Agreed, but the number of changes required to get from verion 1 to version 2 increases (I would speculate exponentially) with the complexity of the system.
Lets suppose that I would have a better chance of surviving with an eye at the back of my head. Such a mutation simply would not happen within one generation, it requires to many patches.
This leaves the fundemental problem of what happens to the generations in between for whom the changes are not beneficial. According to survival of the fittest, they do not survive. Then how do complicated changes happen?
It seems like opinion here at slashdot is quite prejudiced to evolution. The thing is, science is about thinking, it's not about believing about what some guy in a white coat says.
Lets distinguish between micro evolution and macro evolution. Micro evolution is a fact, experiments have demonstrated that if you take very small simple lifeforms, put them in two lakes, wait a bit and put them back together then they will not be able to breed. Through a few hundred generations of small mutations they've separated into two seperate species.
Now macro evolution is another thing. This conjecture claims that if you take a simple organism and wait a few hundred millions of years then you have some chance of getting a human being. I find this somewhat harder to believe. Let me insert a disclaimer at this point that I'm definitely not a creationist.
Let me illustrate my point. Computer scientists know that if you take a complicated system and insert a small alteration in one part of the code then that alteration is likely to affect other parts of the system (and introduce 100's of hard to track bugs). This is a small change done by a thinking programmer mind you, not a random change.
Now lets apply the theory of macro evolution to computer science. Lets take the code for Linux 0.93 as a starting point. Write a small piece of code that introduces random changes in the code.
If the code refuses to compile, undo the change and compile again. A compiled piece of code "survives" if it does better than the previous generation: ie. crashes less, runs faster etc. I know that this is a bit simplified but I think that the central argument is there, after a billion of such generations we would not have a great operating system. Simply said, evolution does not scale .
This is why I find it difficult to believe that at some stage we did not have a stomach, then one generation introduced a stomach cell (which is useless by itself) and after a million more generations we have arrived at a fully functional stomach. What about the 999,999 generations which had a nonworking stomach? The theory of evolution simply does not explain how components of complicated systems such as humans were created.
Why do most people here think that evolution is a shut case? I really don't think that matters are so simple.
Yahoo is moving to register the trademark now, they applied for it in August. Being an actor, it means that if Yahoo Serious was to release merchandise etc. under the name Yahoo, Yahoo! inc. would probably sue him.
This wasn't a problem before they applied for the trademark.
How would you guys feel if I tried to register the trademark "Linus Torvalds" tomorrow?
I think that Mr. Serious has a serious point.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, but the number of changes required to get from verion 1 to version 2 increases (I would speculate exponentially) with the complexity of the system.
Lets suppose that I would have a better chance of surviving with an eye at the back of my head. Such a mutation simply would not happen within one generation, it requires to many patches.
This leaves the fundemental problem of what happens to the generations in between for whom the changes are not beneficial. According to survival of the fittest, they do not survive. Then how do complicated changes happen?
It seems like opinion here at slashdot is quite prejudiced to evolution. The thing is, science is about thinking, it's not about believing about what some guy in a white coat says.
Lets distinguish between micro evolution and macro evolution. Micro evolution is a fact, experiments have demonstrated that if you take very small simple lifeforms, put them in two lakes, wait a bit and put them back together then they will not be able to breed. Through a few hundred generations of small mutations they've separated into two seperate species.
Now macro evolution is another thing. This conjecture claims that if you take a simple organism and wait a few hundred millions of years then you have some chance of getting a human being. I find this somewhat harder to believe. Let me insert a disclaimer at this point that I'm definitely not a creationist.
Let me illustrate my point. Computer scientists know that if you take a complicated system and insert a small alteration in one part of the code then that alteration is likely to affect other parts of the system (and introduce 100's of hard to track bugs). This is a small change done by a thinking programmer mind you, not a random change.
Now lets apply the theory of macro evolution to computer science. Lets take the code for Linux 0.93 as a starting point. Write a small piece of code that introduces random changes in the code.
If the code refuses to compile, undo the change and compile again. A compiled piece of code "survives" if it does better than the previous generation: ie. crashes less, runs faster etc. I know that this is a bit simplified but I think that the central argument is there, after a billion of such generations we would not have a great operating system. Simply said, evolution does not scale .
This is why I find it difficult to believe that at some stage we did not have a stomach, then one generation introduced a stomach cell (which is useless by itself) and after a million more generations we have arrived at a fully functional stomach. What about the 999,999 generations which had a nonworking stomach? The theory of evolution simply does not explain how components of complicated systems such as humans were created.
Why do most people here think that evolution is a shut case? I really don't think that matters are so simple.
I thought that Columbia was one
of your states... wasn't there a
school shooting there the other year
or something?
Colombia, on the other hand, is a
country in South America.
I think most of you guys are missing the point.
:)
Yahoo is moving to register the trademark now, they applied for it in August. Being an actor, it means that if Yahoo Serious was to release merchandise etc. under the name Yahoo, Yahoo! inc. would probably sue him.
This wasn't a problem before they applied for the trademark.
How would you guys feel if I tried to register the trademark "Linus Torvalds" tomorrow?
I think that Mr. Serious has a serious point.
(pardon the pun