Total change of evolutionary theory.

[Dark Jaguar]

http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts...sfer_s.php

In an incredible development, it appears that variation and decendants are no longer needed to explain life. It would seem that new useful mutations spread entirely by the accident of viral spreading throughout entire fauna!

Incredible!

What's the date today?

[Geno]

Today, I met Jesus and He said that God was the mastermind behind evolution.

[alien space marine]

Bu en kötü Nisan aptallar olduğunu


あなたがダークジャガーいも

:psyduck:

[Geno]

[lazyfatbum]

MY THEORY CAME TRUE

OH MY GOD

DISEASES, INFECTIONS, CHANGES IN AIR AND EXPOSURE TO ELEMENTS SPARKS MUTATION ON SINGLE CELL ORGANISMS OF THE BODY THAT IS TRANSFERRED GENETICALLY TO SPECIFICALLY CAUSE MUTATION FUCK

EVERYONE PUT YOUR FORKS DOWN AND COVER YOUR FACE

[Dark Jaguar]

Haha, treating science like wishing :D.

[Geno]

Thank God for evolution! Thank God for stem cell research as well! I love offending people's sensibilities with the absurdity of believing in God, evolution, and stem cell research all at the same time. :D

And on that note: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1765186

[lazyfatbum]

Not like wishing! I've always ben in love with this. When I was 16 I wrote this 200 page thing for school that was supposed to be a paper on Darwin and his theory of evolution. Instead I talked about how Darwin was no doubt a genius but his education could only go so far as the technology couldn't prove or disprove his theories. A lot of times his theories were educated guesses (which is the basis of science exploration) but he's been proven wrong several times.

Not because he's necessarily wrong but again, because we couldn't measure, study or examine to the level we can now. But what threw me was that animals took on the shapes of specific leaves, sticks and flowers. Seahorses that look exactly like a type of seaweed for example. They always hide in the seaweed, but some seahorse types hide in coral or rock, or other plant types - they fall in to a generic 'seahorse' because they haven't exposed themselves to specific thing for any extended period. They move too much, using rocks one day to hide, then coral the next. So if a seahorse WAS born that looked like the rocks around it, as soon as it tried to hide in coral it would be snatched up by a predator.

But these specific seahorses stayed in this seaweed exclusively, never leaving it. Even before they took on the shape of the seaweed, it gave them protection and offered them food sources from other animals that hid in the seaweed, which is only found in certain parts of the world. Is it really ridiculous to think that an animal exposing itself constantly to the seaweed could eventually take on the characteristics of the seaweed over tens of thousands of years? And the seahorses that looked more like seaweed had a higher survivability rate, furthering the genetic mutations even more? ie cementing that mutation as a permanent route for the animal.

Snow is white so animals slowly evolve to white who live in snow and their skin, hair etc all become suited for cold life. The desert is gold and brown so they become gold and brown, gaining skin and hair that help them in hot conditions. It's not entirely random and there has to be the catalyst of the environment to spark the change - otherwise the animal stays as it was and never has to change and evolve.

Life just tries to find a comfort zone where it has its highest chance of survivability... then it slows down to a crawl. Suddenly those mutations simply dont happen. Talk about an Intelligent Design.

Is it why human beings have such an imagination? Could it be that during the ice age people who didnt have an imagination fell victim to mental problems of being so isolated and that humans with skill in art, music, imagination etc had a higher survivability? Is that the real separation of animal to man? why isn't this being researched! I need 10 million dollars and a beard, i'll get the answers god dammit.

[alien space marine]

Snow is white so animals slowly evolve to white who live in snow and their skin, hair etc all become suited for cold life. The desert is gold and brown so they become gold and brown, gaining skin and hair that help them in hot conditions. It's not entirely random and there has to be the catalyst of the environment to spark the change - otherwise the animal stays as it was and never has to change and evolve.

Polar bears turn slightly cinnamony when they are raised in a warm climate, Say the Arizona dessert.

[lazyfatbum]

He has a face like "wahr snows plz? D;"

Is that real? But yeah, that's exactly what i'm talking about. The animal's individual cells are picking up changes, causing mutations to suit its environment in some kind of wacky micro-evolutionary consciousness of Wizard of Oz proportions. It's weird, it SCARES me. Do the cells seriously pick up that the environment's color and climate has changed and it needs to adapt to it ASAP like its a goal!?

[Dark Jaguar]

lazy that's not entirely correct. The cells don't "pick up" any changes. Genes are completely blind to not only their environment, but the body they are in. They just do what they do.

Essentially certain genes will change over time, this always happens. Sometimes dark bears show up in polar environments due to mutations. The difference is that in a polar environment, these bears tend to die, so it never goes any further down that chain. However, in another environment, it may be successful.

Part of it is a misunderstanding of what a gene is. A gene is not a descrete "bit" of DNA. You can't point to a part of a chain of DNA and say "this is a dividing line between this and the next gene". A gene is basically just a section OF DNA, of it's base components, and some are longer or shorter than others. The thing that defines what a gene is is basicaly it's ability to survive through the generations. For example, they all can't pass a certain length limit because past that limit, the odds of them being severed during reproduction are too high and they can't survive. Some genes have the survival "strategy" of simply being really small and being attached to other genes. They don't have any real effect on the body. The important thing is the genes don't care about the body, they just care about themselves, and I use "care" in an anthropomorphised sense, not in a literal one. They're just bits of molecules.

Also, a "mutation" is far more wide spreading than one tends to think. Since all a gene is is a combination of aleles or base pairs, ANY change counts as a mutation. Sexual reproduction is a massive number of mutations in this sense. After all, you can't really say that there are NO new genes when you have literally shuffled together two people's entire genomes and made a brand new unique one. To say that's not "really" any new genes is like saying that randomly shuffling the 1's and 0's of a program isn't REALLY producing new information because you never added a 2. You only have 4 base pairs to work with. What makes a new gene is just the order they are combined. Further, a gene's effect is not an absolute. A gene isolated from the rest of the genome codes for nothing. It needs context. A gene's environment in terms of it's surrounding genes is what's important.

And you don't need to take my word for it, take a look, it's in a book, such as Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene". I've been reading all manner of web sites from various biologists and they all agree with the same thing. There is NO awareness at the gene level of what's going on. It's all blind. Another book to illustrate the point would be "the blind watchmaker".

But, it is NOT totally random. The mutations are pretty much random occurances, this is true. However, selection is anything but random. The natural selection part is what does the work.

[etoven]

I think we all evolved from crusty vagina's

And thats makes it true, because my thoughts shape my reality.
It's basic quantum physics, If I completely convinced myself that Lazy was made out of chicken wings, it would be true... In my reality.

Think about that! Lazy, you could be tasty and delicious....
Mmmmmm.......... Licks and smacks lips.... Contuckey fried.....

Don't piss me off or you'll grow tits! In wrong places! I'm fucking coming for your Donna, you can't hide from my reality.

[Dark Jaguar]

It's a twofer here! Fatal misunderstanding of both evolution and quantum mechanics in one thread? What more could I ask for?

The writer of "The Secret" was an uneducated moron. There is no aspect of quantum mechanics that says "what you think becomes real". Indeed, how could you test that? Further, just think about that for a second, "actualize" it. There's living contradictions in the fact that people can, and do, disagree with each other all the time. If thought dictated reality, the massive universe would be a trainwreck of destroyed histories every time humanity revised it's understanding of the cosmos. In fact, how could anything we ever observe contradict what we thought we'd see? Ever been surprised? That alone should be proof that thought doesn't dictate reality.

Heck, here's a thought experiment for ya. Let's say a driver, let's call him Mr. Hope, is driving to work totally convinced every light is going to be green on his way there. As he crosses one intersection, we insert another driver, let's call her Ms. Dream, who has the exact same thought. If their thoughts dictate reality and they hit that intersection at the same time, well it'll be rather unfortunate for all involved, unless they just pass right through each other. But hey, maybe they just split into other realities or something right? Well there's a fantastic scenario, you constantly flying from reality to reality, losing contact with the people you actually made connections with as they, back in reality prime or wherever, get to know their idealized version of you for the rest of their lives.

Oh and isn't it rather pessimistic to say thoughts dictate reality considering the number of people who are suffering? Not only are you saying "you must have a really bad outlook", you're also saying "your situation is your own fault", blaming them for something that as far as we can tell they didn't deserve. Plus, considering the number of people who have tried to convince themselves that something is totally going to happen, such as people convinced "this time I'll win the lottery, this time", doesn't that sort of fly against the idea? What, are you saying that they "weren't REALLY believing"? Perhaps a lingering doubt did it? Well what sort of random nonsense is that? A really strong conviction can be overridden by a slight doubt in the back of someone's head? Negative thoughts are stronger than positive ones? When one has such a mixed up mental state, which one are you saying comes out on top? Heck why isn't it a combination of them? Of course some thoughts about reality are internally inconsistant, would these be realized too? 1 plus 1 equals chicken? What effect is that time cube guy's thoughts having on reality?

But hey, maybe you think that it's all internalized. That it's real, to YOU but no one else.

Um, then that begs the question (well all of it does really), why try to convince anyone else? It's dangerously close to solipsism at this point. Is there any point even talking to us? Share the secret? Why? We're all part of your internal reality too. Why not just convince us by convincing yourself we all know the secret?

However, I should address this fundamental misunderstanding. Quantum physics is basically about things like electrons and quarks and the interactions of all manner of subatomic particles. While it's a key to developing a theory to describe the interactions of all of everything, it's not really some metaphysical meaning of life thing. No part of it's description of photons says that human perception modifies reality. Now part of this comes from a few experiments about observing something locking a particle's wave function into place. There's a number of things to be explained there. First, "observe" means something different than in everyday usage. It basically means an interaction between a particle and another. Meaning, once light bounces off a particle, it's been observed. It doesn't need to reach the eye, in fact no eyes need be present. A camera makes these observations too, but even that's not what is considered the observation in terms of the quantum state. That's what happens when a particle interacts with another.

A wave function is really just a probability distribution of what state a given thing is likely to be in when "observed" (again, that being when anything interacts with it). So, for example you take an electron. In most grade school test book models the position is locked, but it seems the reality is that it's existance is a probability cloud. Instead of A = A, A = a rough estimate of A. However, while this describes it when in the absence of something else (this is what is meant by it acting like a wave), the moment it interacts with something like a photon, it suddenly behaves as though instead of a cloud of probabilities, it's in a specific location. That position is random in the truest sense of the word, but it's heavily weighted, again that's what the "cloud" is. So a photon hits the cloud, to "determine" the state of the cloud, that cloud "collapses" into one fixed state, usually the most likely one given it's wave form, and this "collapsed" state determines the reaction afterwards. Once the interaction is over, the electron will take on a new wave form/cloud.

There is a LOT of math involved, and I don't understand most of it, but that's the rought synopsis of what quantum physics is dealing with.

Oh, and the quantum physicists who CAME UP with this stuff and actually DID experiments are who we should be listening to, not half wit writers with no background in it just tossing out their own interpretations of poorly understood quotes. Example, the iPod hard drive operates because of discoveries made in quantum mechanices.

[etoven]

Heck, here's a thought experiment for ya. Let's say a driver, let's call him Mr. Hope, is driving to work totally convinced every light is going to be green on his way there. As he crosses one intersection, we insert another driver, let's call her Ms. Dream, who has the exact same thought. If their thoughts dictate reality and they hit that intersection at the same time, well it'll be rather unfortunate for all involved, unless they just pass right through each other.

The quantum theory sates that you can't just think something into being, that it must be physically believed to be true with all your heart, that the slightest doubt would ruin the effect. Furthermore only an super evolved form of human could achieve such a form of belief that it could effect their reality.

BTW, I never heard of the "The Secret", I was quoting "Quantum Mechanics Simplified" by O'Reilly publishing, thats the books with all the animals on the cover.

[alien space marine]

The quantum theory sates that you can't just think something into being, that it must be physically believed to be true with all your heart, that the slightest doubt would ruin the effect. Furthermore only an super evolved form of human could achieve such a form of belief that it could effect their reality.

BTW, I never heard of the "The Secret", I was quoting "Quantum Mechanics Simplified" by O'Reilly publishing, thats the books with all the animals on the cover.

If it were true, We would be in deep trouble

[Geno]

If Hitler had killed every non-blond-haired-blue-eyed person in the world, would that constitute an evolution even though it was caused by a human? I wouldn't exactly call that "natural" selection, after all.

Yeah, I have nothing intelligent to contribute...

...

...ever. :)

[lazyfatbum]

lazy that's not entirely correct. The cells don't "pick up" any changes. Genes are completely blind to not only their environment, but the body they are in. They just do what they do.

...Process of introns and exons? :D But a side from nhRNA and DNA you then say that cells dont react to stimuli such as light and temperature changes...? I command you soak your head! IMMEDIATELY! :D

Essentially certain genes will change over time, this always happens. Sometimes dark bears show up in polar environments due to mutations. The difference is that in a polar environment, these bears tend to die, so it never goes any further down that chain. However, in another environment, it may be successful.

This is entirely inaccurate guessing sir. Polar bears do need to hide when hunting seals in the open, but their primary diet consists of sleeping seals that have to be broken out of the packed snow. An adult polar bear doesn't rely on camouflage as it has no natural predator and hunting relies more on strength than hiding.

At birth they're in dens with mom and cubhood there is nothing except the rare wolf and angry polarbear dad to eat the young. But for a wolf to gain a prize of a polarbear cub is extremely rare as mom and dad are always around. I dont believe a 'brown' polar bear has ever been found, dead or alive, in any part of the world (except Arizona, apparently) but I dont know this for a fact. I do know that there are hybrid bears, where a polarbear and grizzly were successfully mated.

But beyond that, a dark polar bear, until recently, hasn't been found. I believe it might be safe to say that its only being found now because of the new generations that have been out of their snowy environment for so long. A mutation of that gravity is unheard of, spots sure. I've seen polar bears with pink noses, spotted noses, etc but an entirely new coat?!? And it just 'happens' to match the environment?

It would also appear in that image specifically (mind that I know very little of hair) seems that this hair isn't as thick. It actually looks like the polarbear 'turned on' old genes during its gestation to make it more adaptable, dipping in to its brown bear ancestry. Very similar to some species that can reactivate older genes like clockwork, like the grass hoppers that gain wings every 15 years to fly over the ocean and spread their grasshopping because the gene pools have become too thin (read: uncle brother daddy just made babies with his sister daughter cousin). Then suddenly give birth for the next 15 years to wingless offspring exclusively.

What i'm proposing (and based off the article linked in this thread) is that individual cells containing our base structures in the DNA can act like a transcriber of sorts. In very basic terms: The cells pick up the day to day routines since they, like anything in our bodies are living things with little minds of their own. We know they react to stimulus, but this idea expands on that and suggests that they record changes in day to day routines to pass the information on and keep the 'host' at its top form based specifically on its needs.

If you started swimming every day and spent hours doing so, it's picked up by your body, stamped on your cells and DNA. You yourself will change becoming a slimmer and toned DJ with great lung capacity, your skin will feel different and your body will try to change to better suit what you're doing to make you a better swimmer until you plateau and reach your max top form. Your children will carry that stamp. If they swim everyday, that stamp gets a sticky note that says 'might be useful to update'. If their kids also swim everyday, and so on and so on, its possible that the change will alter their DNA permanently to make them better swimmers. Now what if I told you that this actually already happens? Children on the Mediterranean born with high capacity lungs, denser and smaller skin pores with more compact frames that offer lengthier limbs, when compared to any other region.

The proposal is that its not random at all, but actually follows a distinct path. "You are what you eat." and do, and its carried in your cells.

We can notice a difference what an Italian looks like and how they differ from a Croatian. These are small changes created by the need of the body for its environment. Croatians swim more than Italians. Certain African peoples spend a lot of time running, others dont and rely on tree climbing for their food. The differences are obvious with children being born built for running or tree climbing respectively. Korea is hot and muggy, often clear skies and a hot sun while Japan is cold and cloudy. The Japanese at birth are much more pale than their Korean ancestors and its the environment that made it that way.

People who live high in the mountains have larger nostrils to allow more air in to their lungs at a time, and they're BORN that way. People in climates of blinding snow or sand evolved narrower eyes to protect them and again they are that way to their core base. This is not random mutation where the survivors fill the gene pool, it's cause and effect. As humans we survive regardless, even if own bodies reject our mother's milk we, unlike animals, can find an alternative and insure that child's life. The first evidence of this going back thousands of years where breast milk was mixed with goats milk and plant extracts to sooth the stomach of a baby born unable to process human milk. When we *should* die, we live. Even our most retarded, most deformed are cared for and raised accordingly to live a lifetime and even have children. So we cant say Asians have the eyes they do because a random mutation popped up and the ones with the mutation were able to procreate more. It's that the body NEEDED to protect the eyes because of the day to day struggle with blinding snow.

Its a group effort and it ensures that the entire SPECIES follows its footsteps. Unless of course, that species is so wide spread that it calls for other needs because of a vast difference in environment.

Think of it this way. Within one individual cell it has 23 pairs of chromosomes (I could be wrong on that number). Within each chromosome are thousands of genes making up the deoxyribonucleic acid. Each single cell has more information in it than the largest library in the world. Each cell fights for its life and knows that to insure its life, it has to keep the host healthy and prepared for sickness, changes and so on. If each cell can act individually which we know they do, each fighting for its life and each containing our entire genetic make up from the start of life on earth... wouldn't it make sense that its our individual cells that are guiding our evolutionary leaps? This, in tandem with theories of the DNA located within the sperm cells and eggs being the 'freshest record' of our strongest traits all points to this idea.

Is it making sense now?

Part of it is a misunderstanding of what a gene is. A gene is not a descrete "bit" of DNA. You can't point to a part of a chain of DNA and say "this is a dividing line between this and the next gene". A gene is basically just a section OF DNA, of it's base components, and some are longer or shorter than others. The thing that defines what a gene is is basicaly it's ability to survive through the generations. For example, they all can't pass a certain length limit because past that limit, the odds of them being severed during reproduction are too high and they can't survive. Some genes have the survival "strategy" of simply being really small and being attached to other genes. They don't have any real effect on the body. The important thing is the genes don't care about the body, they just care about themselves, and I use "care" in an anthropomorphised sense, not in a literal one. They're just bits of molecules.

Keep in mind that even our top studies know very little about DNA and its inner workings, though a living thing is a living thing. DNA is in fact alive and just as you say tries to dominate other genes of its type and survive the 'passing on'. The specific gene for brown eyes is so dominant, two blue eyed people can still give birth to a brown eyed one. The gene for brown eyes has lived longer in our pools as a species and has thus become stronger. That's why I dont understand what you're trying to say here, while we do have very little knowledge in the subject simply because we cant measure it as well as we'd like, we do have some interesting facts collected so far. One is that we can differentiate some genes and even separate them. In gene therapy for example, we can introduce specific genes to the body to heal broken ones. Whether your a carrier of a disease or an infected (in terms of genes).

Also, a "mutation" is far more wide spreading than one tends to think. Since all a gene is is a combination of aleles or base pairs, ANY change counts as a mutation. Sexual reproduction is a massive number of mutations in this sense. After all, you can't really say that there are NO new genes when you have literally shuffled together two people's entire genomes and made a brand new unique one. To say that's not "really" any new genes is like saying that randomly shuffling the 1's and 0's of a program isn't REALLY producing new information because you never added a 2. You only have 4 base pairs to work with. What makes a new gene is just the order they are combined. Further, a gene's effect is not an absolute. A gene isolated from the rest of the genome codes for nothing. It needs context. A gene's environment in terms of it's surrounding genes is what's important.

There is so much wrong with this particular passage, I have no idea where to start.

And you don't need to take my word for it, take a look, it's in a book, such as Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene". I've been reading all manner of web sites from various biologists and they all agree with the same thing. There is NO awareness at the gene level of what's going on. It's all blind. Another book to illustrate the point would be "the blind watchmaker".

Proteins unaware? I'm not familiar with their works but I am familiar with some current writings. DNA is very much aware as it is a living thing. It doesn't think or feel pain, but it is alive. It's not just molecules like air is just molecules, of course you could say everything is 'just molecules' but that would be confusing. DNA or rather chromosomes are just as much a part of a living thing as an organ. An organ is alive, your stummy as an example. Stummies by themselves are balloons of fleshy sacks but as part of the animal it becomes a living thing. Pulsating and doing its best to leak on our chewed food and squish it in to paste. chromosomes in a cell are like its reproductive organs. A cell without chromosomes is a cell doomed. The very aticle you linked to suggests that there is some kind of awareness, at least, to transcribe the events of the body like the cell's personal secretary.

But, it is NOT totally random. The mutations are pretty much random occurances, this is true. However, selection is anything but random. The natural selection part is what does the work.

If it were random occurrences, we'd be fucked. No joke, we'd not even resemble human beings. In the 4 million years or so of our species with the steel grip we take to life, no natural predators, a social system where our genetically defunct are cared for and even when a mother is born with a faulty womb that 'runs in the family' her egg can still be fertilized to create a baby outside her body. If mutations happened randomly and became part of us permanently if our survivability lets us pass it on... we'd be the most retarded life on this planet. That theory of randomness only works if you have that key to natural selection. A green lizard survives better in the forest than a purple one, so the purple ones get eaten and never get a chance to mate and the green ones live on and make more green. Great, now explain human beings. We care for our purple ones and help them survive. For at least the past 2 million years we do everything our power to keep our kids alive, even if their own DNA tries to kill them. It is not random at all and natural selection is an extremely broken theory.

[alien space marine]

If Hitler had killed every non-blond-haired-blue-eyed person in the world, would that constitute an evolution even though it was caused by a human? I wouldn't exactly call that "natural" selection, after all.

Yeah, I have nothing intelligent to contribute...

...

...ever. :)

Technically he'd have to kill himself to accomplish that :p

{Lazyfatbum} But beyond that, a dark polar bear, until recently, hasn't been found. I believe it might be safe to say that its only being found now because of the new generations that have been out of their snowy environment for so long. A mutation of that gravity is unheard of, spots sure. I've seen polar bears with pink noses, spotted noses, etc but an entirely new coat?!? And it just 'happens' to match the environment?

Polar bears evolved from the Brown Bear , If a dark polar bear appeared it would be the result of a recessive atavistic gene.

[Geno]

What would cause dark polar bears to not survive in a snowy environment, thus ushering in an evolution of only white polar bears (except for the occasional offspring carrying the recessive gene for dark hair)? I mean, I understand that camouflage is the reason animals such as white rabbits can survive in snowy environments where dark rabbits can't, but do polar bears even have predators to worry about? They pretty much are the ultimate predators in their environment, not counting humans, who can't legally kill a polar bear now due to their classification as endangered. Are white polar bears simply better adapted to colder conditions than brown bears?

[alien space marine]

What would cause dark polar bears to not survive in a snowy environment, thus ushering in an evolution of only white polar bears (except for the occasional offspring carrying the recessive gene for dark hair)? I mean, I understand that camouflage is the reason animals such as white rabbits can survive in snowy environments where dark rabbits can't, but do polar bears even have predators to worry about? They pretty much are the ultimate predators in their environment, not counting humans, who can't legally kill a polar bear now due to their classification as endangered. Are white polar bears simply better adapted to colder conditions than brown bears?

Being white would make them more stealthy hunters

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Cats have barbed penises , That's why she cats squeal when their being drilled.

[Geno]

Ah, so brown bears in polar regions die of starvation.

I knew cats had barbed penises. That's why my cat Mittens used to get into fights with other cats before we had him neutered. My new cat Smokey was neutered almost immediately, so he never had that problem, but Mittens used to always come home badly beat up.

[lazyfatbum]

*facepalm*

I lost interest in this thread.

Polar bears sir... do not need to be stealthy hunters. You cant weigh over 1000 pounds and be stealthy. They eat mostly sleeping seals under the packed snow. As for the brownish color, I put my two cents in that as well.

Read b4 u assume

[Geno]

I've mostly known them to eat fish, not that I've ever known any personally, but...

Do you like fishsticks? Do you like putting fishdicks in your mouth? What are you, a gay fish?

[lazyfatbum]

hahahaha ;D

ITS FISH BISCUITS DAMMIT

LERN2EUROPE

But yeah they dont eat fish in the wild because polar bears suck at catching fish. Sleeping seals, sir. The sleeping seals.

[alien space marine]

slaps lazy with a feline barb penis!

Polar bears are white and stealthy just like the snow troopers on planet hoth in the empire strikes back!!

[Dark Jaguar]

lazy you seem to be misunderstanding me. That's understandable as I didn't really make myself clear.

Yes cells respond to their environment. However, that is not the method by which they evolve, which is what I was talking about. They evolve due to changes during reproduction which are selected for or against by their surrounding environment. Evolution does not occur in a single creature. It occurs in a population.

Oh, by the way, you really have no basis to propose anything. THAT WAS AN APRIL FOOL'S DAY JOKE OF AN ARTICLE! It's FAKE!

Your examples are lemarcism by the way. And, you've got to provide evidence for them. What experiments have you ever done to actually demonstrate this? You're essentially claiming that you, a film student, have some total revolution of the understanding of evolution, only minus any actual evidence on your part, which flies in the face of over a century of research by thousands of biologists.

Further, you are anthropomorphising cells way too much. Cells don't "know" anything. They don't "fight for their life" with any willing intent. They survive and act as they do because their behaviors led to their survival, and the behaviors that didn't died off.

The thing is, I've been taking a lot of time to research biology lately. I've learned a lot. However, this poor misunderstanding of evolution as something an individual actively does as a willing gambit to survive is NOT in anything I've ever read.

[Dark Jaguar]

The quantum theory sates that you can't just think something into being, that it must be physically believed to be true with all your heart, that the slightest doubt would ruin the effect. Furthermore only an super evolved form of human could achieve such a form of belief that it could effect their reality.

BTW, I never heard of the "The Secret", I was quoting "Quantum Mechanics Simplified" by O'Reilly publishing, thats the books with all the animals on the cover.

If that book is telling you that your thoughts affect reality, it has no idea what it's talking about. Again, research quantum mechanics yourself. The Wikipedia page is a good place to start. There is no aspect of quantum mechanics that states that your thoughts transform the external world. The greatest extent to which your thoughts would affect reality is through actions you take to realize those thoughts. You also fail to address my thought experiment in which TWO people are involved both thinking mutually exclusive things are true.

[lazyfatbum]

lazy you seem to be misunderstanding me. That's understandable as I didn't really make myself clear.

Yes cells respond to their environment. However, that is not the method by which they evolve, which is what I was talking about. They evolve due to changes during reproduction which are selected for or against by their surrounding environment. Evolution does not occur in a single creature. It occurs in a population.

Oh, by the way, you really have no basis to propose anything. THAT WAS AN APRIL FOOL'S DAY JOKE OF AN ARTICLE! It's FAKE!

Your examples are lemarcism by the way. And, you've got to provide evidence for them. What experiments have you ever done to actually demonstrate this? You're essentially claiming that you, a film student, have some total revolution of the understanding of evolution, only minus any actual evidence on your part, which flies in the face of over a century of research by thousands of biologists.

Further, you are anthropomorphising cells way too much. Cells don't "know" anything. They don't "fight for their life" with any willing intent. They survive and act as they do because their behaviors led to their survival, and the behaviors that didn't died off.

The thing is, I've been taking a lot of time to research biology lately. I've learned a lot. However, this poor misunderstanding of evolution as something an individual actively does as a willing gambit to survive is NOT in anything I've ever read.

That's honestly too bad about the article, but its funny because this debate has gone on for years in the study of evolution. So disappointment city. D;

What does film have to do with this particular subject? I'm also long sense graduated so I dont really qualify as a 'student' in that sense, but I dont get your meaning. I suppose within film you realize the need of study and research to develop realism which, in science fiction among others, can mean having to soak up entire volumes of info before turning it on its ear for the purposes of the story. I suppose you were making reference that a person who specifically went to film school isn't capable of discerning or understanding complicated issues within modern sciences. I also have a degree in computers, latin, taxonomy and horticulture blah blah pissing in the wind and beer. And if you know me at all and i'd hope you do by now, you would know that I love to shove my head in to the asses of anyone who's willing to talk anything concerning the existence of everything.

When I propose something it's not because i'm throwing out a guess. Evolution is still *unproven* and that's a kick in the balls if you ask me. Yunno what's also funny? Human cells haven't changed at all in 4 millions years. But the host keeps on a'changin. Kinda... creepy, doncha think? Single celled organisms are nature's perfect organism with ***billions of years*** of evolution backing up their perfection. They're using us. Literally, like our understanding of parasites and viruses and ...If that doesn't make you shit brix I dont know what will! Think of this: a single virion can infiltrate the very polymerization of deoxyribonucleotides before its freakin DNA! It knows what it wants. Its not 'life' on the projected scale that we understand it to be but when something can seek out and either kill, replace or absorb something else to create more of itself or something brand new you have to really start evaluating how much of the rules need to be bent or broken.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm not sure what you mean there. Bacteria are very impressive, but perfect they ain't. The first problem is you haven't defined what you mean by perfection. What attributes would make an organism perfect for you?

Further, "know what they want" is a bit misleading.

When I said "film student" all I was trying to get across is you've never done a bit of experimentation yourself. Nothing about working in film makes you wrong, I'm not committing the genetic fallacy here, I'm just saying that you've got to establish yourself as right through evidence. Failing that, what grounds do you have to make any claims about how evolution works? Also, what controversy are you talking about? If you've got some specific experimental results you've found that support your odd interpretation of it, I'd like to see them. It's a put up or shut up situation here. I've posted numerous web sites in the past from various experiments that show above all that evolution is a blind process that only thinks in the short term. Heck as another example, if you water many trees too much, their roots will stay shallow and not grow deep. They've evolved to get their roots where the water is, which in most situations is deeper so they are rooted in place. They did not evolve to intentionally go deep knowing that it roots them in place though. They used the best "tool" available that gets the job done, which was "seek water". Humans can short circuit this, and trees aren't capable of realizing the mistake they make by not continuing to grow their roots deeper, causing them to fall over more easily in high wind. Cells just aren't aware enough to think ahead. Some species can evolve into a dead end in the same way. Think of crabs with the utterly massive claw. That's been shown to have the selection pressure of mating. At one point in the past, female crabs that selected for slightly bigger claws had a better chance of producing succesful offspring that ones that selected smaller claws, and that alone meant that future females inherited that trait. In the past, this would be because those bigger claws meant the males were better at feeding themselves or just were stronger. However, because the genes to select bigger claws dominated the population, it created a runaway effect where the only males that reproduced were ones with larger claws, so they kept being selected for, and females that started selecting for smaller claws would have offspring that were NOT selected by the majority of females, so that would be selected against. As a result, males now have ridiculously large claws on one side that more often than not get in the way, but they have to have them because the females select for it, and females have to select for it because otherwise their male descendants would be selected against. They don't think about this, mutated genes for smaller claws and selecting for smaller claws still show up, but they don't get the prize of reproduction. The only stopping point is basic game theory, where the claws become so huge that the cost of having that massive arm offsets the reward of better chance of reproduction (such as being immobilized by the claw). These sort of mating game catch 22's occur numerous times in the animal kingdom, and they serve as an excellent example of the blind nature of natural selection. There's an entire chapter on this in "The Selfish Gene" if you'd care to read it.

Oh, by the way, as for "children being better swimmers if their parents swim well", you first need to show studies confirming this is an evolutionary result, and not a cultural one. Do you think that MAYBE these kids are better swimmers because their parents, swimming all the time, perhaps TAUGHT them to swim at a young age and they themselves have had to swim their entire life? To test for this, you'd need a wide sampling of kids who's parents were great swimmers but who ended up being raised without being taught to swim (such as adoption or just having moved to a place where they didn't need to swim and their parents didn't bother). Get kids with parents who aren't good swimmers who have that same no swimming background, then compare their ability to swim. Do you have such experimental evidence?

The thing is, I've got way more cause to be embaressed than you, as I was once a creationist fool with an even bigger misunderstanding of evolution. I educated myself and realized my mistake. The key is that you should do the same. There's plenty of resources out there. The only real shame is in sticking with an idea out of conviction that you may be onto something rather than going with the evidence and changing whatever you think is so to fit that evidence.

[lazyfatbum]

I dont think you're reading my posts. :P I'm not pulling up creationism theories as you did, these are discussed and educated opinions within scientific study, you're either not willing to join in the discussion (wanting instead to just discount any idea unless I physically go out and do research) or you're trolling.