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| Filename: | Tulekero_Pagan_Dragon.jpg |
| Album name: | Admin / Drawings Section |
| Rating (2 votes): |  |
| Artist: | Raven |
| Date Received: | Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:09:13 +0000 (GMT) |
| Filesize: | 666 KiB |
| Date added: | Feb 01, 2009 |
| Dimensions: | 1139 x 1595 pixels |
| Displayed: | 539 times |
| URL: | http://www.dragnix.net/Artistic_Section/Drawings/displayimage.php?pid=1982 |
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OOC: I is stalking jojo now via deviantart and youtube. ^_^ Jojo <3
Same with life, it only looks impossibly complex because you look at the final result but eyes, energy management and interactions betweens cells started as something extremely simple and then increased in complexity over time. For example, the cells in the eyes can and do adapt and change over time. A good example of this is the eyes of the T. chazaliae gecko that are able to see colors in dim light (an adaptation of cones to a nocturnal lifestyle (ref: Lina S. V. Roth and Almut Kelber, 2004)) whereas in the dark, we can only see in shades of grey. Serine proteases are also a very good example of how 3 simple mutations can increase enzymatic activity by a millionfold.
First, the mutation can be advantageous, reporting to the environment of the "mutant" organism. Tempest's example explain that well: if a mutation in the eyes cells allows a creature to have a better view, this creature will have more chances to survive. You can also imagine a hare with longer legs than the others. That hare will run faster, so the fox will not eat it. Advantageous mutations give more chances to survive, and so more chances to reproduce. If the "mutant" organism reproduces more than the others, he will transmit its mutation to the next generation; the mutation will slowly spread, and the species will evolve, because fittest organism survive better, and the next generation will be fitter.
That's also true for single cells: if an advantageous mutation happens, for example a resistance to an antibiotic, that cell will survive and reproduce better, and that mutation will be transmitted and will stay.
Second, the mutation can be unadvantageous. A hare with shorter legs will run slower, and the fox will eat it. A cell with a deficient enzyme will hardly work, hardly reproduce, so only a small number of cells in the next generation will have that “bad” mutation, so this mutation will not spread. The species will evolve, because less fit organism do not survive and reproduce, so the next generation will be fitter anyway.
Third, a mutation can be neutral, and not affect the organism. That mutation will be transmitted anyway but the species will not evolve.
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You also ask how was the first cell born. That’s also natural selection, applied to organic molecules. There were first no proteins or DNA on Earth, but some small carbonic and nitrogen molecules slowly add themselves together to make bigger organic molecules.
This was a totally random phenomenon, and it took millions or years, but some huge organic stuff close to proteins and DNA were finally made.
Of course many of them were not fit to make living cells, but slowly, randomly, some of the “best” organic composites were finally put together, and at random too, some of them began to interact together. That was the beginning of metabolism. Those amonds of reactive organic composite were called “probionts”.
Some probionts randomly worked better than the others, and they “survive” better, in fact they were able to keep “working” longer than the others.
Probionts slowly became more complex, because of randomly adding more organic molecules, and complexity increasing some of them slowly became ”reproductive”, able to make organic composite on their own, using molecules of they environment, and finally they slowly became able to make other probionts. That was the beginning of reproduction.
Probionts slowly became more and more complex, randomly organising enzymatic process and DNA, and finally they became the first living cells.
I know it can be hard to imagine, but all of that was just a story of random and time.
So after the “death” of this supernova was a gigantic cloud of hydrogen, helium and dust.
Hydrogen molecules, because of their gravity, began to attract themselves, slowly forming a huge sphere of hydrogen. As this hydrogen sphere was growing, its temperature increased, because of gas pressure.
When this hydrogen sphere was massive and hot enough (millions of degrees!), hydrogen nuclear fusion started: our Sun was born.
Around this young sun was still a huge cloud of helium and dust. Using the same process, dust particles began to attract themselves to make little patches of more densified matter, slowly growing while attracting other dust atoms. Those smalls pebbles were slowly growing, attracting themselves, making rocks and stones, still growing and attracting, making bigger rocks, bigger asteroids, huge rocky stuffs called “planetoids”. Size and gravity increasing, those planetoids slowly took a spherical form, still attracting the last atoms of dust and gas floating around the sun, and finally, over 4.5 billions of years ago, there was no more dust to attract, planets and Earth were born.
Just a story of gas, dust and gravity!
And I did not say there is no intelligent desiner, I just say there is no PROOF of an intelligent designer... Subtility
@Rana now: it’s impossible to quantify randomness. I just know probability of an error in DNA transcription is something like one against millions. That’s ridiculous, but enough to make mutations and individual variations.
About randomness creating the first cell, Jadey’s example is excellent. It’s exactly the same process than making a clock with just throwing the pieces at random. There are millions of possibilities, and only one of them is correct, but after one billion of years trying it, the right configuration finally appeared.
I agree, that’s pure luck, but that’s the way science explains that.
As for learning it in school, yes, we're taught evolution in school, but that doesn't mean I believe that's how the earth came about. Besides, I enjoy challenging other people's beliefs, and having my beliefs challenged. These sorts of conversations are quite interesting for me.
Also, one last thing. If the world were created by an intelligent designer, and not by random chance, what would you expect the world to look like?
Practically, this argument falsely assumes that what we see is the only possible result. However, there are probably a million different ways to build a bridge or a house, and the exact location of every nails and screws are irrelevant as long as the bridge/house serve its purpose of allowing people to cross over a river and keeping people dry/warm. Biology follows the same principles. How a cell works is entirely based on what it needs to maintain its cell structures. Different cell structures will require different needs and it's worth repeating: complex cells are only complex because they became so over time. Moreover, sequences of DNA and amino acid in proteins do not need to be exactly the way they are now. What is important is the three-dimensional structure induced by the hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions of the primary structure.
@Rana Mizu: The amazing thing about creationism is that its central belief is that life is too complex to have arisen without a creator yet a god, which is arguably the most complex being, was never created.
All this to say that the universe, being contained, in and of itself, randomly pieced itself together to make a very orderly and functional living space for sentient and semi-sentient life.
Now, as a side note, intellegent design doesn't automatically mean "god". There is a group of people that believe that aliens designed life and deposited it on Earth and let it grow for itself. Personally, I don't believe this because it produces a whole host of other problems, namely: what other planet is there that can support life, why haven't we found them, and even aliens can't determine physical laws.
The cool thing about creationism, like you mentioned tempest, is that it believes in something OUTSIDE the universe. Something completely uncontained by physical laws or time, something with a will and intelligence that utterly dwarfs humanity. In essence, something outside the box! And isn't that what we're supposed to do in science? Look outside the box? So why not look outside the entire box of the universe? Anyway, that's what I find really fascinating about creationism.
Is there some measure of purpose in these kind of discussions, or do I just like the debate? Sometimes, through the haze of the endless days and nights of ennui, I can't tell myself. But granted, discussions about dragons and art would be preferable here. In fact, I should be the one running around with a moderator Compliance Instrument<tm> to make that happen.
@Jade: The clock analogy is flawed because you ask what are the odd of creating the exact same creature and then conclude that since it's not really possible, a designer must exist. For the clock analogy to work, life would need to always pop the exact same way, giving the exact same creatures every time (in a sterile chamber or on another planet, it doesn't matter) then it would a valid argument for the existence of a designer. But that's not what this analogy is about because right now, it ignores the fact that you don't need that particular clock model to tell the time. In the billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars, the chances of having an intelligent life form that look exactly like us is as impossible as drawing the exact same sequence of cards from a deck. But my point is, it doesn't means you can't draw a new sequence or have an intelligent life form that don't look like a human at all; if all traces of life was wiped out form Earth (you smash that clock into pieces), life would evolve and could look like paleontologist Dale Russell hypothetical "dinosaur people". In other words, evolution doesn't aim to recreate the broken clock; anything that give time will do.
As for god, it's not really a very satisfying answer because it merely sweeps the problem under the rug and it's even a bit self-contradictory... I mean, you said that something can't come out of nothing but then say that god always existed? Let's assume that god has no beginning or end then what prevents me from applying this concept to the universe directly... Cutting the middle man so to speak. After all, I can say that time and space didn't exist before the Big Bang, and for all practical purpose the universe always existed. I don't want to argue over the beliefs of anyone (even if I appear to be doing a very poor job at that task) but logic and science follow very precise rules and ID, supernatural being(s), reincarnation, souls and the other subjects of metaphysics, are outside them.
@Rana Mizu: I think this will be my last post on this topic before I make very subtle attempt to change subject. So here we go:
- You greatly overstate the need to have the exact same laws of physics for life to exist. Unless you have a universe that is totally chaotic (atoms move away as fast as possible from each other... always, and if they collide then this creates a nuclear explosion... every time) then variances in laws of physics won't change much about life.
- The galaxy is mostly made of empty space. If two solar systems were in a collision course with each other, the space taken by the sun and the planets is so small that a real collision between two masses would practically be zero so even in more dense areas of the galaxy, it's still mostly empty space. As for the debris, it's something essential to have around if you want to create a solar system, so I don't see this as a bad thing (debris + accretion = a sun + planets). Once the sun ignites, most of the garbage is projected to the edge of the system.
- Our sun is one of the most common star in this galaxy, a plain yellow sun like so many other. As for burning to oblivion, this has less to do with the sun than with the sun-planet distance. And this sweet spot is probably large enough to include Mars and Venus (if Mars was bigger and had a "real" atmosphere, the temperature would only be a bit colder than on Earth, same with Venus with its extremely thick atmosphere.)
- Also life basic blocs are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. They are all part of the "most common elements" club. Also life doesn't need an exact ratio of "everything", the elements only have to be available to some degree, much like some creatures are able to live in salt water, in deserts, or in cold/tropical areas and so on. Life fill any "void" it can find.
- A protein doesn't have to work well, it only have to work better than nothing. A modern creature's enzyme that increase the reaction rate of reaction a billionfold would be considered as non-functional if this protein was only doubling the reaction rate. But for a primitive organism, it's still twice better than everyone else. So "not working" is a very subjective term.
- Lastly, regarding sciences; science is not about that at all. It's about developing testable theories. Moreover, a theory that merely describes a phenomenon would be useless. In sciences, a theory must also predict what is going to happen. You drop an apple from a bridge, sciences can tell you exactly what will happen. Evolution can also predict what happen when a natural or artificial evolutive pressure (ex: a farmer seeks to breed better livestock) is put on a species. With this omnipotent and invisible being, you basically ask sciences to introduce a variable that is unsupported, untestable and completely unpredictable. If we were in the Antiquity and debating the nature of lightning, would you ask to look outside the box and look at Zeus, just to realize that a thousand years later, someone would say "Well, this Zeus has apparently nothing to do with this phenomenon". It's called 'godding the gaps'; you have something unknown (or something where current hypothesis are not... satisfying) and you "god" it until a viable theory is found. But if a viable theory is found, then this omnipotent being (over time) is discredited because someone made claim that s/he could do something that happen to be just a natural phenomenon.
It would also be preferable to use external smiley only from the message board (there are a fair amount of choice there) and not from other sites. I say this because I have no control on the images hosted outside Dragnix, and I know that some webmasters when realizing that some people are directly linking to their images, can change them to something less... tasteful.