[Nuu™™]

Quite. This is an American-only thread, again, I won't know what I'm talking about so I'll stay out of it.

[Rohtaren]

is nylon the only thing that the bacteria can eat?

[Neraphym]

It'd be hard to imagine the bacteria can only consume the nylon and nothing else. (And yes, this thread is sadly American only.)

[Rohtaren]

i could probably ea nylon if i wanted to.

[Zziggywolf5]

i could probably ea nylon if i wanted to.

But would your body be able to effectively metabolise it?

[Neraphym]

i could probably ea nylon if i wanted to.

But would your body be able to effectively metabolise it?

Ah, I suppose eat was a poor choice of word. The fact is, you CAN'T metabolize nylon. Nylon requires a special enzyme to digest. For those of you who didn't already know, enzymes are things that break down stuff in foods. An enzyme acts like a puzzle piece. One type of enzyme can only break down one certain material. The enzyme that breaks down nylon can only break down nylon, and nothing else. Since nylon was just created, no enzyme for digesting nylon had ever existed, as it would've been utterly worthless.

[Zoo]

"I'm going to take 7 earth days of the 21st century standard to make it." *universe*

Actually, it wasn't judged to be seven days on earth (by the 21st century standard) that he made the universe. One thousand years on Earth is one single day for God, in heaven. So you could say that for him, it took seven days. But from our viewpoint, it took seven thousand years. Six thousand, actually, since on the last day he rested XD

Where does it say 1000 years = 1 Godday? Wouldn't time be irrelevant to an omnipotent god?

Yeah... I know what you're referring to Darkness (although of course I couldn't tell you where it's found, which of course weakens whatever I'm going to say) but that's taking it out of context. It says for him an instant is the same as a day, or a thousand years, or 10 billion years. Basically it's saying time is irrelevant to God. And it is (here I'm assuming he exists and is omnipotent/omnitient, and that he did create), he could make everything in a flash if he wanted. The seven day model was to illustrate how people should organize their lives, work 6 days and rest on the seventh. (I guess you don't even have to take that part literally to get that out of it, but anyway.)

And I'll have to come back to this topic when I'm awake.

[Nuu™™]

Well, on Compass last night they had some programme by some fellow known as Richard Dawkins, who apparently is some evolutionary professor that gets a lot of American 'Bible belt Christians' rather annoyed. To cut straight to the point, I basically know what so called 'Creationism' is.

Firstly, let's clear up the whole 'evolution is just a theory' idea. I presume is what they mean by that is that evolution is just an induction, induction being, in logic, one of the two methods which one uses to arrive at a conclusion. The difference between the two is that in induction, the conclusion is not as certain as the premises, that is, the facts/evidence/et cetera from which one has based their reasoning; while deduction the conclusion, if used correctly, will be as certain as the premises.

To put this into context, people who are unsure of whether evolution is correct think that it is based on reasoning which is quite uncertain. To be frank, it isn't. If one believes that DNA and mutation and sex exist, one should believe in evolution with the same amount of certainty. I, myself, confess that I don't really know a lot about evolution, so correct me if I am wrong (cite your sources as well), but I will try to demonstrate the deduction that Darwin reached in natural language:

If DNA can mutate in asexually reproducing organisms or DNA can be exchanged in sexually reproducing organisms, then beings can be slightly different, which could potentially be beneficial or harmful.
If organisms could have beneficial or harmful differences, then some beings would be more able to reproduce than others.
If some beings are more able to reproduce than others, then the beneficial differences would be more prevalent.
If the beneficial differences were more prevalent, then the organisms would be similar to other organisms of the same generation, yet different to the organisms of previous generations.
If they were different to the organisms of previous generations, then they would not be able to reproduce with those organisms.
If they were not able to reproduce with those organisms, then they would be a seperate species.

If there were differences in the environment in which the organisms dwelled, then the beneficial differences may differ from the beneficial differences of other environments.
If the beneficial differences differed from the beneficial differences of other environments, then these differences could escalate, as described above; then they could become a seperate species.

If there were multiple seperate species, then the diversity of species we see today could arise.

Therefore, if DNA can mutate in asexually reproducing organisms or DNA can be exchanged in sexually reproducing organisms, then evolution is correct.

'Kay?

evolution is a fake. it would be very rare that good mutations occur.

Sexual reproduction does not require mutations, the subtle differences that evolution requires is supplied by the exchange of DNA during sex.

an animal or other organism can't decide what type of shape it will have when it is born.
example, the woodpecker couldn't decide when it first died of banging its beak on the bark of a tree that it would have a really hard beak or special tendons in the back of its head for support before it was born again... or whatever.

Whoever said that obviously is completely ignorant to what they have been told about evolution. Evolution is not a conscious decision made by the parent, nor has anything at all to do with reincarnation or resurrection or whatever that quoted individual was trying to say. It is caused by some individuals having less offspring than others.

besides, what is the probablitity that two organisms (of the opposite gender from each other) that have the same mutations (which is also rare) would meet each other, mate, and manage to not kill each other because they might be from waring groups or some other thing like that.

- .-
-. -

What you are describing here is known as 'incest', not evolution. I must admit that siblings do tend to kill each other. You're correct in that respect. I felt inclined to kill an organism with the same mutations [sic] not very long ago.

i think that slight amounts of evolution could be possible, like 1000 years ago, the average height was shorter that it is now. people also generally live longer now than they used too.<oops, that could be a result of medical improvement, sorry, but the height doesn't count in that field.

If you believe in 'micro-evolution', then you can't not believe in evolution as a whole. Micro-evolution, with enough isolation of populations and enough time, leads to new species.

big bang is also fake. where did the particles that came together and created the big bang come from? hmm? thats a very good point that i think wasn't thought through when those silly scientists were coming up with the big bang theory.

They were compressed in a singularity, which is just some silly scientist excuse, as we all know. It makes so much less sense than say, the great flood, in which a {expletive hax0rd by Cspace}load of water suddenly appeared on the Earth and then suddenly disappeared again. Perfect sense.

Spoiler

I know I shouldn't use sarcasm like that, but the temptation was too great.

[Zziggywolf5]

Nuu is mostly correct about his explanation of evolution, I think he missed a point or two, though.

• Probably one of the biggest parts Nuu seems to have forgot was competition. Competition is a huge driving force in natural selection because two or more species are trying to gain more resources and booster a larger population. Usually, one or several will change physically or in instinct to change its niche (where it is in the ecosystem) to have less competition. However, one may change to remove a limitation the other(s) have and then dominate the niche. If this happens and the other species does not also change to alter its niche or overcome the limitation, it goes extinct because it cannot get enough resources.
• Vestigial structures are parts of a species that have no use to that particular species and is usually very small and degenerate. They, however, have a use in other "lower" organisms. An example is the appendix in humans; Herbivores use the appendix to help digest plant fiber. There's also the coccyx humans have, also known as the tailbone. I think you can figure out we don't need it and other organisms do, based on the term tailbone.
• Analogous structures are structures different species form that are similar in appearance and function, but are from different "base parts." (I can't think of a better term.) This occurs because to species live in similar ecological niches. An example is a bat wing compared to a bird wing.
• There's also mutualism, predation, parasitism, and commensalism that I learned about, but I can't remember most of it right now. Well, they're different ways species interact, anyway.

I'm sure I'm missing some stuff, considering this is from biology class first semester.

[Neraphym]

It's safe to say that the big bang happened and it was the birth of our universe. The details and such on how it happened are so complex, only the people who are highly advanced particle physicists can understand why and how. I'll do my best to explain the basics of the big bang at a middle-school education level.


Part 1: Waves and the doppler effect.

First, lets start with objects A and B. Object A will always be standing still, and object B is producing waves. When object B moves away from object A, the waves get pulled apart. This is called a redshift. When object B moves in towards object A, it scrunches the waves together, creating a blueshift. This is called the doppler effect. Common examples of this are cars on a racetrack. As the come towards you, they get louder, as the move away, they get quieter.

Now, the pulling and pushing on the waves can be measured. So if object A cannot see object B, but can receive the waves object B emits, then object A can tell what direction object B is in and how fast object B is going. To state it simply, the doppler effect can be used to find an object's velocity. Most importantly, this works with electromagnetic waves (light, radio, x-ray, etc.).


Part 2: Motions of galaxies.

The centers of galaxies are quite brilliant and emit lots of light. Using what we learned in part one, we can measure this light to tell us the velocity (speed and direction) of each and every galaxy in the night sky. It just so happens that almost every galaxy in the universe has a redshift. This means that every galaxy (with the exception of a few, and I'll explain later) is moving away from us. Not only that, they are all moving away at a nice perfect constant, Hubble's constant. It's 72, but I forget the unit that comes after it. It's very big, though. You can google it if you like.


Part 3: Tracing it back.

Since we can see that all galaxies are moving away at a constant rate, we can take the rate and throw everything in reverse. Factoring in gravity, we can see that at one point, the universe was a singularity. The big bang is the inevitable conclusion drawn from the history of the expanding universe we see ourselves in today.

[Nuu™™]

However, Neraphym, it still doesn't make logical sense. If the universe is expanding, then it must be expanding into something, and that something exists, therefore the universe does not end there.

[Neraphym]

However, Neraphym, it still doesn't make logical sense. If the universe is expanding, then it must be expanding into something, and that something exists, therefore the universe does not end there.

Damnit, please don't make me explain string theory...

[Zoo]

Ok. This is going to be a purposeful double post (I want to make sure all the quotes show properly), so please read everything before you reply.
===================================================================

I feel like I'm arguing on both sides while I write this, so if you think the same as you read, you're not alone. I can't honestly say where I stand on everything. But there are parts that are definitely true, and parts that are harder to take.

But when it comes to school. At the age that evolution is taught most students don't realize that it is just a theory. Not scientific law.

I know this is mentioned already by someone else, but a theory in science is a set of hypotheses that have been tested thoroughly and are generally considered true. It is also falsifiable (as hypotheses must also be), which means that there must be some condition/situation which if found to be true would prove it false.

Actually, a "theory," in the scientific sense, is something that is generally accepted as true based on the evidence we have, but cannot be explicitly proven.

From what I recall, nothing in science can be -proven- true. Basically, everything in science is considered true unless it is proven false.

The problem with teaching things like creationism, intelligent design, and even parts of evolution, is that they can't be falsified, so they're technically not in the realm of science.

====================

evolution is a fake. it would be very rare that good mutations occur.

Well, considering the actual definition for evolution is "a change in allele frequencies over time," it's technically impossible for anyone to say evolution is, as you put it, "a fake." Basically that means there's a certain percentage of copies of at least two kinds of each gene in a population (individuals can't evolve), and over time, if they change, evolution of that population occurs. Seriously, all evolution really is is populations of organisms adapting to their environment. This doesn't usually require mutations, good, bad, or neutral. The variation in the population is usually enough. Now, whether these populations over time become new species (quite feasible, although that depends on which of the couple dozen species concepts you want to use), or even other kinds of animals (fish --> frogs, for example) is another question.

an animal or other organism can't decide what type of shape it will have when it is born.
example, the woodpecker couldn't decide when it first died of banging its beak on the bark of a tree that it would have a really hard beak or special tendons in the back of its head for support before it was born again... or whatever.

Yes, this is true. However, Lamarckism* is already quite well shown false. But what could have happened (and this is one of those things you just have to take on faith, but you can show similar things happening in other organisms) was there were some birds that found that bugs living under tree bark were quite tasty (nutritious) but that it was hard to get to them. Some of them may have had some feature that made them a little better at getting the bugs, so those birds were able to have more and/or healthier babies, who also have this ability/trait (assuming it's something they can pass on genetically), who in turn have more/healthier babies with this trait (perhaps more pronounced, as this trait is being "selected for" (which doesn't necessarily mean anything is choosing, natural selection is neutral, directionless, essentially "survival of the fittest," those best suited to the environment at that time (see Galapagos finches, sometimes the ones with the big, heavy beaks were favored, sometimes they weren't)) and so on. I will grant that that doesn't explain the structure of their skulls, tongues, and beaks (and I honestly don't have an explanation, so I'm not going to try to make one up).

*Lamarck's idea was basically that an individual could adapt to its environment. Most famous example, the giraffe, he thought that it started with a short neck, and it stretched its neck to reach higher leaves, then this was passed on to the offspring, who also stretched -their- necks, passed that on, and so on until modern giraffes.

besides, what is the probablitity that two organisms (of the opposite gender from each other) that have the same mutations (which is also rare) would meet each other, mate, and manage to not kill each other because they might be from waring groups or some other thing like that.

It could become quite high under a number of circumstances. If the mutation isn't bad, but instead neutral, or even good (the majority of mutations ar neutral), then it can stay in the population for quite some time. If the mutation happened to be in the dominant allele, the trait (which is different from the mutation itself) could actually spread rather rapidly since it would only require one copy instead of two.

big bang is also fake. where did the particles that came together and created the big bang come from? hmm? thats a very good point that i think wasn't thought through when those silly scientists were coming up with the big bang theory.

I'll leave big bang for the physicists, but you don't make any friends or get any points from name calling. Or accusing people of not thinking things through. Many, many people have spent years of their lives working on one topic, like big bang theory. I think they've done -a lot- of thinking. For that matter, I spent several years studying biology, and sure you have to take a lot as fact (it's hard to deny fish have fins, butterflies have wings, that sort of thing), but you still have to think a lot of things through so that they either make sense, or you have a topic for research on why whatever you were told is wrong.

=================================

Well, on Compass last night they had some programme by some fellow known as Richard Dawkins, who apparently is some evolutionary professor that gets a lot of American 'Bible belt Christians' rather annoyed. To cut straight to the point, I basically know what so called 'Creationism' is.

Actually, he annoys me too. I've never been able to get through any of his work because he starts in with name-calling right near the beginning. He might know what he's talking about (well, I'd imagine he must, or he wouldn't have gotten to where he is), but I believe the saying is something like "you don't catch flies with vinegar." A well-reasoned argument should be able to stand on it's own, no name-calling or other kinds of personal attacks should be necessary.

To put this into context, people who are unsure of whether evolution is correct think that it is based on reasoning which is quite uncertain. To be frank, it isn't. If one believes that DNA and mutation and sex exist, one should believe in evolution with the same amount of certainty. I, myself, confess that I don't really know a lot about evolution, so correct me if I am wrong (cite your sources as well), but I will try to demonstrate the deduction that Darwin reached in natural language:

See, that's where the problem comes in. There are some parts of evolution that everyone should be able to accept. We have lots of evidence and falsifiable hypotheses, and good solid theory. Things get sticky when you start talking about where life originated, and where different organismal groups came from. There is DNA evidence for common ancestry, and some fossil evidence of 'transitional' forms, but unfortunately we can't go back and watch, or perform tests that 'prove' anything, when it comes to that.

If the beneficial differences differed from the beneficial differences of other environments, then these differences could escalate, as described above; then they could become a seperate species. If there were multiple seperate species, then the diversity of species we see today could arise.

Yes, exactly. Except this only explains where species could come from if you already have some species to start with. (And it could be extended to how the different groups of organisms arose, at least until we get into details, like where multicellularity came from, then we get lots of ideas, but not much we can test, if I understood correctly.)

If you believe in 'micro-evolution', then you can't not believe in evolution as a whole. Micro-evolution, with enough isolation of populations and enough time, leads to new species.

That's reaching just a bit. Sane creationists (Guess it would help to admit I used to be one. I don't know what I am now. And yes, they do exist. Your religious beliefs don't define your sanity, in general.) accept "micro-evolution" because they don't have much choice. We hav evidence of adaptation and new species. Where they differ from (most) evolutionists is in where the species came from to start with.

There are actually quite a number of kinds of creationists. To name three:
- young-earth creationists - they take the bible literally, unless it's obviously meant to be figurative, and so get an age for the earth from the chronologies listed in different parts of the bible, an estimated generation length, and usually a couple thousand years for good measure. The fossil record was a result of a global flood.
- old-earth creationists (one version) - they believe the earth is as old as scientists have figured, but that God was displeased with things as they progressed up to there, so he destroyed everything (In what they call a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, aka Gap-theory) and created as he said in Genesis, which accounts for the fossil record.
- theistic evolutionists - God started things, but he used evolution to get to what we see today.

===================

*continued in next post*

[Zoo]

Vestigial structures are parts of a species that have no use to that particular species and is usually very small and degenerate. They, however, have a use in other "lower" organisms. An example is the appendix in humans; Herbivores use the appendix to help digest plant fiber. There's also the coccyx humans have, also known as the tailbone. I think you can figure out we don't need it and other organisms do, based on the term tailbone.

Well... we use our coccyx as a site to attach some important muscles: Gluteus maximus (helps move the legs), Coccygeus (supports organs in the pelvic region), Iliococcygeus (supports organs in the pelvic region), Piriformis (A) (helps move and stabilize hip), [http://www.meddean.luc.edu/lumen/MedEd/GrossAnatomy/dissector/mml/index.htm]. Tailbone is kind of like common names for some animals. The problem with "vestigial" organs is they were discovered and thought to be without use, but further research has shown this to not be the case in many (I don't recall if it was all) cases. And people who know this aren't going to be convinced if you use this as an argument (that sounds mean . I'm not trying to be!).

[I'm aware that this is what they teach at school, because I learned it too. The problem with primary/secondary school science is that, except for the immutable basics, it's way behind current science. Even what I learned in college was sometimes behind, just because it takes a while to get new information in print (despite there being a new edition of the text each year...). But that's why the professors in those fields would give us handouts or assignments to go look up current research.]

Analogous structures are structures different species form that are similar in appearance and function, but are from different "base parts." (I can't think of a better term.) This occurs because to species live in similar ecological niches. An example is a bat wing compared to a bird wing.

Yes, they look alike and/or have a similar function, but their origin is completely different. In the case of the bird wing and bat wing, they did come from the same part (the "arm"), but they evolved separately (i.e. bats didn't evolve from birds). Maybe a somewhat better example might be a paddle-like leg in a diving beetle vs. a flipper in a sea lion. Similar in function, but completely different in origin.

The related term is homologous. The parts may not look or function the same, but they developed from the same part, like... a leg and foot on a weasel vs. a sea lion's flipper.

There's also mutualism, predation, parasitism, and commensalism that I learned about, but I can't remember most of it right now. Well, they're different ways species interact, anyway.

For the sake of completeness . Symbiosis is used as a catch-all for most of those. Predation could be considered an extreme form of parasitism, but we'll just say it's different. Differential predation can cause/promote evolution, since the organisms that don't get caught are probably somehow better adapted (faster, better camouflage, etc.). Related is what is usually called an "evolutionary arms race," like in certain kinds of plants, they've developed chemicals that make themselves taste bad or even poisonous, that they produce when something eats the leaves, which a leaf predator can develop (in the population, not the individual) a taste for or an ability to metabolize the poison, so the plant may be able to develop further chemicals (or other defenses), and so on.

Symbiosis includes mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

Mutualism is what people generally think of when someone says symbiosis. Basically, two species live together and both benefit. There's a certain kind of tree (Acacia sp. I believe) which has places along the branches for ants to live in and special structures on the leaves for ants to eat. In turn, the ants (albeit selfishly... I don't know of a case of true altruism in nature) protect the plant from plant predators, by running out and stinging them. Clownfishes, once they get themselves acclimated to the anemone sting, benefit from the protection of the anemone, both for themselves and for their nests that they have nearby, and in turn, the anemone gets the scraps of the fishes' meals (fish are messy eaters). Mutualism is thought to be (by some) where cells got their organelles. Like maybe plant cells got their chloroplasts from symbiotic algae that eventually lost all of their functions except processing sunlight.

Commensalism is where one organism benefits, but the other doesn't benefit, nor does it lose anything. Many coral reef fishes sleep in holes in the reef. The coral doesn't usually get anything out of this.

And then of course parasitism, where one species loses while the other gains. Such as a tapeworm, absorbing the hosts nutrients, meaning the host doesn't get them.
-------------------------------------------

So, not sure how to conclude a free-for-all like this... but yeah.


**edit**
I realized while I was out today that otters have feet, which makes it a very sucky example where I used it. Changed to sea lion.

[Neraphym]

Alright, it's 6:00 AM and I can't sleep, so I'm reviving this to fix some old mistakes and add some new stuff here and there.

Not only that, they are all moving away at a nice perfect constant, Hubble's constant.

Hubble's constant is 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec (1 million parallax seconds, a measurement of distance approx 3.26 lightyears). Kilometers and megaparsecs are both measurements of distance, so it can be simplified to get a reciprocal of time. Basically, take the reciprocal of the hubble constant and you get the age of the universe. I actually did the calculation once, but I suck at math and was off by a factor of 10. That or every physicist on earth sucks at math and I rule. The age turns out to be 13.7 billion years.

The speed at which a galaxy is moving away from us is related to the distance it already is away from us. In other words, the farther away it already is, the faster the galaxy moves further away from us. We are in an expanding universe that accelerates its expansion at a flat rate.

However, Neraphym, it still doesn't make logical sense. If the universe is expanding, then it must be expanding into something, and that something exists, therefore the universe does not end there.

The universe IS space. It's not expanding into anything, its just expanding. It's difficult to explain...

Basically, what is happening is that there is more space everywhere. The expansion isn't happening at the edges of the universe alone, rather, it happens throughout the entire universe (new space is being created in between every atom in your body all the time). Think not of a puddle of water that collects more rain and expands at the edges. Instead, picture the universe as a loaf of bread rising in an oven. Now imagine there are nuts in the bread. At first, they are separated by a tiny little distance. As the bread rises, the space between the nuts increases in all 3 spacial dimensions at once. The nuts separate from each other. Again, this is happening thoughout all of space. We don't notice it, because gravity is a lot stronger than this pull at the local level. However, its very noticeable at the distances between galaxies. Imagine the galaxies being nuts in the bread.

Thats as much as scientists know for sure. There is some interesting stuff on M theory which involves multiple universes in a foam mesh thing. There's also braine theory (sp?) than involves universes colliding and such. This stuff isn't known for sure as is the stuff I've already posted.

he problem with "vestigial" organs is they were discovered and thought to be without use, but further research has shown this to not be the case in many (I don't recall if it was all) cases.

Indeed, the coccyx is the anchor point of several of your butt muscles, but it is still vestigial in other senses. The coccyx is a fusion of several vertebrae that are found in tails (which some humans are still born with). The male nipple serves no purpose. As our jaws have shrunk, we no longer have room for our wisdom teeth (in those few of us that actually get them - I don't have any). We have a third eyelid that to my knowledge serves no purpose. I don't know much about that particular item, however. Let's see...

Ah, Erector Pili or however you spell it. Goosebumps! These are small muscles in your hair follicles that contract and make your hair stand on end. This makes you appear bigger if you have a lot of hair, as most mammals with this feature do. It also moves hair in such a way as to regulate body temperature by creating a pocket of warm air around your skin. Humans get goosebumps when we are cold and frightened. However, we lack the prominent hair to make use of this feature. It helps us in no way. By the way, we used to have that hair, but lost it. Not in the sense that our ancestors had it, but that you and I had it. When you are developing in the womb, you get a fur coat. You shed it either before or after birth, and you never grow it back. Also, whales don't have teeth and hair, except in the womb (some have nosehairs in the blowholes and whiskers, but I'm referring to a nice coat of hair they have in the womb).

The human appendix has some function with the immune system, I've heard. The damn thing is so easily infected that having one is more dangerous than not. Stupid design, eh? Oh, that reminds me of other poorly designed features. The human back was finely tuned over millenia to support quadrapedal movement. We've recently adapted it to work on two legs, and we still have a lot of kinks to work out. Back pain, FTL! The human eye has some problems. It's "upside down and backwards," I've heard. Play with some optical illusions and you can see some bad design in our brain's imaging software. Speaking of bad brain software, the book 'Kluge' discusses some interesting "quick fixes" evolution made when developing our brains. There are some bad problems with it that still haunt us to this day. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list.

My favorite piece of bad design is the recurring laryngeal nerve. It starts at the back of your head and ends up in your larynx (throat area). The distance between these two points is only a couple inches, but for some reason, the designer decided to have the nerve WRAP ITSELF AROUND YOUR AORTA (chest). That's stupid design, especially in a giraffe. Poor nerve has to travel and extra 15 feet, many orders of magnitude longer than it needs to be. There is no purpose for it to be that long. Evolution explains why it is the case, as necks didn't exist when it evolved.

Oh, and I hate ingrown toenails. Piss poor design on that part...

More fun rantings later!