Religion

[Darkmoon]

Yes and yes. I think. I may be slightly lost.

[TheSelfishGene]

There is a randomness to mutation, but it's actually a very ordered process.

The initial mutation that can be passed on usually occurs at random (but mutations can be induced with chemicals called mutagens). It's usually at low frequency, and can occur at any point in the genome.
More often than not if there is a mutation, nothing happens. It occurs in DNA which doesn't code for anything, and is totally harmless.

But every now and then a mutation will disrupt a gene's coding sequence, and the gene won't function correctly.
And much much much much much more rarely, a gene will mutate in such a way that it benfits the organism in some manner.

Now, the inital mutation is random. But if you had a mechanism that allowed you to make the exact same alteration to the gene, and did it over and over and over and over again to different populations, then the responding change in the population afterwards would occur identically in each population, every time.

That's a bit abstract if you're thinking large animals, like herds of Zebra or something. But if you think with a much simpler organism like bacterium, and say you had a vial, and such a way to alter a glucose metabolising gene, that new let it metabolise glucose and galactose (a closely related molecule).
If you kept the glucose only bacteria in a vial with glucose and galactose. Then mutated one single bacterium so that it could metabolise glucose and galactose, then you would see that gene frequency increase in the exact same proportion, in any number of vials that you'd care to introduce the mutation into.

That's a VERY simplified view of what goes on. But the key point is that the initial mutation occurs at random, but what happens afterwards is predictable and reproducible, depending on where the mutation occured (be it benefical mutation, deleterious mutation, or silent mutation).

[Member_of_STARS]

I see, I seem to getting it slightly wrong. I would disagree with the idea though. Evolution itself still strikes me as intrinsically random.

Evolution is always caused by outside stimuli. Direct or indirect. The word "random" is used because those affecting events cant be recorded for whichever reason.

Well, the idea behind this argument is that we aren't controlled by our biology. It's a factor of our behavior, not the entire story. Humans have a fear of fire by instinct, after all, and yet people can and will go into a burning building given sufficient cause.

Thats because as social beings, were often commanded by our need to help out fellow man. What at first glance appears to be a decision made ignoring all instincts is actually an instinctive decision, just different ones. For example, running into a burning house for social acceptance (look at me, Im a god damn hero). You cant simplify these things.

Well, the idea is that an animal feels a desire to mate, it acts upon that feeling, either attempting to attract a mate or taking more direct action. Humans are different, in that we way up the various pros and cons and reach a decision based on those.

As a social species, we take into consideration our own readiness as parents. What you see as a logical, instinct-ignoring decision to not to mate because of whatever reasons, is actually an instinctive decision to not to mate. The problem here is that were also having sex for pleasure, so you need to separate these two. Just like a moose will not mate if a year is rough, people wont choose to mate because they arent ready. Its a similar process, just infinitely more complex.

No, I'm saying it's a non-beneficial mutation. Which is exactly the same as beneficial mutation which would lead to evolution, only horrible. And by the theory of evolution, those children are far less likely to reach adulthood and breed to pass on those mutations, right? Whereas if one of them was born to be seven foot superman with a sexual magnetism they would be more likely to breed and pass on those characteristics. Sadly, that didn't happen. Mutation is far too often horrible.

Summing up two paragraps- individual mutations, while being the cornerstone of evolution are a subject to stimuli just as much as evolution in the wider sense (species splintering depending on their habitat). So far, the experiments which are created to prove evolution theory (bacteria, even insects) have all taken place by exposing the subjects to drastic changes in their environment. To give you a blunt example, our feet and hands havent developed randomly to accomodate for better walking and more efficient use of tools. Its the walking and tools which changed us. If you apply reason to ethnic groups and their geographical heritage, youll see that the reason were all different is because the outside environment has shaped us this way.

Possibly. I don't feel we would be classified as animals, since I feel humans can operate against there base biological instincts.

See Maslows Pyramid for reference. Since were more complex, were governed by much bigger variety of instincts.

No animal, for example, commits suicide as it reduces the species as a wholes chance to succeed.

This would be completely true if we didnt feel fear and instincts kicking in to keep us from taking our lives. Youre not shutting anything out, the process is still taking place. It seems as if youre claiming suicide is a result of cold and calculated reasoning. In vast majority of cases, its not, and they can easily be tied to social issues (which in turn can be tied to our basic needs).

There's no proof, one way or the other. Just possibilities and arguments and theories. It wouldn't be faith if we knew.

The problem with faith is that theres less and less room for superstition. The fact that we can explain throughly and in detail how a person becomes religious, should make anyone doubt in their beliefs.

What can I say? I have help from above...a spell checker built into my browser. Also, the lord smaketh the unbeliever's spelling. Just for a laugh.

Haha, Im not talking about spelling. It seems like Ive hit a mental block.

Anyway, Im going to try to involve myself less and less into this discussion. Feel free to reply, but dont be offended if I will reply in short segments. I have a habbit of turning these arguments into blazing hot ones, the 2 year old reH religion thread got pretty damn nasty.

[Lilith]

Well I for one am glad that this thread is doing well and staying fairly friendly so far. We should all get a medal for keeping it civil.

As stated earlier about the whole mating and instincts argument. It is true that humans choose whether or not to mate for several reasons, same as some animals do. On the other hand, humans choosing to breed for pleasure is also similar to what some animals do in nature. Pigs and dolphins are two creatures known so far to mate for pleasure. (Oh, and I'm just bringing it up so this isn't brought up as an argument for further separating humans from animals) The same thing can be witness with homosexuality. Many people attribute homosexuality as a purely human characteristic, but it is also found in nature. Flamingos have been known to form male male couples and steal eggs from other pairs to raise them.

[Darkmoon]

There is a randomness to mutation, but it's actually a very ordered process.

The initial mutation that can be passed on usually occurs at random (but mutations can be induced with chemicals called mutagens). It's usually at low frequency, and can occur at any point in the genome.
More often than not if there is a mutation, nothing happens. It occurs in DNA which doesn't code for anything, and is totally harmless.

But every now and then a mutation will disrupt a gene's coding sequence, and the gene won't function correctly.
And much much much much much more rarely, a gene will mutate in such a way that it benfits the organism in some manner.

Now, the inital mutation is random. But if you had a mechanism that allowed you to make the exact same alteration to the gene, and did it over and over and over and over again to different populations, then the responding change in the population afterwards would occur identically in each population, every time.

That's a bit abstract if you're thinking large animals, like herds of Zebra or something. But if you think with a much simpler organism like bacterium, and say you had a vial, and such a way to alter a glucose metabolising gene, that new let it metabolise glucose and galactose (a closely related molecule).
If you kept the glucose only bacteria in a vial with glucose and galactose. Then mutated one single bacterium so that it could metabolise glucose and galactose, then you would see that gene frequency increase in the exact same proportion, in any number of vials that you'd care to introduce the mutation into.

That's a VERY simplified view of what goes on. But the key point is that the initial mutation occurs at random, but what happens afterwards is predictable and reproducible, depending on where the mutation occured (be it benefical mutation, deleterious mutation, or silent mutation).

I can agree with this. The mutation itself is random, but the results predictable.

Anyway, Im going to try to involve myself less and less into this discussion. Feel free to reply, but dont be offended if I will reply in short segments. I have a habbit of turning these arguments into blazing hot ones, the 2 year old reH religion thread got pretty damn nasty.

Honestly? I've sorta lost the reason why we're debating this point. It doesn't seem terribly relevant to the topic, and I'm reaching the limit of my A-Level biology knowledge at this point. I think it's wisest to simply go with the idea that I disagree that we have a biological destiny we can't override.

[Karui]

This is my longest lived thread thanks to you.
It was quite amusing to read all that.

[Dan Corson]

I don't believe in deities of any kind. I pave my own path, I will rot when I die and I'm fine with that! I'll be a good person, try to make what I do when I'm here count and try to die old as dirt and with no regrets. That's enough for me! An afterlife seems redundant to me... and I don't mean that in, like, a mean or negative way! I guess I just think one life is enough.

Make the best of it because it'll definitely be gone too soon!