it did to end up with you sitting there reading this are so astronomically small as to be effectively zero. But you are sitting there reading this. It's only when you nominate what you want to happen in advance that the odds are in any way meaningful. Otherwise (and this is the bit you won't like), you are just an accidental and random result of a disinterested process.

But hey, you are one of the lucky ones who won the galactic lottery. Make us of the few score years you have been allocated and learn about evolution. You can't disparage something you don't understand.

We have a dog. What is the first member of its ancestor that is just like it such that our perception recognizes it as a dog.?Now that dog came from non-dog parents? — Gregory

Maybe you have a Great Dane. It has puppies. You pick the smallest and breed from that one. Then you pick the smallest from that litter and breed again. Rinse and repeat. You end up with a very small dog indeed which is going to find it extremely difficult if not impossible to have sex with a Great Dane. Think chihuahua. So those two species of dog will head off in different evolutionary directions.

They then might end up as different as a penguin and an eagle.

So everytime a change in the species happens it happens with a handful of members at most, because it's random. So why did they survive every time there was a mutation — Gregory

If the mutation was beneficial (they more than likely are not) then the individual will have a slightly better chance at surviving and passing on the beneficial genes. They will then propogate through the group.

You really need to check out some sites that explain all this. It's Evolution 101.

The Robert N. Oerter article you linked to misrepresents the problem.

The system involved in evolution is the individual organism (and to some extent it's immediate surroundings) but not the whole of the earth.

Of course if I smash a cup and glue it back together it is not going to effect a calculation of entropy of the whole earth as a system.

He is defining a system in an unrealistic way that bears no relation to the behaviour of an individual complex organism and its tendency to decay and become more disordered in its immediate surroundings.

But the second law explains why when I drop and break a cup it doesn't immediately leap back up and reconfigure itself because that is a statistically implausible array of matter.

Also we are supposed to be starting from a time on earth when no life existed.
How currently existing organisms combat entropy now they exist does not explain how they got started from an allegedly simpler state with a few chemicals in a primordial inanimate soup.

The system involved in evolution is the individual organism ... — Andrew4Handel

Populations or species evolve, not "individual organisms". Apparently, you do not understand evolution or the second law of thermodynamics. And you're incorrigible too. Well, Andrew, you've earned the last word here.
I'm out. :yawn:

While it is true that If the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 1 million, it doesn't matter how many others play, my odds remain fixed, but the more I play, the higher my odds of winning. — Hanover

That's not the gambler's fallacy.

The gambler's fallacy is to believe that if I've lost the last five hands, I'm due for a win, as if the prior results influence the next one.

What is not the gambler's fallacy is the statistical truth that the more attempts will result in more wins.

That is, if I flip a coin 20 times and randomly guess the outcome, the odds I'll be wrong every time are astronomically low.

As in my lottery example, since there are fixed outcomes of numeric combinations, the more tickets I buy, the higher my chances of winning, actually increasing to 100% if I buy every combination.

We have a dog. What is the first member of its ancestor that is just like it such that our perception recognizes it as a dog.?Now that dog came from non-dog parents? That's not possible my friend. Who did it mate with? If you know how this works then explain it. This is all about philosophy and has nothing to do with how scientists see the world. — Gregory

So if this is all about philosophy and nothing about scientists, why are you arguing that species cannot be related to one another through mating?

The way this works -- that's what the scientists have laid out. And, if you don't feel like buying a book, there is a free version ;). I just like the Coyne book because it's easier to read.


Yeah.

My point was that a soul is irreducibly complex. — Gregory

And this "point" relates to the evolution of cats and dogs - how, exactly?

It's amazing how many people here don't believe in philosophy or even care what it is. — Gregory

Well, one for sure! Maybe two.

They can't relate to each other through mating because species have souls and they don't change into each other. True philosophy knows this. Evolutionlists are in a cartoon part of their mind and don't see reality as it is. They're thinking "why can't mud turn into stone?". The scales havent fallen from their eyes because they just about change and not the changeless. Mathematics only applies once you have species before you. As Plato said, there is a false world (which is evolution's world) and the real. We live in the real world but they dont know. Anyways I've had enough of this for now. I'd rather talk to people who like philosophy. No offense to anyone personally.

Populations are individuals



I go to the doctor. Science is fine except if it contradicts philosophy. Nothing is fixed in this world except God

They can't relate to each other through mating because species have souls and they don't change into each other. True philosophy knows this. — Gregory

What crap.

Presumably true philosophy is that done by true Scotsmen. There seem to have been quite a few of them around recently. These ones could use some scientific literacy.

* — Wayfarer

Midgley has the advantage of having understood how evolution functions.