A cat showed the path to understanding evolution

[Terrywoodenpic]

That too, a tradition of independent inquiring minds, the reluctance to accept received wisdom as gospel, has served us well

And how many Americans still tink the moon landings were fake.?
And how many thought flying machines were the work of the devil.?
You still support an amazing number of redundant minds.

 

[Baroodi]

(we have indeed created man in the best of physique) Quran 95:4
Quran invalidate the feeble evolution theory

 

[Guy Threepwood]

And how many Americans still tink the moon landings were fake.?
And how many thought flying machines were the work of the devil.?
You still support an amazing number of redundant minds.

Likewise, I 'tink' we all naturally look up to the English, as the gold standard of intellectual sophistication.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Do you think that a cat with one extra toe, adequately demonstrates how a single cell can morph into a human being, by purely accidental mutations in it's design?

It demonstrates how a significant change can occur within just a few generations. Now extrapolate that amount of change to hundreds of thousands of generations. Let's not be naive.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It demonstrates how a significant change can occur within just a few generations. Now extrapolate that amount of change to hundreds of thousands of generations. Let's not be naive.

okay- that give us a cat with about 1000 toes!

An apple falling from a tree demonstrates the laws of classical physics. Now extrapolate that to accounting for all physical reality at the cosmic and subatomic scales. I'm familiar with the naivety of extrapolation.

 

[Vancouversailor]

okay- that give us a cat with about 1000 toes!

An apple falling from a tree demonstrates the laws of classical physics. Now extrapolate that to accounting for all physical reality at the cosmic and subatomic scales. I'm familiar with the naivety of extrapolation.

Building a brick building always starts with one, small, single brick, no matter how huge the structure is going to be. In the case of the cat adopting and changing physically to better survive life on a sailing ship, imagine if it were given thousands of generations rather than just one or two or half a dozen. What would the end result be? A cat that was adept at swimming, that could fly through the air and catch seabirds? Not as impossible as it sounds, at least to those who have an open, enquiring mind.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Building a brick building always starts with one, small, single brick, no matter how huge the structure is going to be.

And all the bricks are precisely, necessarily, placed according to a blueprint, a pre-determined design in order to produce a functional building yes? So the incremental building process in no way suggests that each design element was happened upon by chance..

In the case of the cat adopting and changing physically to better survive life on a sailing ship, imagine if it were given thousands of generations rather than just one or two or half a dozen. What would the end result be? A cat that was adept at swimming, that could fly through the air and catch seabirds? Not as impossible as it sounds, at least to those who have an open, enquiring mind.

Well in this case of course it certainly wasn't left to chance either. We have selective breeding by humans involved right?, so a forward looking purpose is introduced into the selective process, nature cannot do this (according to the theory)

And humans have been breeding cats and dogs for thousands of years, giving us every possible shape and size of cat and dog. Certainly a duck hound that could fly after it's prey would have come in handy! But they have their limitations, beyond which serious health issues are incurred, just as the brick building would collapse if we renovated it beyond the structural limits it was designed for.

Darwinism was a perfectly logical extension of the Victorian age model of physical reality, a handful of 'immutable' laws, given enough space and time to bump around in, would be bound to produce something interesting eventually. But we know now that this is not the case, like the building, physical reality was assembled according to very specific design instructions. Left to simple laws the universe would quickly collapse into a correspondingly simple state.

 

[Vancouversailor]

And all the bricks are precisely, necessarily, placed according to a blueprint, a pre-determined design in order to produce a functional building yes? So the incremental building process in no way suggests that each design element was happened upon by chance..



Well in this case of course it certainly wasn't left to chance either. We have selective breeding by humans involved right?, so a forward looking purpose is introduced into the selective process, nature cannot do this (according to the theory)

And humans have been breeding cats and dogs for thousands of years, giving us every possible shape and size of cat and dog. Certainly a duck hound that could fly after it's prey would have come in handy! But they have their limitations, beyond which serious health issues are incurred, just as the brick building would collapse if we renovated it beyond the structural limits it was designed for.

Darwinism was a perfectly logical extension of the Victorian age model of physical reality, a handful of 'immutable' laws, given enough space and time to bump around in, would be bound to produce something interesting eventually. But we know now that this is not the case, like the building, physical reality was assembled according to very specific design instructions. Left to simple laws the universe would quickly collapse into a correspondingly simple state.

Neither engineers constructing a large brick building or the mechanisms governing evolution rely on chance. Chance would have my five toed cat suddenly appearing in a back alley in New York, where the extra toe would be of no use, But that hasn't happened, except where a ship's cat might have taken shore leave, nor is it a coincidence that brick buildings usually are completed and stand for many, many years. The complexities of the cells that together form the building bricks of life are far from fully understood even by the most advanced scientists, but there is enough anecdotal evidence to safely assume that they contain the key to intelligent evolution, meaning that we are not governed by chance.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Neither engineers constructing a large brick building or the mechanisms governing evolution rely on chance. Chance would have my five toed cat suddenly appearing in a back alley in New York, where the extra toe would be of no use, But that hasn't happened, except where a ship's cat might have taken shore leave, nor is it a coincidence that brick buildings usually are completed and stand for many, many years. The complexities of the cells that together form the building bricks of life are far from fully understood even by the most advanced scientists, but there is enough anecdotal evidence to safely assume that they contain the key to intelligent evolution, meaning that we are not governed by chance.

I think we have some common ground then (other than being sailors!) chance could not adequately account for the structures of the physical universe, and I think far less so for life.

 

[Vancouversailor]

Yes I believe you are right about our common ground. I suppose what might still be divisive is the question of whether the process of evolution as I call it comes with some kind of built in intelligence that provides guidance and points the various life forms in the right direction as they continue to involve, or if the intervention and steering of what some call a higher power, others call God, is required. By intelligence I of course am not referring to a brain in any traditional sense, but to the intuitive ability to choose the direction that will be best for the continued survival and improvement of the species.

 

[Vancouversailor]

Yes I believe you are right about our common ground. I suppose what might still be divisive is the question of whether the process of evolution as I call it comes with some kind of built in intelligence that provides guidance and points the various life forms in the right direction as they continue to involve, or if the intervention and steering of what some call a higher power, others call God, is required.

 

[Vancouversailor]

I believe that the evolution of mankind is another clear example of how life forms evolve on their own in order to improve their survival rates and 1uality of life. The migration of people from South Africa where archeological evidence shows the first humans originated, to the far north of Europe where the climate and living conditions were vastly different, resulted in the differences we see today in easily identifiable Nordic types (fair skinned, blond, tall) and equally identifiable persons of South African origin (dark skinned, short to medium height, dark hair).

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

okay- that give us a cat with about 1000 toes!

An apple falling from a tree demonstrates the laws of classical physics. Now extrapolate that to accounting for all physical reality at the cosmic and subatomic scales. I'm familiar with the naivety of extrapolation.

Not nearly the same ballpark. You're talking about vastly separated dynamics of the physical universe. I am talking about one arena - the progression of creature along an evolutionary path. There is proof abound that genetics are extremely versatile, extremely protean - and again, all within only really a handful of generations - relative to the absolutely massive scope of time that has gone on pre-human-history. Here I'm talking about modern, domesticated felines and canines - none of which existed even just some number of thousands of years ago. And even some examples of the natural selection process at work even within our own lifetimes! Peppered moths, for one. Agricultural husbandry - do you think that "wild" tomatoes were EVER as large as the ones we cultivate today? You can literally select the traits you want among a set of plants, deliberately interbreed the ones with the trait, and see that trait exaggerated in the coming generations. You think this can't happen in nature? Seriously?

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

The whole debate about creation vs evolution was a bit vague to me for many years. I did notice that some people were quite fanatic about taking the bible literally and rejecting the idea of evolution, usually the same crowd that to this day denies there is any manmade global climate change occurring, or who insist that the world is 7000 years old and any scientist who says that they have human made artifacts older than that is a liar who will burn in hell..
The whole issue became a lot clearer to me some years ago. I had taken in a new cat, or should I say kitten, a beautiful long haired black and white one. Before the time came to take her to the vet for vaccinations and a checkup I had noticed that oddly enough this cat, in contrast to other cats I had owned, had five toes rather than four on each paw.
I might mention that this occurred while I was living in Norway where I grew up.
So at the veterinarian, I pointed out the extra toes this cat had and asked if that was something to worry about.
The vet smiled and said 'absolutely not, you are the proud owner of a genuine descendant of the Norwegian ship's cat'. She went on to explain that during sailing ship days Norway had one of the largest sailing ship fleets in the world, with captains and their crew often spending years at a time criss crossing the globe and hauling cargo between different ports. An essential component on the vessels were the ship's cat or cats. They were used to chase down and contain rodents that otherwise could dig into the ship's food supplies. They would also provide companionship for those sailors who happened to like cats.
She went on: 'As you know, cats are not very fond of water, in fact they will go to great lengths to not get soaked. And up on the decks of these sailing vessels it was understandably easy to get soaked. Often the cat's only escape was to climb up the rigging or masts to seek high ground. Over time some cats in adopting to these challenging conditions found themselves with litters of kittens that were born with five instead of the standard four toes, giving them an edge when clawing their way towards the top of the masts.
And over time, which cats do you think had the best survival rate when high winds and huge waves swept across the deck of these ships? You guessed it, the five toed ones.
Eventually modern times arrived, the sailing ships were decommissioned, and crews went ashore, often bringing their favorite cat with them home. These mixed with the general cat population, and every now and then somebody brings me a cat with five toes and asks if they should be worried! No I tell them, your cat has inherited the Norwegian ship's cat gene!'
Well to me, that made the process of evolution perfectly clear.

I also have a polydactyl cat. His extra toes are positioned exactly where you would expect the thumbs to be.

Thanks for this info, the wife will find it really interesting.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Not nearly the same ballpark. You're talking about vastly separated dynamics of the physical universe. I am talking about one arena - the progression of creature along an evolutionary path. There is proof abound that genetics are extremely versatile, extremely protean - and again, all within only really a handful of generations -

point being that scales matter in nature, by necessity there is no one-size-fits-all mechanism, just like the functionality of this software depends on many nested layers of information systems.

Yes there are tweakable parameters in the web authoring software, we could even assign random values for variables determining color & let the most popular be selected, - i.e. random mutation and natural selection, this in no way suggests that the entirety of the software was or could ever have been authored by the same method. In fact the opposite, this dynamic capacity requires a fundamentally separate underlying system to respond to those variables


Likewise, the development of life was a direct continuation of the development of the physical universe right?, great fusion reactors assembled and produced elements specifically necessary for life, according to very precise instructions predetermining these things the the quantum level. (whether or not you believe these instruction in turn were accidentally created somehow, they are necessary for our being here discussing this)

So Darwinism was a perfectly logical extension of the pre-QM classical model of reality that prevailed in that Victorian age. But it now represents an odd anomaly in nature, that reality suddenly reverts back to the classical/victorian model at the point of the first replicator, rather than continue in a similar fashion, according to pre-determined outcomes- even though we now know that these changes in species are driven also at the quantum level, and like the development of the physical universe, in very distinct stages with critical timing.

relative to the absolutely massive scope of time that has gone on pre-human-history. Here I'm talking about modern, domesticated felines and canines - none of which existed even just some number of thousands of years ago.

because they were selected by humans, ID, not nature, who's side are on now?!

And even some examples of the natural selection process at work even within our own lifetimes! Peppered moths, for one. Agricultural husbandry - do you think that "wild" tomatoes were EVER as large as the ones we cultivate today? You can literally select the traits you want among a set of plants, deliberately interbreed the ones with the trait, and see that trait exaggerated in the coming generations. You think this can't happen in nature? Seriously?

tomatoes again, changed by virtue of a forward looking plan, purpose, consciousness that nature does not posses, (at least according to the theory)

And the Peppered moth (which I could sense was coming up!) again is merely an example of a pre-existing parameter being selected as more suitable in a particular occasion, and in fact in this instance, merely reverting to a default dominant gene - a lack of light coloring, arguably a devolution in terms of developing any genuinely new emergent properties. Or the equivalent of this site losing certain style settings so it can be viewed on a simpler browser.

i.e. we cannot extrapolate the effects of variable parameters- tempting as may be- into a mechanism for authoring the very information systems that underwrite them, not for software, not for physics, not for life, because those fundamentally, and by utter necessity, exist as separate platforms, and these are issues inherent to information systems that were utterly unfathomable 150 years ago.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Yes I believe you are right about our common ground. I suppose what might still be divisive is the question of whether the process of evolution as I call it comes with some kind of built in intelligence that provides guidance and points the various life forms in the right direction as they continue to involve, or if the intervention and steering of what some call a higher power, others call God, is required. By intelligence I of course am not referring to a brain in any traditional sense, but to the intuitive ability to choose the direction that will be best for the continued survival and improvement of the species.

I take your point, sorry if I missed your response, they are not showing up in alerts for some reason..

But yes, looking beyond steady state, or classical physics did not necessarily mean God was the only alternative, and so too with darwinism I think. There are fundamental problems to be solved with the theory, but when bringing them up is dismissed by some as heresy, that doesn't help us learn anything either way. I am primarily skeptical of random mutation and natural selection, like Newtons laws, they work fine & are obvious even at a superficial level, but are not an adequate explanation for everything we see

Like you say if I understand you, perhaps there are natural mechanisms which can drive change towards specific goals as well as just select advantages? There are some interesting experiments with epigenetics for instance

 

[Deeje]

I wonder what led to this family having extra digits?

Maybe their ancestors used to climb ropes on Norwegian ships too?