Evolution? How?

It doesn't sound to me as if he regarded a Supreme Intelligence as fiction, rather closer to fact.

The methods Edison applied seemed to presuppose Order and Intelligence in the universe, which he believed were discoverable by hard work and persistence.

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Eorl wrote:

farmerman,

How would you rate the chance of life being found elsewhere within our own solar system?

What do think would be likely candidates....? Europa, Titan, Io...?

Hi Eorl,

I wonder what you think of the assumption that SETI proceeds under. If they locate a signal from space containing information, aren't they going to assume that it comes from a living, intelligent source?

So when we see information encoded in the building block of living things, is it unreasonable to postulate the most likely source is an Intelligent source?

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real life wrote:

I wonder what you think of the assumption that SETI proceeds under. If they locate a signal from space containing information, aren't they going to assume that it comes from a living, intelligent source?

That would be a reasonable assumption.

Quote:

So when we see information encoded in the building block of living things, is it unreasonable to postulate the most likely source is an Intelligent source?

And that is a splendid example of an unreasonable assumption. For some, the most comforting conclusion mandates the legendary imaginary freind. Others of more critical, discerning bent operate under no mandate but that of reasoned assessment of the available evidence. The observations and the math do not lend any credence whatsoever to any magical imaginary freind, but rather clearly demonstrate that things are as they are for no better or worse reason than that things are as they are, while arguing powerfully against any imaginary freind. When presented a knotty problem, one finds Occam's Razor most often produces satisfactory results, while religion just plain don't cut it - ever.

I submit that the ID-iot crowd poses no argument, it merely presents specious objection. The ID-iot crowd has produced no peer-reviewed research, has presented absolutely no evidence, has been accorded publishing nowhere but within its own realm, in general is a laughingstock among the scientific, academic, and legal communities, and is well on its way to gaining for itself the same status among the general populace.

Once more - I challenge you, or any religionist, to demonstrate that faith be differentiable from superstition.

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real life wrote:

farmerman wrote:
....If science were a "poll based" activity, wed still be looking for a socket in which to plug our TVs.....

Interesting quote from Thomas Alva Edison, who probably is as responsible for that plug in as any one individual could claim to be:

Quote:
I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt.

Thomas Alva Edison, along with Lord Kelvin, worked as hard as the very devil to prevent the use of alternating current. Edison staged elaborate demonstrations of the putative dangers of alternating current by electrocuting animals for the press. Edison had invested his time and efforts in direct current, and was willing to go to any extreme to keep a deathgrip on selling electricity and electrical devices to the public.

Nikola Tesla, whom Edison had employed and routinely cheated, invented the bi-phase, asynchronous generator, and touted alternating current. With the support of George Westinghouse, who not only never cheated Tesla, but made him a fabulously wealthy man, Tesla got the opportunity to build the turbines and generators at the first electrical generating plant at Niagara Falls.

Thanks to Tesla and Westinghouse, and despite Edison, we have AC and an incredible world of electrical devices at our disposal. It does not surprise me in the least to see "real life" attempting to suggest that the obstructionist Edison is responsible for the electrical world which we inhabit, and holding him up as a paragon of hard work and invention--that's certainly the line of propaganda Edison peddled all his life. How very appropriate a hero for the ID crowd . . .

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Edison embodied the concept of empiricism, you didnt need to know anything , just keep tinkering and the answer would become evident. He lost fortunes that way. Empiricim is sorta like evolution, its not based on "order" or "systematics" its just dumb luck that works for the time needed. If the earths oxygen level would go down to the mid unit values of the end Permian, wed probably all die, and maybe the few remaining populations , like Sherpas would become the rootstock of the next population bulge. Heres another funny Edison story

http://flyingmoose.org/truthfic/edison.htm

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real life wrote:

It doesn't sound to me as if he regarded a Supreme Intelligence as fiction, rather closer to fact.

It sounded to me like he was differentiating between dogma and deism.

real life wrote:

The methods Edison applied seemed to presuppose Order and Intelligence in the universe, which he believed were discoverable by hard work and persistence.

Really? That's the most imbalanced, self motivated, interpretation I've ever seen. It's no wonder you believe what you do, you've misinterpreted everything you've ever read. Smile

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rosborne979 wrote:

real life wrote:
It doesn't sound to me as if he regarded a Supreme Intelligence as fiction, rather closer to fact.

It sounded to me like he was differentiating between dogma and deism.

Do you take him for a deist then?

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real life wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:
real life wrote:
It doesn't sound to me as if he regarded a Supreme Intelligence as fiction, rather closer to fact.

It sounded to me like he was differentiating between dogma and deism.

Do you take him for a deist then?

I was just interpreting what was said. But I found that quote again in the following contect:

[URL=http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4edisont.htm]Source[/URL] wrote:

Because of his agnostic belief, he disregarded religion and the existence of a personal God. After his wife died in 1884, Edison shortly thereafter married Mina Miller, a devout Christian, who tried to show him the truth about God. 14 In spite of all her efforts, however, Edison stubbornly refused to listen. Remaining true to his atheism, he said, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."

Apparently he was athiest or agnostic.

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rosborne979 wrote:

real life wrote:
rosborne979 wrote:
real life wrote:
It doesn't sound to me as if he regarded a Supreme Intelligence as fiction, rather closer to fact.

It sounded to me like he was differentiating between dogma and deism.

Do you take him for a deist then?

I was just interpreting what was said. But I found that quote again in the following contect:

[URL=http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4edisont.htm]Source[/URL] wrote:
Because of his agnostic belief, he disregarded religion and the existence of a personal God. After his wife died in 1884, Edison shortly thereafter married Mina Miller, a devout Christian, who tried to show him the truth about God. 14 In spite of all her efforts, however, Edison stubbornly refused to listen. Remaining true to his atheism, he said, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."

Apparently he was athiest or agnostic.

The statement doesn't sound like the type of thing an atheist or an agnostic would say, does it? And the other quotes in the article are not inconsistent with deism.

Of course, you and I both recognize that a person's beliefs may change over time, so it is possible that one may be an agnostic at one point in life and a deist ( or atheist or theist etc) during another phase of life.

But I found the statement interesting, and thought others might also.

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real life wrote:

The statement doesn't sound like the type of thing an atheist or an agnostic would say, does it? And the other quotes in the article are not inconsistent with deism.

Of course, you and I both recognize that a person's beliefs may change over time, so it is possible that one may be an agnostic at one point in life and a deist ( or atheist or theist etc) during another phase of life.

But I found the statement interesting, and thought others might also.

An atheist, definitely not. But it does sound like something an agnostic might say.

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

real life wrote:
The statement doesn't sound like the type of thing an atheist or an agnostic would say, does it? And the other quotes in the article are not inconsistent with deism.

Of course, you and I both recognize that a person's beliefs may change over time, so it is possible that one may be an agnostic at one point in life and a deist ( or atheist or theist etc) during another phase of life.

But I found the statement interesting, and thought others might also.

An atheist, definitely not. But it does sound like something an agnostic might say.

Hi Wolf,

I guess I don't read it that way. Maybe it's just me.

Would an agnostic say 'I do not doubt' that there is a Supreme Intelligence?

An agnostic, it seems to me, would hold open the 'possibility'. But the certainty of his language doesn't seem to fit an agnostic.

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real life wrote:

Of course, you and I both recognize that a person's beliefs may change over time, so it is possible that one may be an agnostic at one point in life and a deist ( or atheist or theist etc) during another phase of life.

But I found the statement interesting, and thought others might also.

So you just threw it in because it was interesting. You didn't mean to imply anything with it along the lines of this discussion. Kind of like saying, "Oh, by the way, I had corn flakes for breakfast. Now you can carry on with your discussion".

Well, no matter. As you say, you and I both recognize that a person's beliefs (including Edison's) can change over time, and in this case are irrelevant to this discussion anyway.

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real life wrote:

Hi Wolf,

I guess I don't read it that way. Maybe it's just me.

Would an agnostic say 'I do not doubt' that there is a Supreme Intelligence?

An agnostic, it seems to me, would hold open the 'possibility'. But the certainty of his language doesn't seem to fit an agnostic.

Of course, there are various degrees of agnosticism. One form would take on the, "I'm not even sure if there is a Supreme Intelligence", whilst others will take on a "There is one, but I don't know what it is".

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This sorta sums up a good fossil record that uses climatological change as another adaptive engine

Quote:

Somewhere during the mid-Pleistocene period (roughly 100,000 to 250,000 years ago), a number of brown (same as grizzly) bears (Ursos arctos) probably became isolated by glaciers. many probably perished on the ice; however, they apparently did not all disappear. Some survived due to the fact that "organisms vary" (Steve Gould's terminology and logic is used here), that is, every litter of grizzly's has a variation in coat thickness, coat color etc. which imparted a slight evolutionary advantage to some indivials of each litter. These successful individuals underwent an apparent rapid (rapid, probably because of the small population, and extreme selection pressure) series of evolutionary changes in order to survive (note they were not necessarily "better" in any absolute sense, or on any absolute "bear" scale of perfection - they were simply more in keeping with their new environment than their siblings). Today, polar bears are adapted to their harsh northern environment.

Hecht (in Chaline, 1983) describes polar bear evolution: the first "polar bear", Ursus maritimus tyrannus, was essentially a brown bear subspecies, with brown bear dimensions and brown bear teeth. Over the next 20,000 years, body size reduced and the skull elongated. As late as 10,000 years ago, polar bears still had a high frequency of brown-bear-type molars. Only recently have they developed polar-bear-type teeth.

Adaptation, is it , or is it not factored into the ID.Creationist mind? Im gonna go out on a limb here and say no.

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farmerman wrote:

Hecht (in Chaline, 1983) describes polar bear evolution: the first "polar bear", Ursus maritimus tyrannus, was essentially a brown bear subspecies, with brown bear dimensions and brown bear teeth. Over the next 20,000 years, body size reduced and the skull elongated. As late as 10,000 years ago, polar bears still had a high frequency of brown-bear-type molars. Only recently have they developed polar-bear-type teeth.

FM, can polar bears still breed with brown bears?

The more I delve into classification, the more I get confused by what is considered a species by current definitions. Are we still using the "can't interbreed" requirement for species? Or are we using something less stringent?

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as far as I know. The resultant DNA variations between a polar bear and a brown, arent significantly great enough to NOT have a successful interbreeding. Mate selection is not only a morphological change but contains some of the minor, less noticeable behavioral patterns, like when is estrus? do they coincide? MAting and foreplay practices are often a populational derivative. Ill bet that like making a mule we could impregante a polar bear with brown bear and vice versa, but, being the devout coward Ill let someone else do that. If theyre too far on the speciation line, the resultant offspring would possibly be sterile, like the crossing of a lion. I and tiger. Ill look it up .

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Polar bears bred with brown bears have produced fertile hybrids (DeMaster and Stirling 1981). In fact, polar bears have been shown to be genetically more closely related to certain brown bear populations than are some brown bear populations to others. This suggests that polar bears have evolved fairly recently from a brown bear ancestor and that brown bear genetic structure is more complicated than previously thought. (DeMaster and Stirling, 1981; Talbot and Shields, 1996)
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Ursus_maritimus.html

Fossil record.
The oldest known polar bear fossil is less than 100,000 years old. Polar bears probably developed during the Pleistocene era from an ancestral brown bear. Polar bears and brown bears are still closely related; when cross-bred, they produce fertile offspring.
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/PolarBears/pbscientific.html

Wonder what they look like?
P

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So, are brown bears and polar bears considered to be two distinct species?

What is the most current and useful definition of species?

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I choose not to create the black or white image that science and religion has. I think theres a bit of both, The eternal entity gave the ball the first kick and it was left up to the inhabitants to keep it rolling.

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crayon851:
You're sitting on the fence. It really is black or white. But the black or white is like oranges or apples. They're different. I've posted long ago, and won't add here tonight. I'll come back soon. But I'm still impressed that this thread is still going, that's great. Keep it going until I come back.
Stevo

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