Darwin, DNA, and Dogma

[Eaol]

Ok...I have three questions.

1) This in no way contradicts the known genetic and physical similarities between related species, correct?
2) This appears to suggest we have no "intermediate species". What exactly does Jupp mean by this?
3) How can you say for a fact that DNA takes genetic "mega-leaps"? What is the evidence for this claim?

[JaJa]

Well written... but where are the links to supporting information?

How can you say for a fact that DNA takes genetic "mega-leaps"? What is the evidence for this claim?

Taken from the Evolution thread HERE:

http://www.urzeit-code.com/index.php?id=23

[rjhuntington]

A most interesting hypothesis that explains the absence of intermediate species. However, there is still some (relative) gradualism as when a bird species changes the shape of its beak in response to changes in available food.

I have long felt that electromagnetism somehow shapes everything and that intelligence is built into the most fundamental particles. This TPOD discussion of intelligent DNA changes in response to environmental inputs goes right along with that notion.

[Sparky]

This is the first tpod that i found no information in. I don't care for the illogic and flippant style, for a supposed science paper. I don't think it belongs in the tpod's. May be a candidate for the blogs or NIMI threads. Two thumbs down for this one!

[Aristarchus]

A most interesting hypothesis that explains the absence of intermediate species. However, there is still some (relative) gradualism as when a bird species changes the shape of its beak in response to changes in available food.

I would agree with this point. An interesting thing was discovered on the Galápagos Islands. There is a species of finch that evolved (for lack of a better term) longer beaks in response to years of drought on the island. The NeoDarwinists tried to assert that this was an example of a species evolving into another one, but when the drought ended, the finch species reverted back to the shorter beaks. It is quite puzzling the NeoDarwinists do not have a problem with conflating macro/micro with the utmost capriciousness.

One unsolved research is the explanation for the rise of human civilizations at such a rapid pace more than 10,000 years ago. One cannot simply equate this to social evolution, because it would still involve a rather expedited acquiring of cognitive processing.

[Eaol]

Points
1) There may be an intelligence applicable to evolution, seemingly guiding it and acknowledging the need for adaptation.
2) It isn't puzzling that "Neo-Darwinists" would apply an explanation based on the best knowledge they have.
3) Another interesting thing to add to the mystery of human civilization is that other animals, specifically other great apes and octopuses, are known to possess intelligence roughly equal to that of humans. So why are we the only ones with existing civilization on Terra (I will refer to Earth as "Terra" because I refer to the Sun as Sol and the Moon as Luna)?
4) We don't know how long ago anatomically modern humans first evolved. So we really can't say that sentient development was dragged out. But we can safely assume that the majority of human history probably isn't recorded.

Correct any that are wrong, please. I also notice they replaced the TPotD. Thank you, because without supplying the background scientific data, the original that this topic is referring to is almost useless from an empirical perspective.

[Eaol]

I find it also worth noting that, after reading the Evolution thread (which reads more like an argument between religious dogma and scientific dogma in many parts), natural selection can be viewed as a method by which a species will adapt to its surroundings. So it should be no big leap of faith to hypothesize that this is the same method that results in Darwinian evolution. Of course, that method of evolution is still a hypothesis, without actually being observed to go past sexual compatibility and thus officially becoming a new species.

In my opinion, and in the opinions of some others, evolution certainly occurs, but there may be other more logical ways for it to occur.

The rapid evolution mentioned in the Evolution thread is particularly interesting, especially the development of cecal valves in Italian Wall Lizards. These, according to Wikipedia (a valid source? Haha), were not known to be present in related species that are around today. So the development of a completely new organ to facilitate the change in diet is really surprising, and I could not explain it in Darwinian terms over such a short period of time. Perhaps my perception of the time it should take is incorrect, but that is something that doesn't go over well with my understanding (or misunderstanding) of random mutations leading to natural selection.

[Aristarchus]

But we can safely assume that the majority of human history probably isn't recorded.

However, when it was recorded, it seemed to happen overnight. Furthermore, regarding different interpetations of evolution, one can look to panspermia and also the degree which researchers are discovering that cells are acting in what appears to be an intelligence base of operation.

In the study, Franck and co-lead author Stacey Maskarinec, who both conducted the experiments while graduate students at the California Institute of Technology, placed cells on top of a 50-micron-thick water-based gel designed to mimic human tissue. They added into the gel spheres about a half-micron in diameter that lit up when jostled by the cells’ actions. By combining two techniques — laser scanning confocal microscopy and digital volume correlation — the scientists tracked the cells’ movement by quantifying exactly how the environment changed each time the cell moved. The team recorded results every 35 minutes over a 24-hour period. What they found was cells move in intriguing ways. In one experiment, a cell is clearly shown operating in three dimensions by extending feelers into the gel, probing at depth, as if thrusting a leg downward in a pool. The Brown and Caltech scientists also found that as a cell moves, it engages in a host of push-pull actions: It redistributes its weight, it coils and elongates its body, and it varies the force with which it “grips,” or adheres, to a surface.Combined, the actions help the cell generate momentum and create a “rolling motion,” as Franck described it, that is more like walking than shuffling, as many scientists had previously characterized the movement. “The motion itself is in three dimensions,” Franck said.

http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2009/12/cells

Depending on the direction in which one reads the next sentence, intelligence is a fractal property or/and an emergent property: ...Intelligent ecologies contain intelligent populations,which contain intelligent organisms, which contain intelligent cells, which contain intelligent compartments, which contain...and so forth.

http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/htmltxt.htm

[whitenightf3]

A most interesting hypothesis that explains the absence of intermediate species. However, there is still some (relative) gradualism as when a bird species changes the shape of its beak in response to changes in available food.

I have long felt that electromagnetism somehow shapes everything and that intelligence is built into the most fundamental particles. This TPOD discussion of intelligent DNA changes in response to environmental inputs goes right along with that notion.

Dr Bruce Lipton is one of the leading biologist in the new fledgeling science of Epigentics, Lipton says cells are being manipulated by signals that come from not just outside the cell, but from the universe itself.

The fundamental argument about evolution is, excuse the expression, a bunch of BS.
Belief Systems, that is. We have two opposing belief systems that are like two barking
dogmas making so much noise the rest of us can't hear ourselves think.
On one side, we have scientific materialists who insist we got here by random chance.
Their argument is akin to the belief that an infinite number of monkeys pecking away
on an infinite number of typewriters would in infinite time produce the works of
Shakespeare.
On the other side, we have religious fundamentalists who insist that God created the
world just like the Bible said He did. Some of these believers have even calculated
that God initiated Creation at precisely 9 a.m. on October 23, 4004 B.C.E.
While these points of view, respectively, are in all possibility wrong, when taken
together they paradoxically point us in the right direction. The latest science is telling
us that, while Creation didn't happen in seven days, it was not the result of random
evolution, either.“
DR B. Lipton

[Eaol]

Whitenightf3,

That is by far one of the truest statements I have ever heard on a scientific topic.

1) I don't know what makes a scientist "materialist". Could you elaborate?
2) ...one can look to panspermia...
Am I the only one who heard about supposedly fossilized cyanobacteria (or cyanobacteria-like prokaryotes) found within an asteroid fragment? I don't know where the source for that is but I could probably research it some more, and maybe find the sources. Unless someone beats me to it.

[whitenightf3]

Whitenightf3,

That is by far one of the truest statements I have ever heard on a scientific topic.

1) I don't know what makes a scientist "materialist". Could you elaborate?
2) ...one can look to panspermia...
Am I the only one who heard about supposedly fossilized cyanobacteria (or cyanobacteria-like prokaryotes) found within an asteroid fragment? I don't know where the source for that is but I could probably research it some more, and maybe find the sources. Unless someone beats me to it.

A scientist who holds to the philosophy of materialism believes that inanimate matter is dead and that they can explain everything through reductionism. Most Biologist hold to this view because they are using a out dated Newtonian Mechanistic model.
The new physics hold that everything is connected and that matter is itself conscious but I think they are beginning to realize that Consciousness itself is the primary stuff of the universe.
Are we living inside the Mind of God, I think so:

Since I was about 6 I have always believed this to be true. Then when I first saw the structure of human brain cells under a microscope to me they looked like star systems in the night sky:

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover ... verse.html

Then I came across this film and it shows something break off from a shuttle and then it is surrounded by UFO's. I have seen them before to, under a microscope they are cells called platletts.
Then at about 28 minutes into the following film you can see two ufo's and they have what look like wiggly tails. They look to me like spermatoza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dro2CTqEhI

As Above so below.

Regarding Panspermia Scientists have been unable to say anything about how life begun on the planet, hence, Hoyle and Crick et al came up with Panspermia. It just pushes the problem back thus they became embroiled in the problem of infinite regress. The same problem Stephen Hawkings is now in by moving God from the picture.


“Light passing through a double slit produces a diffraction pattern. A single photon of
light passing through a double slit can act as either a wave or a particle: which it does
depends on whether it is registered as a particle by a detector, or seen as a diffraction
pattern on a screen. This in itself indicates that reality in quantum physics depends
upon the observer. More paradoxically it can be shown that the choice between
detector and screen can be delayed until after the photon has passed through the slits,
yet to produce either a spot of light or the diffraction pattern, it must have somehow
known how it would be registered before it passed through. This backward causation
in time can be extrapolated into speculation that mind may have collapsed the wave
equation of the universe backwards in time, so as to make the the universe favourable
to the evolution of life and mind in forward time”
Max Payne

[Eaol]

I read your post, and in an effort not to go off-topic, I digress beyond this post.

As far as I have seen, with the Electric Universe model, it is easy to understand everything in a purely mechanical (many times on a very tiny scale) manner, with the exception of the electrical force, which puts us in a similar position as we were (or are) with understanding gravity. Unfortunately, trying to understand these forces has led us back to one force for which we still can't really understand the underlying mechanisms.

When I first saw the things in the tether video (I do not know what video you link to because of where I am at the moment), I was surprised to see that they did, in fact, look just like single-celled organisms. They even have little cuts/openings around the edges that open and close, and they flash and blink with light. It is interesting that they swarm the tether, too, and that some even pass behind the tether, indicating size.

I wouldn't rely too much on that quote you have there. It reeks of thought experiment, but once again I cannot look it up where I am. Anyway, it is using invalid physics and tends to make reality incoherent by reversing cause and effect. I try to stay away from that whenever possible. A better (in my opinion) quote might be:
"Always in motion is the future."
And I am certain someone knows what fictional character said that.

Also, I do not feel science is removing God from the picture if it is working back from real observation and experimentation - from what I can tell, it is simply not putting the idea of a God into the picture in the first place unless evidence strongly suggests/outright proves such a claim. The exclusion of such an (in my opinion) theoretical concept may complicate things, but if it is correct, we will find it anyway, sooner or later (assuming scienctific progress continues near ad infinitum, giving all possible knowledge a certain chance to be known in an infinite time scale, a technical impossibility).

[whitenightf3]

I wouldn't rely too much on that quote you have there. It reeks of thought experiment,

Hi Thanks for your thoughtful reply, the double slit experiment which the quote pertains to is not a thought experiment. Anyone with a A level in physics can do the experiment.
For me it really is all about Mind, consciousness is the primary stuff of the Universe, I have no idea where that leaves the EU hypothesis.

I should add I am a Gnostic which means I have walked with God the Creator, he showed me there is much more to the Universe than we can experience through our 5 sense based reality.