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Study Explains Evolution's Molecular Advance
pnewhook writes "The New York Times is reporting that 'by reconstructing ancient genes from long-extinct animals, scientists have for the first time demonstrated the step-by-step progression of how evolution created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing and modifying existing parts. The researchers say the findings, published today in the journal Science, offer a counterargument to doubters of evolution who question how a progression of small changes could produce the intricate mechanisms found in living cells.'"
Theorem: An all powerful God is impossible.
Proof:If God is all powerful that means he can perform any action, this however is absurd. Can God create a stone so heavy he can't lift it, if he can, he's not all powerful because he can't lift the stone, if he can't he's not all powerful because he can't lift the stone in the first place. God could also create married bachelors, square circles and honest politicians.
At best, God could be as powerful as allowed by the laws of logic. However, so can we. Through technology we have mastered what the ancients would have thought impossible: Flight, light at the flick of a switch, devices that allow us to communicate seamlessly over thousands of miles.
A common defence is to say God doesn't adhere to logic and therefore we can't judge him by it. That may be true, but it means we can't say anything about God whatsoever. Any logical contradiction in a system means that every statement within that system can be proved. God would be rendered meaningless. And besides, this is incompatible with Christian theology because God created man in the image of God. If man is logical, then by extension so is God.
Theorem A God that knows everything is impossible
Proof: A subset of knowing everything is to know every true statement. The question then becomes whether it is possible to know every true statement - or more precisely, can we even construct a complete set of statements that are true. The answer, as you've probably guess is no.
To prove this, first assume that we can construct a complete set of truths. Take the power-set of this set. The power-set of any set is bigger than the original set, even for set of infinite sizes, however, there is now a truth associated with each set: Is truth x in a given power-set. This is a contradiction, so we know constructing a set of all truths is impossible. By extension, it is impossible to know everything.
I could go on, the point in that God can be discounted with reason alone. We don't even have to get ourselves involved in Biology or Physics. I don't pretend that all human suffering is derived from religion, but a disgraceful amount of it is. Let's step beyond the God myth and try and make the world a better place.
Simon
...for someone to post the content without the ridiculous registration. Or even better, a link to the original non-NYT article where the *real* information is.
It was only a matter of time before scientists discovered the steps and had enough knowledge to connect the dots.
Frankly, I'm glad they're finding more and more of how biology works. I don't want to get into a creationist debate, but it has always astounded me that people would argue that life is too complex for it to have been made "naturally" and that a higher being must have helped along the way. But, by saying that, they're saying that God is not powerful enough to create such a universe in which evolution can happen, that a universe created by God could not possibly work by itself.
How dare they...
Okay, I realise most people here have never had a chance to partake in this activity after they were born, but you get the picture.
that they ended with a quote by Behe.
When will he just give up? He's just grasping at straws....
fuckin new york times
There is nothing without God. What is the difference between a man who is alive one second, and dead the next second. The very second life ends??? The soul!!
Quit your crying and get thee to a search engine.
t Num=135908
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?Ar
The scientists have managed to reconstruct ancient genes from long extinct animals. Does this mean that we are one step closer to having pet dinosaurs?
Yay!
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Did anyone manage to show how a live cell can be created from basic organic, non-live ingredients? Maybe somewhat off-topic but still interesting, I think.
After looking at the genes that produced them, and comparing the genes' similarities and differences among the genes, the scientists concluded that all descended from a single common gene 450 million years ago, before animals emerged from oceans onto land, before the evolution of bones.
Now there is some circular logic? It is possible these existed exclusive of one another. These "scientists" are as credible as the Koreans who claimed to have cloned people.
What happened was that a glitch produced two copies of the receptor gene in the animal's DNA, a not-uncommon occurrence in evolution. Then, for reasons not understood, two major mutations made one receptor sensitive just to cortisol, leading to the modern version of the stress hormone receptor. The other receptor became specialized for kidney regulation.
And this does not show cause at all. It is possible everything existed. So what? They are claiming that God couldn't have made those enzymes, or the manner in which they function.
We would not be here without God. He made everything, and the rules of the system. Our scientists are nothing more than looking at what God made and trying to understand how it works. Any scientist who denys God is not worthy of being a scientist.
The dumb thing is, is that science itself has proven that genetics is too interdependant amoungst the different protein stands and processes. If they all didn't change simultaneously, the whole thing would go kaput. DNA strands are the key example of this.
At any rate, in nature you see general degradation of systems (laws of thermodynamics) for the system to create higher complexity out of thin air is completely bunk to me. The scientists just don't want to admit the existance of a God.
It is amusing that religions touting a Creator God are excellent examples of Evolution in Action. The Creator God is the equivalent of the alpha male of a troop of primates. The idea of the Creator God speaks not to the present alpha male but to an idealized father founder of the tribe. The sense of history inherent in a Creator meshes with our sense of our own history. The concept of history, partially embodied in burial rites, points to the ideas of teleology and the status quo ante that underpin many religions. The idea of death as examplified in burial and a belief in a life after death are ideas that need to be examined as they define us as a species.
Religions posing an alpha male Creator Father have evolved through many generations of selective mating. Those who strongly believed in the tribe's faith were more likely to find suitable mates. Those who couldn't bring themselves to believe in a Creator God were often killed outright as heretics or were driven from the tribe. Many generations of mating based upon religious beliefs should give us a population the majority of which advocate a belief in God. Religion is Evolution in Action.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Not yet anyway.
e .html?ex=1302062400&en=c4dfe0138d4cdb4b&ei=5088&pa rtner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/science/07evolv
They aren't saying that God is not powerful enough to create a universe with evolution. They are saying God didn't create a universe with evolution. Significant difference there
When I was young I used to think that once some guy got married to a girl, babies were automatically born as an after effect of marriage. It was just like my Mom said when I was 16, "When you grow older, you will grow a beard !".
anyone?
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
Can you believe it's 2006 and we still care about the near-high-school drop-outs who continue to question evolution?
I've found that most people who are ignorant of evolutionary processes lead sheltered lives. They are vaguely ignorant of where the beef on their table came from, they couldn't tell you how rainclouds form and they don't have a clue how much oil may be left in the ground. However, they darn sure know that men couldn't from monkeys.
The disbelievers will in the near future miss out on genetic enhancements/cloning/implants and thus be weeded out of the population as they become unable to compete. Problem will fix itself.
Carl Zimmer,who is of course, THE MAN! of parasite parables and paraphenalia, has posted a more in-depth analysis of this story at his weblog, The Loom , going into the genetic/molecular mechanism. Additionally, Zimmer responds to the creationist take on the story (the usual move-the-goalpost panic of those advocating irreduceable complexity). Of larger concern, why does this incredibly fascinating discussion about scientific sleuthing and the potential and beauty of proteomics, get automatically sidelined into a discussion on "what does creationism say about this?" I don't blame Zimmer for responding; indeed, that's the duty of science writers as gifted as he. But it diminishes the power of the story itself to have to ask, imnsho.
If the Great Creator Spaghetti Monster wanted you to read the article, he'd have provided you with a free registration.
Oh You POS
It is? And Religion is never wrong? ('Cept for those Geek God worshippers and Roman God worshippers,.. oh, and all the other religions that are not mine ..)
Was Galileo wrong when the Church banned many of ideas? Does the sun indeed revolve around Rome?
How about, lets just keep an open mind. And the next time you see a doctor, remember, if this doctor is a medical doctor, the doctor has studied science. Hope the doctor is not wrong 99% of the time.
The disbelievers will really be in trouble when we genetically engineer hyper-intelligent monkeys who can work in Walmart and Mcdonolds and take their jobs.
Somebody ought to send Dr. Thornton this even-handed, thoughtful rebuttal by Jack T. Chick.
Program Intellivision!
The Parent is misleading. It leads to an ad that you have to click through.
So while there may not be any registration required, you still have to view their stupid ad.
If anyone's got the real text, please post it.
RTFA where it appeared in Science, not the media mush in the New York Slime. For important articles like this there is not only the actual article, full text but also a condensation and explanation in the perspectives section. Read that and you'll know what this is actually about.
trust W instead
The value of a theory lies in its ability to make accurate and precise predictions about the future. Religion has very little value in this sense, because it places few constraints on what to expect in the future; even if it is accurate, it is very imprecise. Evolution is the best theory we have about life because it makes the most accurate and precise predictions about life.
I can imagine that for people who do not know what it means to be accurate, or precise, this whole brouhaha about science must be a great mystery. I would recommend reading Eliezer Yudkowsky's Excellent Introduction to Technical Understanding , especially the paragraph on the dragon.
It's worth noting that most mathematicians already think ideas like Irreducible Complexity and Complex Specified Information are a load of hooey, despite the appeals people like Dembski and Behe make to having made innovative breakthroughs in these areas:
b -at-dembski-vacuousness.html
- irreducible-complexity.html
w een-ic-and-it-arguments.html
One good blog on this subject I've found is Good Math, Bad Math, and some posts relevant to this topic are:
-CSI is basically incoherent: if you translate the definition of CSI into non-obscure words, it essentially boils down to either "something that contains a lot of information, but doesn't contain a lot of information" or a definition for which EVERY piece of information is specified:
http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/04/one-last-sta
-IC, when translated into math, makes no sense. We can actually PROVE in math that there is no general proof that some system is the simplest possible (which IC requires), much like we can prove that we can never solve the halting problem.
http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/03/problem-with
-Even if they did make sense, CSI and IC basically conflict with each other, arguing contradictory things:
http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/03/conflict-bet
The solution is that the original precursor gained the ability to bind a new hormone by a single point mutation, and this did not disrupt the ability of it to bind its old hormone. The new receptor then diverged and through a well known process of gene duplication, begat multiple and independently evolving molecules. One retained the function of binding the old hormone, whereas another mutated further to lose the ability to bind the old hormone and could now only bind the new hormone. Viola -- two seemingly "designed" systems out of one precursor -- evolution at its finest, and IMHO, damning evidence against the basic principle of Intelligent Design.
On a personal note, it never fails to amaze me how much people deny the intelligence of humans to figure things out... the old "just because we can't explain it now, it must have be an unexplicable force, like God." I'm sure lightning and earthquakes seemed supernatural too. Evolution is no different -- it can be dissected and explained.
In the interests of good discussion, I'd like to answer any questions that those questioning or unfamiliar with evolution have about the basic idea. We always seem to get a lot of sniping and pile-ons, and cross debate on this subject, so I thought I'd at least offer a place to express doubts or ask somewhat more general theory questions. Most of what I'm best experienced with as regards to evolution is common descent, but I've been studying the subject for quite some time now both as an amatuer and as an aspiring grad student, so I feel pretty comfortable with the broad scope of evidence and debate as long as it isn't too overly technical, even if it's outside my general focus of zoology.
It is ridiculus and demeaning to all human scientific progress to suggest that articles published by researchers are to be used as a "counter argument" to ID.
Please compare: What is their argument and what is ths scientific argument ? Who and where are their researchers ? What "science" do these reseaerhers do ? Is it a coincidence that almost all of them are Fervent Christians ? Do these peope want REAL answers to questions in the Universe or have they decided their answers already ? Imagine what would happen if their "science" becomes mainstream in schools and Universities: Something similar to what would have happened if Nazi bigotry had become mainstream.
What I'm trying to say is, it is stupid, demeaning and a complete waste of time,for example, to present arguments of the level of Einsteins work to someones who's bigotry driven intelligence is barely comparable to a below average high schooler. (not to demean high schoolers).
The only way to tackle these lies is to hit the root of the Big Lie: Who, what and where is this I in ID that they speak of ? Showing them Science journal will come later.
Can you believe it's 2006 and we still care about the near-high-school drop-outs who continue to question evolution?
As the article points out, near-high-school-dropouts aren't the only ones who have questions about evolution, and I'm not just talking about proponents of intelligent design.
But maybe it's not so much that we care about what those who "question evolution" think as that good science doesn't simply stick to whatever the prevalent dogma is. Maybe it's that good science continues to come up with and test hypothesis after hypothesis and continually refine its case.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with questioning evolution or even our current conception of how evolution works.
Tweet, tweet.
Now can this story please explain it without using terms of design.
"reusing and modifying existing parts"
This begs the question who is modifying and reusing existing parts? Can't evolutionist stop using concepts and words describing a design that is implemented by intelligence? Won't that more than anything help them put to rest intelligent design.
Did they find His Noodly Apendage?
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
After RTFA I have to say I'm impressed with this study. Science for far too long has neglected to roll its sleeves up and get to the nitty-gritty of how biochemical evolution might have occurred. Usually scientists show us a chart of, say, eyeballs, from the primitive light-sensitive patches of worms all the way to the more advanced eyeballs, like the humans. This is usually followed with some vigorous handwaving, capable of producing hurricane-like winds. "Behold! Evolution!" shouted with triumph, but without scientific backing.
Okay, they've shown us the simple to the complex, but there's a lot more to these organs evolving, as Dr. Thornton has tried to demonstrate. I hope he's able to do more work and tackle something a bit tougher, like the eye, or bacterial flagella, or perhaps our immune system. The enzyme cascades in blood clots would be incredibly interesting as well. These are the holy grails of irreducible complexity.
The hormone receptors, while an interesting scientific challenge, are a far cry from the problems presented by the biomechanical processes and machines listed above. Until a study can demonstrate, step-by-step, how the bacterial flagella (and the other IC challenges listed) came into existence without divine intervention, the Irreducible Complexity camp will not cower in defeat.
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
The gist of the paper seems to be that the belief that intertwined mechanisms had no purpose prior to their union is false. While we may not currently know what purpose the individual mechanisms originally served, it does not mean that they arose solely to work together. The belief that they arose to work together seems to be a sort of bias toward the present-day--an assumption that what there is now is somehow better than what there was in the past, and therefore the past must have been working solely to achieve the present.
I'd like to see a journalist go back in time and do an interview with a T-Rex, who can't wait for the day that his entire sub-order will be wiped out so as to pave the way for humans to come about...
There are two reasons why we have a recent uprising of ID. One is that there are people whose religious beliefs are found in conflict with evolutionary science. The other is that people are simply ignorant of the science, in large part because of lousy science education and hard-to-read science literature.
In response to the ID debate, scientists have been motivated to clean up their acts. First, they have targeted specific areas of research that the ID proponents have harped on. Secondly, they are working harder to improve science education.
Things like ID arise ultimately due to a fault in the science. Well, we know science has faults, so the only result here can be an improvement in the science.
According to creationists, that person would be God. Per definition ;)
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
"Even if this works, and they haven't shown that it does," Dr. Behe said, "I wouldn't have a problem with that. It doesn't really show that much."
Most do not argue about "micro" evolution; which is small changes in species. The argument goes to "macro" evolution where one species mutates into another (i.e. monkey -> man) and that is bunk and has no basis in fact nor can it be proven at all.
For those who don't know much about cell division/gamete production:
Background: Chromosomes/DNA code for genes, which express traits that give an organism distinct traits. In humans, we have 23 chromosome pairs. In a set of 23 chromosomes, each contains a DNA code different from the other 22. We have 2 pairs of chromosomes, 1 from mom, one from dad. The end result, is that the set from mom will have a gene, coding for say, black hair, and your dad will have a set coding for, say, blonde hair. For simplicity's sake, lets say the hair gene is on chromosome 1, and you have 2 chromosome 1's, one form mom, 1 from dad. If black hair gene is dominant to blonde, then even though the offspring has black hair gene on one chromosome, and the blonde hair gene on the other, the offspring will express black hair. It get's even more complicated, but this is just a basis for further discussion.
The human genome is extremely large, according to Wikipedia there are about 3 billion base pairs total. Cell division requires duplication of DNA, and during this duplication, errors can occur. Further more, the production of gametes results in the splitting of cells via a mechanism called meiosis. In meiosis, our 23 pairs of chromosomes (1 set of 23 from mom, 1 set from dad) are duplicated, resulting in 4 sets of chromosomes. These 4 sets 1-23, can undergo a process called recombination where homologous chromosomes (such as the 4 sets of chromosome 1, 4 sets of chromosome 2, etc.), pair and DNA can be switched between chromosomes. This allows for variation in gametes, and as result, your kids should never quite look like you. These chromosomes end up separating in such a manner that cell division results in 4 cells, each with 1 set of 23 chromosomes (1-23). These cells are gametes, ie, sperm/ova. These individual sets of 23 (no longer pairs), can be ANY combination of 4 sets chromosomes, adding further variation to the gene pool.
The point is, errors can occur. We call these mutations. These mutations can result in serious disorders. Trisomy at chromosome 21 results from an error in meiosis where when the chromosomes do not behave correctly, and an individual ends up with 3 sets of chromosome 21.
Now, a little on how DNA codes for protein. The dumbed down version is: each a triplet of base pairs in DNA codes for an amino acid. Proteins are a chain of amino acids. DNA specifies the order of the chain by having a specific DNA sequence, and this results in the many proteins that are made in the human body, which in turn result in the expression of certain traits.
Mutations in meiosis can result in the rearrangement in the DNA sequence so that new proteins are formed. For example, a gene coding for a protein sequence can be erroneously duplicated and placed right after the original gene sequence (AAACCCGGG-->AAACCCGGGAAACCCGGG). As a result, the new protein is like the old one, only twice as big, and looks like 2 of the original proteins stuck together. If this protein result in the expression of a beneficial trait, then the mutated individual may be selected for in nature. If the original organism can be out competed by the new individual, then it dies out, and the new gene is what survives.
BUT, say the original organism isn't out competed. Instead, it produces offspring with another mutation in that same gene, where only a part of that gene is duplicated (AAACCCGGG-->AAACCCCCCGGG). As a result, you get a protein with 2 duplicated regions within it. And, perhaps this confers some sort of advantage, the individual can perform better than the parent. Accumulations of these sort of mutations are what account for the divergence of species, and the basis of evolution, and takes very, very, very long periods of time.
Also, what I've just mentioned is the basis of resuse and modification of existing parts. A code sequence for a particular protein already exists, and the modification (by replication error) of this code results in a new protein, or if the sequence gets duplicated and moved infront of
Its established Paloentological fact that the Sabertooth Tiger has appeared, went extinct, and reappeared at least four times in prehistory. This is due to genetics. Every big cat and every domestic feline carries the genes that could become active again and thus bring about the reappearance of the Sabertooth.
All one has to do is think of DNA as a complex computer program. It can correct itself if errors are found, and it can change itself to adapt. Its not hard to imagine that Evolution is a byproduct of DNA's ability to rewrite itself to suit certain situations. Its not Intellegent Design, its just how DNA functions.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
The flipside of the evolutionary topic is, well, what if we just say there is no God and move on? Dismissing the existence of God in no way advances the human condition.
Consider, why does one need to foolishly accept that a better adapted emergent species is not fundamentally better than a less adapted one? It's one thing to argue, correctly, that fossils form an evolutionary chain or that, we can witness the evolution of bacteria in near real time, but then to make the argument that because something is not as well adapted smacks of political correctness designed to avoid the obvious conclusion, that if some beings are better adapted than others, than humans must be too, and there ought to be scientifically determinable markers to measure which humans are better or which are worse. If we think macroscopically, we could also conclude that a culture forms an organism of sorts and different cultures evolve as well, with some naturally and deservedly displacing others, or, some others breeding weakness into a culture by virtue of exchange of information...
Not that I would ever troll, if there is no God, what is actually wrong with Western domination of the world, or, in particular, the American invasion of Iraq and its goals to inject Democracy into the middle east. If it works, then, would that not prove American Democracy was superior, especially considering that only 130,000 soldiers are tasked to correct a nation of some 25 millions, and, if so, then, wouldn't it simply be as natural as one strain of bacteria emerging that is better adapted to say, penicillin, than another?
This is my sig.
The reason the NYT is giving this the "doubters of evolution" spin is that there's this guy, Michael Behe, who wrote a book around 1995 somewhere called "Darwin's Black Box". The central idea of that book was the allegation that evolutionary science treats the cell like a "black box" that nobody attempts to look inside or explain. Evolutionary science, said Behe, only concerns itself with larger structures, and only assumes the stuff inside the cell "just works". Because evolution can't explain, subcellular structures, evolution lacks a foundation, is built on nothing, and is wrong.
This is, of course, silly if you're actually familiar with the science, because to whatever extent scienists ever treated the cell like a "black box", it was because we didn't know how to look inside yet. Viewing machinery the size of a molecule is really hard. Scientists could analyze things, but have only relatively recently gained the ability to view the full picture of things, much as they might have wanted to.
Once the technology for understanding the molecular structures that make up cells really started to take off (say, at the beginning of the 80s-ish), a revolution of sorts started in microbiology and genetics. And as this happened, Behe managed to exploit a neat trick of timing; he wrote his book just as a lot of fascinating questions were appearing through this revolution in microbiology, but before (since the questions had only just been asked) we really knew what the answers were. Behe was able to craft the illusion, since we didn't know the answers to some of those questions yet, that the questions didn't have answers or would never be answered and thus evolution was flawed-- not mentioning that work was underway or even partially completed to find answers to all of these questions. In the time since Behe wrote his book, cell microbiology has progressed by leaps and bounds, but the book itself is able to do a neat little job of making it seem like the cell really is just an inexplicable black box, because he wrote it just as science totally finished picking the lock.
Which brings us to this story: The one scientific "big idea" in Darwin's Black Box was what Behe calls "Irreducible Complexity", and the publication of Darwin's Black Box was the main way this idea was popularized. The idea behind irreducible complexity is that there exist structures that contain one or more parts, and that if you remove one of the parts, the entire thing stops working. But one would expect that evolutionary mutation can only change "one thing" at a time; the idea that a single new allele that could simultaneously create two separable and interlocking structures seems wholly unbelievable. So how did irreducibly complex structures evolve?
This is an extremely reasonable question, and one evolutionary science is obligated to answer. The problem is that Behe, and the rest of the ID crowd:
The answer to how irreducibly complex structures could evolve is pretty simple: all that would have to happen is for a structure to change its purpose over time. That is to say, it doesn't matter that irreducibly complex structures can only evolve one part at a time, because it is simple to imagine each of the small structures in an irreducibly complex system independently evolving for some other purpose than the big IC system performs, then being adapted into a bigger IC system with rube goldberg style ingenuity, then gradually losing the ability to function for their original purpose indepen
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The flipside of the evolutionary topic is, well, what if we just say there is no God and move on?
I do not see how this is, in any way, an "evolutionary topic". The theory of evolution says nothing whatsoever regarding the subject of deities.
Dismissing the existence of God in no way advances the human condition.
To which "God", out of the thousans of deities worshipped and acknowledged throughout human history, do you refer and why do you reference that particular deity to the exclusion of all others?
Consider, why does one need to foolishly accept that a better adapted emergent species is not fundamentally better than a less adapted one?
I do not see that one does need to do this at all. "Better adapted" is itself a relative condition, and there is no means to judge any one species as "fundamentally better" than another in an absolute sense. I do not understand what point you are attempting to argue.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Or, in other terms, "The researchers want to generate hype, so instead of letting a great result stand on its own they have decided to legitimize their ascientific opponents (who will not change their minds anyway) by claiming that their discovery, of all the thousands of fundamental discoveries made in biology, is the one that will shut down this illogical and uninformed ID talking point."
Stop feeding the trolls. If (and this is a big if) ID adherents are convinced that a particular aspect of evolution actually does make sense, they'll just shift to the next gap in our far-from-complete understanding and say that that one is the problem. Talking about real, important discoveries as though their significance is to confirm evolution, rather than explain it, is to play into the hands of IDers and creationists by accepting implicitly that evolution still has holes that need confirmation, and by falsely suggesting that serious biologists are relieved to have this new discovery, since before that they had no answer for the current batch of ID talking points.
There are many holes in our understanding, and many points at which we don't know exactly how certain aspects of evolution work. This does not mean we are uncertain that it works, any more than extremely small oddities in general relativity experiments make us uncertain that gravity works. The precise how we're still nailing down, but no scientist doubts that masses attract each other. Stop letting the other side make this seem like a legitimate scientific conflict, and emphasize what's really important here -- that we have made another step towards explaining the how.
I am the man with no sig!
My post was meant as a joke, ya' silly sod. :P
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I figured babies had something to do with kissing.
I had a really good reason to be majorly grossed out by kissing as a little boy, I think...
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
Scientific American gives 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense.
Memorize them for your next party
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
I do not see how this is, in any way, an "evolutionary topic". The theory of evolution says nothing whatsoever regarding the subject of deities.
There are those in the evolutionary camp that would argue that science displaces the need for God, and therefor, science itself should assume the social role of determining moral values.
To which "God", out of the thousans of deities worshipped and acknowledged throughout human history, do you refer and why do you reference that particular deity to the exclusion of all others?
It doesn't matter, it's really, which ever one wins.
I do not see that one does need to do this at all. "Better adapted" is itself a relative condition, and there is no means to judge any one species as "fundamentally better" than another in an absolute sense.
I disagree with that. Take two people and put them in a pool and tell them to swim laps. One will last longer than the other, and is better.
You could, concievably, with more work, evolve a mathematical metric that values all of a person's probable contributions to society, and arrive at an empiracle definition of who is better. Of course, the definition would change over time as society evolves. That's why some people are paid more than others - in a free enterprise system, the masses of people decide who is better with their wallets, and in a socialist system, it's a committee. If there is no God, can you admit that you are a loser for not having a billion dollars? Can I? Boy, that's a tough, tough pill to swallow.
This is my sig.
Now, I'm not endorsing intelligent design. Personally, I believe in evolution, not out of faith, but because the evidence is in, has been in, and will continue to be in, on the fact that evolution is the truth.
That said, I've recently been reading a lot of biology stuff and I have to say, the mechanisms, even at the cellular level, that have evolved, are simply astounding. Here's just a single example: The membranes of cells contain proteins for different functions. For example, there may be a protein that collects "food" of some sort for the cell. Some of these proteins, will just sit there and when a "food" molecule comes by, it binds to the protein, the protein then changes shape in such a way, that it pulls the "food" molecule inside the cell. It then releases the "food" inside the cell and then changes shape back to the way it was.
I mean, I can see how someone can look at that and say, "That can't just evolve." It did, but I can understand the counterposition on it. And that's simply one example, and that's just a lowly cell. You've got 70kg of cells (+ or - depending on the person) in a person, each one doing it's own thing, and somehow, it's a living, breathing, thinking, person. It's all pretty mind boggling.
And even after seeing the individual steps of how each piece evolved, each protein, each cell, each organism, it's still hard to believe that all these amazing little mechanisms work together, in sync, and they weren't designed by anyone.
I mean, hell, it's all we can do to build a robot that walks upright, and mother nature did it without any thiking at all. How stupid are we.
You can be a really educated person and understand a lot about biology, and you can still question evolution simply because it's so friggin' hard to believe on a lot of levels. So, while I understand most of us here believe in evolution, I'd ask that you keep an open mind and try to understand the other side as well. I'd also ask that people on the other side try to keep an open mind and understand why we don't want to be preached to and told what we should believe.
There are those in the evolutionary camp that would argue that science displaces the need for God, and therefor, science itself should assume the social role of determining moral values.
Such individuals are clearly in the minority. Their opinion does not change the fact that the theory of evolution makes no statements whatsoever regarding the existence or nature of any deities.
It doesn't matter, it's really, which ever one wins.
It does matter. Dismissing a "God" who demands human sacrifice, for example, could arguably improve human society.
I disagree with that. Take two people and put them in a pool and tell them to swim laps. One will last longer than the other, and is better.
This would demonstrate that one individual is arguably a better swimmer. From this, I cannot deduce who is better at Calculus. "Better" is a relative standard, requiring a frame of reference.
You could, concievably, with more work, evolve a mathematical metric that values all of a person's probable contributions to society, and arrive at an empiracle definition of who is better.
Nonetheless, the standard is still arbitrary, as it is defined by "potential contributions to society". Not only is the declaration itself arbitrary, but the contributions possible could well vary based upon the society in question.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
"Dismissing the existence of God in no way advances the human condition."
You mean other than removing the need for some to kill the non-believers and heretics in "his" name?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Such individuals are clearly in the minority. Their opinion does not change the fact that the theory of evolution makes no statements whatsoever regarding the existence or nature of any deities.
It's a heck of a minority though, Dawkins comes to mind.
It does matter. Dismissing a "God" who demands human sacrifice, for example, could arguably improve human society.
Theoretically, not that I've been playing too much Rise of Nations and Age of Empires, the God whose people had the most villagers would ultimately win, assuming he withstood the rush strategies of other Gods.
This is my sig.
You mean other than removing the need for some to kill the non-believers and heretics in "his" name?
Well, yes, except that, killing nonbelievers, Islam excepted, hasn't really been a factor in Western civilization except for maybe a short period from the dark ages through the 30 Years War. Before that, wars were generally fought for plunder, as, indeed, wars after that were fought for plunder as well. Nazism is sort of the ultimate proof that you don't need a Godlike God to go and destroy other people. They did it using a hopped up form of social Darwinism as their shtick. And Communism certainly didn't have a God complex either, but, there's plenty of dead in that shtick's wake...
So yes, removing God from the equation accomplishes nothing.
This is my sig.
"What happened was that a glitch produced two copies of the receptor gene in the animal's DNA, a not-uncommon occurrence in evolution. Then, for reasons not understood, two major mutations made one receptor sensitive just to cortisol, leading to the modern version of the stress hormone receptor."
So we have a glitch, then a couple of big glitches, and then walla! "evolution 'takes advantage of lucky circumstances and builds upon them.' "
With all the machinery in cells to correct and prevent glitches, evolution is a real lucky guy (and funny how he always takes advantage of something without knowing what he's taking advantage of).
It's a nice fairytale, but the only thing processes without a vision build upon is taking a pile-o-shit and making it a bigger pile-o-shit.
What we are really seeing here is similar chemicals being used for different functions in different situations. This does not mean one thing let to another. The "glitch" and "two major mutations" are a major re-design.
Vinik after discovering Ingap hired a public relations person. And it was all a miracle until the phase 2 tests. Hwang Woo-suk risked and lost all credibility in cloning just by trying to be the famous. And the list goes on forever.
If it works so well show us an application. Otherwise show it to your peers that can have a qualified opinion.
I never had to click through any ad. *shrug*
How hard can it be to understand evolution?
Time + slow variation + selective extinction = sophistication.
Beats the hell out of
Undetectable magician + ineffable motives = sophistication.
>>> "demonstrated the step-by-step progression of how evolution created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing and modifying existing parts."
... oh that'll do, it could of been^H^H^H^H was that way.
.. I hope the research findings hold more water ... this made me chuckle :
.. that's not innovation that's monkeys on typewriters with editorial oversite [insert tabloid pun here!].
They did nothing of the sort.
They may have demonstrated a _possible_ (even probable) progression of molecular forms. That's a huge leap away from the actual progression. I'll presume (!) that they've started from current molecular structures and extrapolated back saying if such-and-such happened then this could happen and that could happen
For example
>>> "...found that it could bind to the kidney regulating hormone, aldosterone and the stress hormone, cortisol.".
So what, I physically could have played in the Superbowl this year. Guess what?!
The article is pretty poor if they are actually hoping to close any loopholes
>>> "Dr. Thornton said the experiments showed how evolution could and did innovate functions over time.
Innovation is a thought process. The whole point about evolution (AFAI-can-tell) is that it doesn't innovate it's random mutations that survive if they are beneficial
And anyway, it doesn't discount irreducible complexity just counters one instance (poorly it would seem _from the article_). If someone can explain how a rotor-stator pair on a bacterial flagellum isn't irreducibly complex then I'll think they're getting somewhere [no I don't buy the arguments based on homology of the TTSS with a rotor socket - but then I've never heard a scientific proof of other minds!].
Incidentally none of this proves anything against a "running start" theory (unless you want to unleash the "argument from incredulity" which Dr. Thornton appears to think creationist are relying on.
---
PS: Nice baiting!!
>>> "How many thousands of generations of people lived and died over the millennia so that we might be where we are today?"
None.
Only I exist.
But it intrigues me that I generated that bit of sense data. Perhaps it's not just me?
Become a googlebot with Firefox with the User Agent switcher tool.
add `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)' to the User Agent field.
Sperm + Egg = Baby
;)-0
okay, which came first, according to the theory of evolution?
how is being sexual in nature more conducive to survival? if you've been married, you'd know better... if not, you will...
why do i have an amazing, astounding, ingenious, freaked out eyeball of complexity and teeth that want to fall out? weren't teeth important to survival, too? especially 10,000 years ago?
how is a hybrid land / water ear advantageous on eithe rland or water? btw, no such ear has ever been discovered. just postulated.
if the platypus lived and went extinct x thousands of years ago... what would an evolutionsit claim claim about it being transitionary? how would slashdot react?
how does life come from death?
how do appendages that offer no benefit stay around long enough to eventually become a benefit?
why are my ears facing forward instead of backwards? i can see forward, so wouldn't the greatest benefit come from having my ears pointed backwards so i could better hear prey coming up from behind? *especially* before language existed? or did ears come into existance *after& language came into existence?
how come we can't repreoduce macro-evolution in the lab? why can't we turn bacteria into something entirely different than bacteria - even thoug we've dramamtically increased the speed of reproduction?
just curious.
is that allowed in *science*, anymore?
>>> "Can you believe it's 2006 and we still care about the near-high-school drop-outs who continue to question evolution?"
Yes.
I can't believe you got plus-5 insightful for that flame-bait.
If you don't question things you're not a scientist. I question evolution, I question every facet of existence that I come across.
Incidentally I've got an honours degree in Physics and Maths and an undergraduate diploma in computer science. No big guns I know but that's me. I consider myself to be a philosopher. What about you?
Can we please stop bringing up intellegent design in every artice pertaining to evolution. This is slashdot for jeebus sake. Your preaching to the choir.
Could it be that Intelligent Design is like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in that it tells us the limits of what knowledge can be? Well, no. While nothing that HUP predicts not to be knowable has ever been known, it seems things that things Intelligent Design predicts to be unknowable are being gradually explained. This shows it to be a very bad theory. In Science, as opposed to other realms of inquiry, theories that are disproven are ABANDONED. Hey wingnut creationists, time to imitate the behavior of the rats that left your sinking ship!
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
"I disagree with that. Take two people and put them in a pool and tell them to swim laps. One will last longer than the other, and is better." Sure, but switch the pool to ice-water, and the jock who can swim farther now freees to death faster because he doesn't have as much insulative body fat as the slow swimmer. "Better" isn't objectively definable without a context.
"Nazism is sort of the ultimate proof that you don't need a Godlike God to go and destroy other people."
I think you meant Stalin. As crazy as Hitler became in his later years when he saw organized religion as just another obstacle in his way, his whole basic anti-semetic philosophy was basically a plagarism of Martin Luther's "On Jews and Their Lies" and the manipulation of centuries of church-approved anti-semetic prejeduce. Hitler referenced God and god's authority in his speeches as much if not more often than politicians today. The highest Nazi honor was the Iron Cross... and so on. The idea that a highly religious country like Germany somehow magically transformed overnight into a bunch of atheists is absurd.
You don't need evidence to demonstrate that the godless can be bad people. We're just people, after all, not some radically different form of life.
April 7, 2006
Study, in a First, Explains Evolution's Molecular Advance
By KENNETH CHANG
By reconstructing ancient genes from long-extinct animals, scientists have for the first time demonstrated the step-by-step progression of how evolution created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing and modifying existing parts.
The researchers say the findings, published today in the journal Science, offer a counterargument to doubters of evolution who question how a progression of small changes could produce the intricate mechanisms found in living cells.
"The evolution of complexity is a longstanding issue in evolutionary biology," said Joseph W. Thornton, professor of biology at the University of Oregon and lead author of the paper. "We wanted to understand how this system evolved at the molecular level. There's no scientific controversy over whether this system evolved. The question for scientists is how it evolved, and that's what our study showed."
Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species, "If it would be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
Discoveries like that announced this week of a fish with limblike fins have filled in the transitions between species. New molecular biology techniques let scientists begin to reconstruct how the processes inside a cell evolved over millions of years.
Dr. Thornton's experiments focused on two hormone receptors. One is a component of stress response systems. The other, while similar in shape, takes part in different biological processes, including kidney function in higher animals.
Hormones and hormone receptors are protein molecules that act like pairs of keys and locks. Hormones fit into specific receptors, and that attachment sends a signal to turn on or turn off cell functions. The matching of hormones and receptors led to the question of how new hormone-and-receptor pairs evolved, as one without the other would appear to be useless.
The researchers found the modern equivalent of the stress hormone receptor in lampreys and hagfish, two surviving jawless primitive species. The team also found two modern equivalents of the receptor in skate, a fish related to sharks.
After looking at the genes that produced them, and comparing the genes' similarities and differences among the genes, the scientists concluded that all descended from a single common gene 450 million years ago, before animals emerged from oceans onto land, before the evolution of bones.
The team recreated the ancestral receptor in the laboratory and found that it could bind to the kidney regulating hormone, aldosterone and the stress hormone, cortisol.
Thus, it turned out that the receptor for aldosterone existed before aldosterone. Aldosterone is found just in land animals, which appeared tens of millions of years later.
"It had a different function and was exploited to take part in a new complex system when the hormone came on the scene," Dr. Thornton said.
What happened was that a glitch produced two copies of the receptor gene in the animal's DNA, a not-uncommon occurrence in evolution. Then, for reasons not understood, two major mutations made one receptor sensitive just to cortisol, leading to the modern version of the stress hormone receptor. The other receptor became specialized for kidney regulation.
Dr. Thornton said the experiments showed how evolution could and did innovate functions over time. "I think this is likely to be a very common theme in how complex molecular systems evolved," he said.
Christoph Adami, a professor of life sciences at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, Calif. who wrote an accompanying commentary in Science, said the research showed how evolution "takes advantage of lucky circumstances and builds upon them."
Dr. Thornton said the experiment refutes the notion of "irreducible complexity" put forward by Michael J. Behe, a prof
Ahem...just as they say 'a feature is a bug with seniority' in computing circles, I guess biologists can say that a function is a mutation with seniority.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
comment on answer - not a single example to back up the science. not one. nadda, zip, zilch. if there are so many, name two or three indisputable pieces of evidence. i would. they don't. instead, they spend a sentence trying to tie evolution (w/o the necessary distinction between macro and micro, mind you) to the theory of gravitation. the difference being that gravitation has been observed countless times and you can't even count on one hand the times that macro-evolution has been knowingly observed. of course, this article's answer never mentioned this. just like they didn't mention all their proof they alledge exists.
micro-evolution is a fact. macro-evolution is the issue.
oh, and did i mention the dearth of actual evidence presented? as in... NONE? why is that? it is so *easy* to prove, right? THEN PROVE IT!!!!! articles like this should disgust a true scientist.
this is empty marketing drivel devoid of any facts or evidence to establish the alledged rebuttal to the question.
2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest.
natural selection is a fact. the fittest do survive. that isn't at issue, imho. the question is whether the fittest of animal A turns into different animal B.
3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.
it isn't falsifiable - that's true. however, it is testable. the EVIDENCE should support its accuracy. you know, the EVIDENCE the author didn't even bother to present so nobody could discuss its merits.
the author clearly applies a logical fallacy - an appeal to authority. "science says it is proven, therefore, you believe it is proven." uh, not quite. show me the EVIDENCE.
USUALLY, Archaeopteryx is one of the first alledged proofs from the fossil records put forth.
the problem is that it is reasonably not a transitionary fossil at all.
http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/spr97/bird.html
if one of the BEST examples to indicate macro-evolution is so full of holes, what about the weaker examples?
what this author fails to mention is that every time a macro-evolution theory prediction is false (eg, slow process of changes is FALSE!), they just change definition of macro-evolution! now they think there was a "big bang" of sorts where macro-evolution sped up b/c so many animals seemed to appear in a relatively short time.
one should find a succession of hominid creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed what the fossil record shows.
source, please? it sounds like this guy is claiming to know about a smooth transition from the animal that eventually turned into... which is TOTAL BS. i think he looked at one of those neat drawings showing this animal gradually turning into man and then wrote about it - never getting a source to see if it is true. IT ISN'T.
IF MACRO-EVOLUTION IS SO OBVIOUS, WHY MISLEAD? people mislead to hide failings, not be an idiot make one's obvious argument contestable.
Evolution could be disproved in other ways, too. If we could document the spontaneous generation of just one complex life-form from inanimate matter, then at least a few creatures seen in the fossil record might have originated this way.
first e needs to document that a simple life form can spontaneously generate from inanimate matter, THEN macro-evolution might just have legs. of course, he's pushing an agenda, not discussing all reasonable sides of an issue.
4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution.
some scientists do doubt macro-evolution. whether that number is significantly increasing is another matter.
5. The disag
"how evolution created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing and modifying existing parts"
So now evolution "creates" and "reuses" stuff? Why not call it a win-win for both evolution and creationism and go home already.
If scientist ever manage to 100% prove evolution is an actual autonomous process that happens because of natural selection... it kinda still leaves place for creationists to claim God created evolution :)
/shocking: we're not made out of mud after all/)
They've stepped back and adapted numerous times before (from flat earth, women rights, earth centric system, sun centric system, biology, there was also the claim we'll bring on the Apocalypse for researching atoms and subatomic particles
You don't need evidence to demonstrate that the godless can be bad people. We're just people, after all, not some radically different form of life
I agree to disagree with your historical assesment as to the meanings of Nazism, but, since I'm a Republican you'll have to trust that I'm more familiar with it.
In all seriousness, there's that aspect of liberalism that believes that if we eliminate God from the social discourse, humanity will improve. There's a lot of people of that John Lennon ilk "Imagine there's no religion", that believe that if we could deconstruct every existing social institution we could have new world order where everyone would love each other. And me, I just think that will give us some new thing to have wars about. Of course, in saying that, that doesn't mean that there's not aspects of conservatism that are equally stupid. Intelligent design comes to mind... I mean, what takes more of God's brains, designing a plant leaf by itself, or, designing an entire unwinding mechanism of physics and chemistry so that plants and animals and man would arise as a part of a majesty of his will. It's almost like to argue ID is to say that God is too stupid to design an evolutionary process or too vain to give Man free will upon the Earth.
This is my sig.
If there were a God, the only kind I can possibly imagine would reward the former, not the latter.
God really is a bloodthirsty volcano god of doom! In which case, he's going to reward whoever screws with people the most to make Universe 1.0 the most entertaining screen saver ever!
This is my sig.
Imagine there are two aeroplanes on the tarmac - one built with the theory of aerodynamics and the other with the hypothesis of evolution. Which one will you get into to fly from New York to Los Angles? I know which one I'm flying in. Evolution is just social science in disguise. It feels good to get jerked off but you have to come back to reality sometime...
>> ... how evolution created ...
Often people who don't want to mention, or perhaps even to accept, God will personify evolution itself as a creator. Or often writers will personify some creature, describing it as though it deliberately evolved some feature. Belief in evolution as a primary cause is just as much an act of religious faith as believing in God, because we observe only the results, not the process itself.
Interesting view and discussion that's is transpiring here today. If this is the case, I feel much better about my existence. After all, if what you're saying is true, then you must have been instructed by God to be telling us here today - that would make you a Prophet.
Furthermore, my agnostic point of view makes me feel much more comfortable in that it was God's decision for me to be agnostic and not my own. I guess you could say "Thank God" whatever happens, I'm released from consequences as it was God's plan that led me to my beliefs.
So all of that biblical mumbo-jumbo can be chucked out the door, because no matter who does or does not believe in God, it was his decision - ALL the way down to the quark level.
Sorry to sound like a troll, but it just seems to me that Christians _always_ defeat themselves when they talk about their religion.
Personally, I feel like events such as hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in the indian ocean, and September 11th offer a much stronger proof of the lack of a personal god.
Either that, or at least strong proof that if there IS a god, he/she's a sadistic bastard without anything resembling our idea of morality, justice, or fairness. In other words, any god that regularly lets shit like this happen deserves our scorn, not our adoration.
Either way, religion is shit.
Did the study cover a mutation found in a living organism that isn't passed on, or one that is with the organism from birth? I mention this because it opens a possible wedge of attack by creationists, namely that mutations in non-reproductive cells won't get passed on and so cannot contribute to evolution. Anonymous Coward (currently without a clever sig due to cognitive budget constraints)
I don't know, I haven't studied that particular situation. Anyone know? Google it?
how is being sexual in nature more conducive to survival? if you've been married, you'd know better... if not, you will...
Sexual selection is thought to work in a roundabout way such that those that are seen as most fit by members of the opposite sex are seen as more attractive. The selected attribute may actually have something to do with survival ability, or it may be as arbitrary as a difference in color. The real answer is that being sexual may not be more conducive to survival itself, but is more conducive to reproduction.
why do i have an amazing, astounding, ingenious, freaked out eyeball of complexity and teeth that want to fall out? weren't teeth important to survival, too? especially 10,000 years ago?
Normally eyeballs don't fall out. But they do help you to survive much better than you would without them. Teeth are important to survival, but 10,000 years ago, you may not have lived to an age long enough to have them fall out. But as long as you lived long enough to reproduce, that was enough.
how is a hybrid land / water ear advantageous on eithe rland or water? btw, no such ear has ever been discovered. just postulated.
For the first creatures crawling out of the water, their water ears probably didn't help very much on land. But since they were the first creatures on land, there wasn't much else for them to hear anyway. As more and more creatures crawled out onto the land and started to stay there, competition began. Those that whose water ears heard a little bit better than the others, in general, survived to reproduce better than the others. Through random mutation and natural selection, eventually those "water" ears worked much better as "land" ears.
if the platypus lived and went extinct x thousands of years ago... what would an evolutionsit claim claim about it being transitionary? how would slashdot react?
A particular species going extinct doesn't necessarily any bearing on whether it is transitory or not. Either the species has diverged into different species with the original species no longer existing, or the species went exinct before then and didn't. An "evolutionist" would claim one of the two, whichever scenario happened to be the one that happened. Slashdot probably wouldn't care one way or another.
how does life come from death?
Usually happens when you hear "CLEAR!!!" Or, if what you really meant was how does life come from non-living material, current hypoteheses are discussed here. Note the difference between chemical abiogenesis and spontaneous generation, which traditionally refers to fully formed organisms like maggots forming from dead or nonliving material.
how do appendages that offer no benefit stay around long enough to eventually become a benefit?
Example?
why are my ears facing forward instead of backwards? i can see forward, so wouldn't the greatest benefit come from having my ears pointed backwards so i could better hear prey coming up from behind? *especially* before language existed? or did ears come into existance *after& language came into existence?
I don't know about you, but I have more than a front and a back, I also have a left and a right and thanks to the concept of stereo hearing, I can identify sounds all around me, including the behind me.
how come we can't repreoduce macro-evolution in the lab? why can't we turn bacteria into something entirely different than bacteria - even thoug we've dramamtically increased the speed of reproduction?
We can increase rate of reproduction and watch thousands of generations happen, but even at such rates we would still be waiting around for millions of
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Two points I feel compelled to raise in response to things implied by the statement above:
(a) This is by no means the first evidence supporting evolution, nor the most substantive, and
(b) So-called 'Intelligent Design' (and I have little doubt that "doubters of evolution" refers to proponents of such) is not a scientific argument that deserves scientific refuting, given that "ID" is non-falsifiable in the same way as the "theory" that the universe was created three seconds ago and the memory of all that came before was implanted.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
"why do i have an amazing, astounding, ingenious, freaked out eyeball of complexity and teeth that want to fall out? weren't teeth important to survival, too? especially 10,000 years ago?"
In most earlier animals, teeth fall out constantly and are then regrown. Sharks are a good example. They go through many sets. The advantage of this is that worn out teeth are replaced.
Mammals have more specialized jaws than earlier animal types. Grazing mammals have flat grinding teeth, rodents have slicing incisors. Because mammalian teeth are so specialized, if new teeth are constantly moving in to replace the old teeth then the tooth alignment ends up way off. Therefore in many mammals tooth replacement is limited.
Limiting tooth replacement helped young mammals survive long enough to reproduce because they could eat better. The downside of this adaptation, long-term tooth loss, was not sufficient to deter the shift to non-replaceable teeth.
This is exactly the kind of change evolution predicts. Old systems are adapted to new circumstances in a non-designed way. Nobody goes back to "fix" the downsides, because all that matters is that the new system works better than the old one.
"if the platypus lived and went extinct x thousands of years ago... what would an evolutionsit claim claim about it being transitionary? how would slashdot react?"
The platypus only appears to be a transitory form to the most uneducated and cursory examination. Morphological difference between its beak and those of birds are impossible for any dissector to ignore.
Basically, all your points boil down to "I have an imperfect understanding of biology, and I find inconsistencies in that understanding." The fact that you don't know the answer to a question does not in any way imply that it hasn't been answered, or that the answer challenges evolution. It's just you not knowing.
This is dead on. You nailed it: a) the process has been demonstrated b) it is not in conflict with god or the bible.
Why are we still arguing about this? Honestly I don't know. As I said in another post people have an emotional reaction to this for some reason and I don't expect any amount of truth to dissuade them. Yes, like with Galelio. Maybe another hundred years from now we'll be past it as people die off.
And that's the ultimate purpose of death: to clean house.
Cheers.
Study explains evolution's molecular advance Friday April 07, @12:24PM Rejected
Way to go samzenpus, keep up the good work.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"since I'm a Republican you'll have to trust that I'm more familiar with it."
:) Read Martin Luther's "On Jews and their Lies": the text that Hitler read that got him all fired up and which he cited over and over: you'll find pretty much the blueprint for everything the Nazi's did in the writings of the founder of Protestantism.
Unless Republican is synonymous with "historian" or "logician" I'll have to take that with a gargle of salt.
I don't really understand the state of denial here. The fact that Germans were religious, and did bad things anyway, is not some horrible secret that needs to be covered up. It doesn't mean that religion is bad, anymore than Stalin demonstrates that not having a religion is bad. Christianity used to be very anti-Semetic, but thanks in part to absolute disgust at the Holocaust, it's purged itself so completely of that that there is almost no sect in the world where someone can express anti-semetism and not be condemned for it. That's an incredible achievement, not just for Christianity, but for human society.
"And me, I just think that will give us some new thing to have wars about."
I agree. I don't think religion is bad anymore than I think sports are bad. If people express views and beliefs that I think are bad, I can say so. Trying to pin it on religion, or anything else, is a fools game. Worse, it allows the people who actually chose the act to move out of focus: they're the ones responsible.
"It's almost like to argue ID is to say that God is too stupid to design an evolutionary process or too vain to give Man free will upon the Earth."
That's what Kenneth Miller argues in his "Finding Darwin's God" a great book on the controversy. A common analougy is a pool shot: who's the better player, the guy who picks up each and every ball and drops it in the pocket? Or the guy who sinks the whole table in one shot.
I mention this because it opens a possible wedge of attack by creationists, namely that mutations in non-reproductive cells won't get passed on and so cannot contribute to evolution.
And your proof of this is.... ?
Horizontal gene transfer to gametes would allow pretty much any genetic material to enter the reproductive cycle, even viable, proven mutations in other parts of the body, or (even more likely) from some other genetic material.
It turns out that genetic material is promiscuous. Bacteria and viruses like to exchange genetic material with all kinds of things, including you and me.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
AC
Many evolutionists operate under the faith that evolution occured and it occurred purely through natural processes.
It is not "faith" if it is supported by MOUNTAINS of evidence, as evolution theory is.
No divine or other intervention has been involved.
This is not what most people who actually understand the science say. What they do say is something along the lines of, "There is no evidence of a higher power."
Any attempt to suggest teaching people otherwise is met with stiff and dogmatic resistance.
Again, there is no evidence of the divine, that's why it shouldn't be taught in science class.
It has not been absolutely proved that only natural processes have brought about our current situation, ergo faith is involved.
Science doesn't absolutely prove anything. Your saying it should belies a basic misunderstanding of what science is.
They may believe that all the evidence points to their conclution, but it is still faith.
Just because you (and others of your ilk) continue to say it over and over doesn't make it so. If, at a murder trial, the murder weapon is found at the suspect's home with the suspect's fingerprints on it, the victim's blood is found in the suspect's car, the suspect was seen entering the victim's home just before the time of death and seen leaving just after, and the suspect was the victim's ex-boyfriend, and the victim's friends said she had just broken up with him, is it "faith" to hand down a guilty verdict? If so, you have a very different definition of "faith" than I do (or any dictionary you care to mention).
Why do you set your alarm clock in the morning? Because you have faith that it will work, that the sun will rise, that your job will still exist, etc. You have no absolute proof of this, but you have pretty good evidence that these things will be so.
This is absolute bollocks and leaves me wondering why I even debate with someone like you. Not only would my alarm clock and my company suddenly have to cease to function overnight, the very solar system would have to cease to function. If you call that "faith", then it is a completely different kind of faith from religious faith, and the two shouldn't be compared as you are attempting to do.
But that is not to say that evidence for a creator is moot.
Please offer us some empirical evidence of a deity.
Some are so entrenched that they cannot see anything but what they want to see...
Now there's something we agree upon.
"Intelligent Design" doesn't move anything forward, it is a political movement consisting of nothing but empty speculation based on religion.
/.: why the hell am I here?
Anonymously Cowardly
Some of us are actually interested in the science of evolution, but it is next to impossible to find posts about that in this swamp of pro-contra-creationism posts.
Dr.W? :3
he uses science to build the 8 robots to take over the world o.o'
(i'm just kidding a bit because this creationist dumb vs evolutionists not so dumb discussion may get a lil boring XD)
I do not understand what the fuss is about here. I am not talking about the ID-Evo debate. What the good Dr.Thornton seems to have discovered, is only a case of moonlighting, which is well known in biology. Moonlighting is the phenomenon when a single protein fulfills several, often unrelated and even more often unexpected functions in a cell. Biologists are aware of this fact, and hence understand this to be one of the basic ways in which molecular evolution occurs. The fact that an aldosterone receptor can exist before aldosterone is not really surprising. Drug designers are designing molecules all the time for which receptors already exist. Basically, I do not think that it is a novel as the NYtimes would have us beleive. Here is an interesting paper describing several such moonlighting occurences.[Warning: PDF]. Further a presentation for non-biologists on moonlighting is here One of the leading researchers in the field of moonlighting proteins is Dr.Joel Sussman. He works on how the AChE enzyme may be affecting a variety of other aspects in neural cell biology.
Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Evolutionary biologists find flaws in existing theories of evolution fairly often, and the theories are adjusted accordingly over time..." I must disagree with you.
Richard Dawkins is probably one of the most famous evolutionary biologists and anti creationists around and has very little time and much mockery of the creationist line of thinking. However if you read his book "The Ancestors Tale" he is very clear that there is much debate, much unknown and many things that may never be known about evolutionary history. He clearly outlines competing theories in the side branches of evolutionary theorey, gives his own theories and admits that in the future they may be proved or disproved. This is the hallmark of good scientific discipline and of a work very much in progress.
God is ignorance.
Some are happier in god; some argue vehemently to defend their position in him.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Accepting evolution does not preclude belief in god, and vice versa. The two are not mutually contradictory.
Evolution and a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis are another story, but that's another argument entirely.
For sale: one sig space, gently used. Inquire for details.
There is a catch to this. A lot of mutations[I use the term loosely as it is used on Slashdot] occur due to the individuals tendency to acquire them, ie, genetic predisposition.
If somatic cell mutations occur and confer an advantage to the organism, it will presumably manifest as a greater chance for the organism to pass on its genes, and thus pass on the genetic predisposition to acquire that mutation.
One on-field implication of this, is that many types of cancers tend to develop resistance to drugs through identical (!) molecular mchanisms, even though resistance is obviously developed de novo in different individuals with the same type of cancer. This is because the administration of a same drug applies identical selection pressure and thus causes the identical, (apparently) most probable and stable phenotype to appear in the cells.
Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
> why are my ears facing forward instead of backwards? i can see forward, so wouldn't the greatest benefit come from having my ears pointed backwards so i could better hear prey coming up from behind?
;-)
You ears face forward so that sounds originating from *behind* you sound different from sounds originating *in front* of you. That way you can determine the direction of a noise source more accurately.
Jeez, I learned that in junior high biology. What the hell were they teaching *you*?
> how is being sexual in nature more conducive to survival?
Dude, were you even AWAKE during biology class?? I guess not....
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
Creationism is pure stupidity. If we are to take the Bible's story of creation literally, which if the TWO should we use. Pick up any Bible, read the two first stories. Both describe God's creation of the world and man, but they contradict each other at several points.
I'm sure the creationists could counter the argument with some theological hand waving, but any reasonable person would understand that you aren't supposed to take these stories literally. They are myths, and myths are meant to be interpreted.
Evolution is just a scientific theory. Creationism is not.
Wish I could remember where I saw it... I thought someone repeated that calculation of the monkeys working on MacBeth. By keeping only the letters that monkey's got right and letting them work randomly on the rest, the time to write MacBeth was shortened quite a bit.
"...who's the better player, the guy who picks up each and every ball and drops it in the pocket? Or the guy who sinks the whole table in one shot."
Hard to tell. The first guy's not even playing pool.
Then again, it's a good analogy. The Creationists aren't even studying science.
Science is not about "truth," it is about probabilities and -- very important -- predictions. You determine the probability that something could happen and predict how it will be seen in the future. That is science, not some abstract, higher notion of "truth."
Evolution predicts that random mutation will give rise to new variations within a species and eventually a new species. This very Slashdot-linked article describes how someone reverse engineered DNA to show us the roadmap it took. How we predicted evolution occurred is being corroborated with evidence from this study.
If, on the other hand, this study found that the DNA sequence showed the opposite, a non-sequential series of steps that could only be explained by outside engineering (i.e., an intelligent designer), then a major aspect of evolution would have been demonstrated false. But it wasn't rendered false. It merely adds to the body of evidence for evolution. The data best fits the evolutionary theory given.
This is how science works: probabilities, predictions, and falsifiability. Now your turn.
How can Intelligent Design:
If you cannot come up with a reasonable answer for all three of those questions, you are not talking about science; you are talking about theology and dogma.
FYI: Archaeopteryx is indeed a transitory species. We are all transitory species. There is no such thing as a "finished" species. It was only probably not in the direct lineage between dinosaurs and modern birds like previously... *cough* *cough* predicted *cough* *cough*
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Thanks for posting -- I do have a quick question;
Why isn't there a gradient of species today between various species? Even, say between man and ape. There seem to be places where man and ape have coexisted for many thousands of years, but there is no apparent species gradient.
"Ensatina eschscholtzi" appears to be a species in the midst of evolution. However, it rather proves the point; both subspecies in question are "salamanders." Given time, enough changes and species splits could occur such that something completely different would arise. However, you'd then have several hundred species in gradient, or so I would think.
Can you shed some light on this?
(For the sake of the discussion, here's my viewpoint; Creationist for logical and philosophical reasons, but happy to change given a decent explanation not based on faith. I already know the Bible isn't quite the "perfect word of God", so it's not a crisis of faith for me to accept the evolutionary mechanism.)
Thanks for your offer. I hope I've worded my question clearly.
Chris
cej102937
Well, if you think of the rules of the game pool as sort of like the laws of nature, then some people might be impressed that someone is violating them: those lifted balls are miracles.
But then, of course, you remember that the laws of nature would have to be things that God laid down in the first place. So now we have God violating his own laws to accomplish something that he apparently couldn't do by playing by his own rules.
And if you try to fit all this into what we know of the history of life on earth, a history without evolution, what we end up with is a tinkerer: a God who has to intervene CONSTANTLY in his own natural world to fix a constantly failing and unsustainable creation.
Were I a believer, I don't see how I could ever imagine such a circumstance as being particularly majestic for an all powerful being: bizarre is more like it. But then that's the problem with creationism: it's not a theory that's thought through to its logical conclusions. It's a very brief smokescreen meant to distract, meant to get people to stop thinking and back to just affirming.
I think you're forgetting a few things. Nation sized entities have never really gone to war for religious reasons. Individuals though, and even fairly large groups engage in violence all the time over religion. It's also a nice method of convincing your populous to go to war (for other reasons).
Here's the Wikipedia site on sectarian violence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarian_violence
Note that the Irish situation is semi-contemporary (although it's calmed down a lot in the last few years) and the Shia-Sunni Muslim conflict, which admittedly isn't really western, is definitely ongoing. Note also that sectarian violence is between members of the SAME religion with only slightly differing beliefs! There are lots of mosques, temples and churches vandalized even in North America every year though.
Here is some good reading on the subject:
1 /qid=1144621052/ref=sr_1_1/002-2229204-8463207?_en coding=UTF8&s=books
1 /qid=1144620897/ref=sr_1_1/002-2229204-8463207?_en coding=UTF8&s=books
Thousands not Billions
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890514410/sr=1-
The Collapse of Evolution
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801057744/sr=1-
Natural disasters may now be partially alleviated through choices that civilizations made, but this was not the case for most of our history, and is not always the case now. So how do you explain that in the majority of cases, natural disasters represent an evil for which there is no corresponding action of will?
In any case, the phrase "worse than it should have been" gives the game away. Even making the best possible choices, there would be suffering. An all loving, all knowing, all powerful God could easily take away all suffering that is not directly caused by free will, yet He does not. Therefore, He must not be all loving, all knowing, and all powerful.
If God is all powerful, he could create free will that was free of the possibility of evil. For instance, free will is now free of the possibility of flavenfurgen (a meaningless concept I just made up.) You can't choose to commit flavenfurgen. Yet even without this choice, you have free will. An all powerful God could create a free will that could not conceive of, let alone choose evil. To state otherwise is to admit that God is not all powerful.
Just because you cannot conceive of how this could be does not mean that an omniscient God could not conceive of it or do it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The research article did not mention ID. An accompanying commentary, written by someone else entirely, did.
Unless Republican is synonymous with "historian" or "logician" I'll have to take that with a gargle of salt. :)
Actually it was meant as sort of a joke. A lot of lefties around here assume Republicans and Nazis are the same and I thought it entertaining to make some humor of it for a change.
As far as the history goes, I used to be avidly interested in World War II and how the Nazis came to pass, and I don't recall a source for Hitler having an epiphany by reading Martin Luther. I don't seek to defend protestantism, but, for the historical accuracy, I do believe that Hitler seems to have formed his mission at a young age - he speaks of being caught up with Wagnerian Operas and had already identified with being a historic figure as a child. When World War I broke out, Hitler was more than delighted to volunteer and go. With that said, the region was already violently anti-semetic even at the turn of the 20th century, if not earlier than that. You almost don't need a dramatic moment to make a Hitler out of that batch. You just need a grandiose kid, permissive recognition that a particular minority is a problem, and boom, you got yourself a Hitler.
The question is, how pervasive and how deep is that general labelling of a minority as a problem is necessary? Right now if you walked into a bar, in the USA, and said that, "I think we should pull all the troops out of the middle east and just nuke all billion of them", a lot of people would agree with you, but I still don't think we're not at the cattle car point yet - the Germans during their Nazi heyday would see things like Abu Ghraib as harmless entertainment by rightful exploitation of an evil but weaker race. But, left unchecked and for a few decades more, who knows, maybe a genocidal war against the middle east of the sort that Hitler waged against Poland and then Russia is not out of reach for the United States.
I agree with the rest of your post completely.
This is my sig.
If you are willing to accept the evolutionary mechanism by which life as we know it on Earth has developed, then you are not a (big C) Creationist. Although, yes, you can still believe God is responsible for this very effective mechanism. And in that sense you might call yourself a (little c) creationist (as in, God created evolution as the mechanism by which life came to appear on Earth).
To reiterate: You cannot be a big-C Creationist if you believe in science/evolution. They are mutually exclusive positions. One involves science (evolution). One involves rejecting science (big-C Creationism, or Intelligent Design).
Btw, I am not sure what you mean by "gradient of species" between different species. Is this a concept you read about somewhere?
If by "they" you mean the proponents of Intelligent Design, the idea that God is not powerful enough to create a universe with evolution is EXACTLY what they're saying.
ID holds, not just that evolution DIDN'T happen, but that evolution COULD NOT HAVE produced organisms with "irreducible complexity."
If God COULD HAVE used evolution to create the organisms we observe, ID is dead.
I don't explain or attempt to explain. I cannot fathom all the possible reasons for a natural disaster to happen. Punishment might be one, living in the wrong areas and destroying the hbbitat might be another. A natural disaster might be the direct cause of anothers actions completly around the world . Skyscrapers, man made damns and other objects can cause earthquakes wich can in effect cause tsunamis wich both can have devestating concequences. The perception of evil also is reletive to the opinion. I saw the Tsunami and Katrina and though great. in one place we have clensed the earth of over population while in another we have found government shortcommings and waist that should ensure lesser effects of furture catastrophies. Others looked and though how could this happen.
But who ever said the (a)god was just all loving, all knowing, and all powerful. The bible clearly outlines a malicious god who takes vengence for not aligning your free will with his spirit. This is displayed before any o fthe softer sides of it. Katrina had warnings, people didn't listen to these warnings. The california quakes had warnings and no one listened (that they were in an earthquake prone area and minor quakes happened in the previous months). Almost all disasters have some sort of warning that we just don't pay attention to or can fault on someone else. This reminds me of a story.
A preacher recieved news that a flood was comming, He said the lord will take care of him. Still everyone else started evacuating. then the waters rose anf a guy in a boat came by asking him if he wanted a ride to saftey. The preacher replied "no thankyou, god will take care of me" The water got higher and he was sitting on the rof of the church. Along came a helicopter wich lowered a rope and the preacher replied "no thankyou, god will take care of me". Well after he died and went to heaven, he asked why didn't god take care of me. An angel replied, "he sent warning of the impending flood, you refused the help. He sent a boat and you refused to get in. He sent a helicopter and you refused the airlift to safety" "now you are in heaven when didn't he take care of you?.
He could create it but it wouldn't serve a purpose. This is the common theme I see when people disclaim a god. First they cite somethign they don't agree with and say if god was real he wouldn't have let it happen. Actualy that is greed and at best only shows you have an opinion about whatever you disagree with. People understand the good and bad of actions. This is why we need something to contrast the possibilities of our actions. suffering can teach us lessons. Lessons that aren't being learned. The first time you grab a hot stove, you "suffer" and think twice about grabbing a hot stove again. The same can be said about other lessons in life. The problem is insteead of learing the lesson, we focuse on how a god could let somethign happen or if he actualy exist because to happened. The book of job watches a god torture a guy to win a bet based on free will. In the end he realized a wealth and riches.
Anyhow, if you want more insight to the processes behind everything (and it sounds like you have a clue anyhow), read the book "FAB" by Neil Gershenfeld (ISBN 0-465-02745-8, hardcover). In the last section, entitled "The Future", the author discusses how ribosomes, messenger RNA and transfer RNA work together to create proteins, one of the basic building blocks of life. When it gets right down to it, this combination is nothing more than a very funky version of a UTM (Universal Turing Machine), where the ribosomes are akin to the read/write head, and the messanger RNA/transfer RNA serve the role of the read/write head encoding and "infinite tape", with the output being new protein. A similar mechanism (to a ribosome) called DNA polymerase actually does copying of DNA.
If you could figure out how all of this work (simple thing there, uhuh), in theory you could build (grow?) anything (provided it was protein based, likely). If you could create a silicon (or other hard material) nanomachine analog, you could construct nearly anything.
Yeah - in each of our's and other species cells lie something very similar, if not the equivalent of, Turing Machines - miniature computers, whose instruction set is a series of codons in a certain sequence. When that sequence is "off" (either through chemical degradation or cosmic rays, or similar), the computer mis-translates, which in effect become "mutations". Some of these mutations may be helpful, some may be deadly. Ultimately, it is these mutations which serve to move things forward in harmony with evolution.
There are many other books I could reccommend you read as well - I have posted lists of these here on /. in the past, so I am not going to rehash it (suffice to say there are several). I suggest you track my lists down and read those books as well. Please note that I don't consider FAB to be one of these books, but it is a good, quick read - something I ran across at the library as I was thinking about building a 3-axis CNC milling machine...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
"I'm proud that my ancestors were ratlike creatures."
I wouldn't call your mom and dad your ancestors.
Your logic is ill-conceived.
Just a few quick points that seem to escape you (I have very little time or I would quite enjoy piercing every single comment you made with mere logic and fact). The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. This time-frame is impossible for the majority of humans to grasp. Instant and spontaneous species generation would be impossible to witness. Thankfully, there are libraries filled with evidence to guide us. Yes, you were taught wrong. Science is not about truths as stated (P.S. Gravity has not been "proven" as you suggest either. Not one piece of evidence, nada, zilch, etc... Science still does not know gravity's origin or mechanisms, just like evolution).
Most of your arguments are spastic drivel with nary a spot of logic. You seem to know nearly nothing about the ways of discovery. None. Just realize this, we do not know the truth about most things, but we do leave the door open to discovery. In other words, I leave the space open to have the blanks filled in via science, whereas other seem to want to plug them in with "magical creatures" such as a "maker", because it's easy to do (see all throughout history, and religion's losing battle with science). It's the difference between having the answers spoon fed to me and eating it with a heavy dose of indoctrinated "faith", or realizing that millions of years of human discovery and understanding about this Universe we live in has been the only guiding light with regard to discovery. The choice is clearly simple for me...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Before claiming you'd researched it. Had you done so, you'd realize that right in the first paragraph, it says this
"The saber-tooth morphology is an excellent example of convergent evolution as it occurred repeatedly and independently in at least four distinct mammalian groups."
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Go ahead and tell all the victims of the tsunami or hurricane katrina about the lessons they need to learn from their experience. Not all suffering has a purpose. In any case, the God you describe is not something I would ever worship.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
But who said they are suffering? This again is a reletive term.
Do what you want. i wouldn't ever worship a god to begin with.
Here is a lesson to learn though, Don't build your home directly in the path of a hurrican prone shoreline. and if you do, expect to lose your home. Don't build you home directly around a fault line in the middle of an ocean. More importantly, When warnings about somethign bad is about to happen or is happening, listen and seek higher ground. Don't rush to the beach with a video camera trying to film it or surf the wave. There was warnings in the tsunami as well as Katrina and some people did the exact oposite of those warnings.
You are quite possibly one of the most callous people I have ever conversed with. Not that that's wrong or bad, but I think you are missing out on one of the greatest feelings a human can have: empathy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I tend to agree with what Albert said when quoting what some other guy said about free will, "A man cannot will what he wills". For a detailed explaination see the books "Godel, Esher, Bach" by D. Hofstadter and "Unweaving the rainbow" by R. Dawkins.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I really don't see empathy as a great thing. It is more like a cripling disease then anythign great. When it aligns itself with my needs, i see ampathey as a tool but then again that what most people (especialy politicions) do.
Wow. Just.... Wow. The scariest part is that you think most people are like you. Look up the definition of sociopath sometime, see what it says about empathy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Lets face it, the majority of people with empathy are pushing an agenda. There are a few legit people who see someoen elses suffering and fell for them. The majority of people though see it as a way to exploit an agenda. Now lets be real, compasion and empathy are two different things and While some would say they are inseperatable, It is far easier to have compasion then empathy.
But of course compasion is harder then empathy because it generaly requires some type of action. Compasion can also be exploited by others but at least someone requiring support/help gets somethign from the deal.