Evolution is a Journey

The machine metaphor of design fails to explain life's complexity and evolution.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• metaphor
• evolution
• today
• darwin
• intelligent
• design
• Behe
• creationism
• irreducible
• complexity

[zebruh]

I love your style, Steve. And the river delta analogy is a good one. I am learning about evolution, and I to help me understand it, I look for similarities to other already-familiar things.

[EvolutionToday]

A problem with any river metaphor is that water leads to an end (the ocean), but trees keep on growing as does life. But a tree is a problem in that early on there was a lot of lateral gene transfer that was not tree-like (unless you think of ficus); but a braided stream or a river delta allows for this concept. The main thing is to not to use the machine metaphor, as Creationists and many others fall into.

[EvolutionToday]

I agree. Unfortunately, we have been trained to think in absolutes. Hence the need for radically different metaphors about life, like a casual journey or a river in eternal flux.

[Brainmold]

God is irreducibly complex, thefore he was created.

[DefaultPosition]

Nice video.

I think all people speaking on the subject of evolution should continually remind us that evolution has no goal and that evolution is simply a name that we give to the way in which life forms change over time to the extent that all of the variety of life on earth today is present and that 99.9% all species so far have become extinct.

They should also emphasise that 'life' is a term we give to a certain arrangement of the matter in the universe.

[jbooks888]

@hairyreasoner fuck yourself, fool

[hairyreasoner]

@jbooks888 Of course. That's the best you can do.

Can you respond with any reason?

Fucking retard. Superstitious, uneducated, stupid fuck.

[jbooks888]

@hairyreasoner Suck it

[hairyreasoner]

@jbooks888 What, like gastropods or horses? Or humans?

Tiktallik? Um...no?

I guess God, or Thor, or Glooscap, or Odin,or Manitou must have done it

[jbooks888]

@hairyreasoner Yeah, we can grasp it - it's bullshit. If all were transitional, there would still be a noticeable gradual change, and appearance of the new features, but alas this has not been found. Certainly not in numbers large enough to explain, if ALL fossils are transitional! Until you find a string of fossils going from one to the other, you have nothing but empty words. Fantasy from your imagination.

[jbooks888]

@CHAS1422 What makes you think a propeller blade would be better suited?

[jbooks888]

Just keep talking your crap - its all fantasy and you don't have any mean to prove one bit of it.

[JebusGeist]

I suppose with lateral gene transfers you would have a tree with branches that grow right back into each other or back into the trunk. The best metaphors we can use are all examples of fractals which don't contain branches that grow directly into each other.

None of our metaphors will ever suffice for people who are going to nitpick the argument on the basis that the "tree" they consider a lie doesn't look exactly like a tree.

I agree, naturally occuring examples should always be used.

[CHAS1422]

Part 2. But if the flagellum were designed, then why didn't the 'designer' create a far more effecient shape, like a propeller blade?

Behe seems to be the most recognized of the IDers. If anything, some of his challenges compelled the scientists to refine and expound on existing explanations. leading to an evolving arguement so to speak.

[CHAS1422]

Two points on the flagellum. Today we see the end result of ongoing stages of bacterial developement. These are the transitional forms. As time goes on the flagellum will continue to change, as the bacteria that uses them needs to meet newer and more competetive challenges. The un-necessary parts that surround the organ will atrophy and diminish and the organ will appear to be more and more "irreducably complex" whilst the stages to get to that point cannot be observed.

Part 1 of 2