How can you not believe in evolution? Also ideas on Genesis

I'm curious btw.
What is the 'official' definition of 'evolution'?

A common short definition of evolution can be found in many textbooks:

"Evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."

- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974

One of the most respected evolutionary biologists has defined biological evolution as follows:

"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."

- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986

It is important to note that biological evolution refers to populations and not to individuals and that the changes must be passed on to the next generation. In practice this means that,

Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.

This is a good working scientific definition of evolution; one that can be used to distinguish between evolution and similar changes that are not evolution.

A certain species of frog had a particular problem during mating season. They are night active, and so their mating ritual included making sounds in the night that predatory bats then used to locate the frogs.
Naturally, this became a problem, and suddenly there were frogs that learned to listen for the wings of the bat, and when they heard the bat they went silent.

It's unlikely that many frogs 'learned' to fear the sound of wings. It's more likely that some frogs were simply more fearful than others to start with (just like the difference in human personalities). If those fears had a root cause in genetics, then the 'behavior' would be passed on, and quickly spread through the population.

The frogs that are more fearful are less likely to attract predators, but also less likely to attract the attention of a mate.

A certain species of frog had a particular problem during mating season. They are night active, and so their mating ritual included making sounds in the night that predatory bats then used to locate the frogs.
Naturally, this became a problem, and suddenly there were frogs that learned to listen for the wings of the bat, and when they heard the bat they went silent.

How could this gaining of knowledge come about in the frog? For a creature of no supposed intelligence, how can the sound of bats become associated with danger when it wasn't to begin with?

Did a frog learn it and pass it on to other frogs? Not likely.

Or did a biological alteration occur within the population? Perhaps a change that improved the frog's hearing. In turn, the frogs that carried on this alteration would hear the bats, while the 'generic' frogs would not.

But actually I'm wondering if the example of the frogs does constitute evolution.

heph
Yep, the picture is me. Thanks
And when I was a driver I used to visit a gas station every day.
But not in... cornyville... (I can think of many places to fit that name)

I have a question, but not about frogs because it seems to me that this could be a behavior that comes from instinct.

What about itty bitty kittens. How do they "know" to use the litterbox? It always cracks me up when people put an add in the paper for kittens and add in there "litterbox trained". There's no training involved that I've seen. They just do it. I've always attributed it to instinct. Passed down from generation to generation. It seems to me the frog thing is something quite similar. Am I wrong?

Your Welcome.

Humans have a much higher thought process than most animals right?

This can easily be passed on to their children as they function within the boundaries that are set for them.

ok, heph

I've been clicking your avatar for an hour now, but nothing seems to happen... :wink:

heph wrote:

Humans have a much higher thought process than most animals right?

Don't know. Most humans seem to think so. I am not so sure, because we don't even know half of the creatures living on our planet, and those we know of we don't understand half of what they're about.

Quote:

This can easily be passed on to their children as they function within the boundaries that are set for them.

I know. Scary. A parent with a personality disorder, for instance, will most likely transfer that disorder to it's child. Thus, mental illness is hereditary.

New science also suggest that children that grow up experiencing severe neglect of care suffer brain damage, since their brains will not evolve as far as a brain of a child who's had a 'normal' upbringing.
So there's definitely a lot of conditioning going on with us too.

But other new science discovers that the brain has the capacity to remedy this, even in adult individuals. The brain is capable of growing grey matter to become more specialized in the tasks it's performing. How is that done? By conditioning. In a pianist who plays a lot of rapid arpeggios and practices this a lot, the areas of the brain that govern the two middle fingers will fuse, enabling the pianist to play even faster.

P.S. I corrected your spelling for you. But SHHHH! Don't tell maporsche... LOL

...

Not to meantion the fact that I...

Am an AWESOM speler...

LUL