What do you guys think of this idea?

People are reluctant to accept evolution not because it's contradictory to their religion but because it's emotionally disturbing to accept it. Here's a quote from a book on evolution I'm reading:

it seems simple, because you do not at first realize all that it involves. But when its whole significance dawns on you, your heart sinks into a heap of sand within you. There is a hideous fatalism about it, a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration.

The idea that we really could be the ONLY intelligent life form in all of existence (meaning no God or intelligent alien) is a kinda sad thought. And it's even more sad that unintelligent forces are what created us. Also, the process by which we were created seems so brutal. I mean, it requires overpopulation of a species followed by suffering then death for evolution to occur.

Wouldn't it be nice for a male and female dog stay monogomous, have only two puppies, and let those puppies live a full healthy life? That's what happens (mostly) to us humans and our pets but in nature, animals produce way more offspring than will survive. And lots have to die for evolution to progress.

Also, evolution shows that we aren't some "magnificent end goal of evolution that has been reached". It shows that we aren't really special. We are just one of millions or billions of species that has ever existed, the only difference is we are the only intelligent one.

This would also explain why people accept the theory of a round earth so easily and not evolution, despite the fact that there may be the same amount of, if not more, evidence for evolution than for the theory of a round earth. No other scientific theory really affects people's view of themselves than evolution.

Aaron, I'm not the one who doesn't understand evolution, you are. I think I may have found the source of confusion though: mutations. In this entire topic I never mentioned mutations, but I assumed you were taking them into account. I think you were not taking mutations into account, which would make it understandable how you were didn't believe my "one death is evolution" claim. Here's an example, taking mutations into account:

It's modern times, and we just discovered a new isolated species. There are 10 individuals, all with 6 fingers on each hand. Let's call six fingered individuals genotype A. During sexual reproduction, one individual is born with 7 fingers. Let's call 7 fingered genotype B.

A = 10
B = 1

Let's pretend 7 fingers lets the animal grasp branches better, so he can evade predators better. A predator catches and kills an A individual. Now the population is:

A = 9
B = 1

That single process, of natural selection acting on one individual, is what is going to quickly turn the species from having 6 fingers to having 7 fingers.

No, that's not the issue. Your other post about why you think evolution is hard to accept highlights why it is that you don't understand why evolution is hard to accept. It's because you're using the word evolution to mean two different things.

The more, scientific definition leads to the slightly vaguer colloquial definition, as seen in my last example. Is going from a 6 fingerd species to a 7 fingered species not evolution by the colloquial definition?

And the colloquial definition is WRONG. What they are doing is using the "old" definition of evolution. The evolution used in the sentence: Language has evolved from a primitive one in Africa to an advanced one in Europe is different from the biological definition. That's the definition they are attempting to use for evolution of life and it's wrong.

"ev·o·lu·tion
   /ˌɛvəˈluʃən or, especially Brit., ˌivə-/ Show Spelled[ev-uh-loo-shuhn or, especially Brit., ee-vuh-] Show IPA
noun
1.
any process of formation or growth; development: the evolution of a language; the evolution of the airplane.
2.
a product of such development; something evolved: The exploration of space is the evolution of decades of research.
3.
Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.
4.
a process of gradual, peaceful, progressive change or development, as in social or economic structure or institutions.
5.
a motion incomplete in itself, but combining with coordinated motions to produce a single action, as in a machine."

Darwin invented the term evolution for biology. Defintions 1,2,4, and 5 are colloquial definitions and are not specific enough to be used for evolution. Who is to say what change is "large enough" for colloquial evolution to occur? Maybe in your opinion going from monkey to human is evolution because they're different species, but maybe I think monkey to human is only a "small change". Sure humans and monkeys can't reproduce, but other than that the change between us is so tiny I don't consider it evolution. See what I mean?

You and probably most people see that such a tiny change, like killing only one colorblind person out of a huge population, and think it's not evolution because you're using the wrong definition and "in your opinion" such a small change isn't evolution. Well, maybe in my opinion it is evolution. After all, the difference between that change and the difference between bacteria to humans is only a matter of degree. Bacteria to human evolution occurred by the exact same process only it occurred hundreds of billions of times every year all over the world for several billion years.

So.... does the scientific definition lead to a colloquial definition that's correct? Or one that's wrong?

Interestingly, this seems to go against the definition of evolution you presented. I don't see how cloning someone fits this definition. I'm also not sure that a colorblind person dying for reasons unrelated to colorblindness is natural selection. Or genetic therapy... Are you still going to argue that those are forms of evolution like you did before?

Ummmm...

Which one of these requires "large enough" anything? What are you talking about?

Not at all. This conversation has gone from inane to bizarre. You're presenting a commentary about definitions of the word "evolution" that have nothing to do with the definitions that you've put forth. Add in the fact that the definition that you've been advocating for isn't exactly supported by the biological definition you presented, and I have reason to think you don't really understand anything about this conversation at all.

"I don't see how cloning someone fits this definition. I'm also not sure that a colorblind person dying for reasons unrelated to colorblindness is natural selection."

Cloning perfectly fits this definition because it changes the gene pool. This is obvious if you know what a gene and gene pool is. If there are 1000 people with a rare,mutant version of a certain gene, and you clone one of them, now there are 1001 mutant genes in the world rather than 1000. That's a change in the gene pool. Also notice that the definition says "processes such as" and not "only the following processes". Anything that changes the gene pool is evolution, but natural selection mutation and genetic drift have been what drove evolution in the natural world before us humans.

In my example, the colorblind person died by being bitten by a yellow poisionous snake, so that IS natural selection. Even if he died for reasons unrelated to colorblindness, that can fall under genetic drift.

If colloquial definition is a vague "evolution = change in species over time", then yes the scientific definition can lead to the colloquial definition, but not always. For example, there can be evolution by the scientific definition that changes junk DNA, resulting in no observable changes in the offspring. But for colloquial evolution to occur, the scientific version ALWAYS happens 100% of the time.

And it's true darwin invented the term evolution as applied to biology. Example:

pre·cip·i·tate
   /v. prɪˈsɪpɪˌteɪt; adj., n. prɪˈsɪpɪtɪt, -ˌteɪt/ Show Spelled [v. pri-sip-i-teyt; adj., n. pri-sip-i-tit, -teyt] Show IPA verb, -tat·ed, -tat·ing, adjective, noun
verb (used with object)
1.
to hasten the occurrence of; bring about prematurely, hastily, or suddenly: to precipitate an international crisis.
2.
to cast down headlong; fling or hurl down.
3.
to cast, plunge, or send, especially violently or abruptly: He precipitated himself into the struggle.
4.
Chemistry. to separate (a substance) in solid form from a solution, as by means of a reagent.

Definition 4 means something very different from the rest. It's the same spelling of the word, and same pronunciation but the chemistry definition has nothing to do with the other definitions. Colloquial evolution is "somewhat kind of similar" to the scientific definition, but it's better to just ignore the colloquial definition when talking about evolution by natural selection.

Are you paying any attention?

THIS was the definition that you presented in your previous post. It lists certain types of processes, none of which seem to fit something that sounds remotely like "cloning" or "genetic therapy." The spontaneous appearance of complex organisms fits your original definition of evolution, but isn't anywhere close to "mutation, natural selection, or genetic drift."

Do you really think that any change in the gene pool is evolution, no matter what the process was?

---

I get it. You're going down with the ship. You've staked your claim and you're not going anywhere. There's absolutely nothing that will convince you that you've trivialized the concept of evolution to the point that it's impossible for it to not happen. You've put it in a position where it's an utterly pointless and empty scientific theory that carries essentially no content. Your examples demonstrate that you lack a lot of basic intuition on your field of study, thinking that you can simply ignore the details of reality, and just make up numbers at will.

I see you added some stuff.

Again, so there's nothing that isn't evolution. You don't need to have any actual change (ie, genetic change) in creatures. Heck, we could have all been created 6000 years ago in essentially our present forms, and I can accept evolution because there have been some colorblind people who have died, right?

At first, I was being a little bit facetious about your not understanding how science works.

OP, you seem to have a strong adaptationist perspective on evolution, which is reasonable but by no means universal. This adaptationist stance is made clear by your focus on mortality selection as a driving force in the evolutionary process. Since adapatation generally involves selective pressures, do you see any other requirements for adaptations through natural selection to occur? Second, Are these requirements important? Finally, Are there situations in which adaptation can occur without natural selection?

a as a biologist, you really should start using "non-coding" rather than "junk"

edit: likely that something more dogmatic is going on, but then my advisors have constantly accused me of being too skeptical of exiting new things

and careful saying things like the bolded. you can find evidence of heritable observable change in the absence of change in allele frequency in the literature (although it's definitely possible that there's something more "dogmatic" going on). in almost all fields in biolgy, with enough looking, exceptions to the rules can often be found.

edit: should say i think it's likely something more dogmatic is going on, but then i've been accused of being way to skeptical of new exciting ideas

course it could just be my interpretation of the definition

Now you've moved on to disingenuous. Will you make it to outright dishonest?

Understanding what is meant by complexity in this context is not in itself a scientific question anymore than what is meant by more evolved, more intelligent or more beautiful. Nor is the path to understanding looking up definitions though once the measning becomes clear they may become well-defined.

I've corrected you on this before, but humans did not evolve from monkeys. I know this was in no way central to your point and therefore seems like a nitpick, but if you're going to claim to be some sort of expert in the field of biology and start several threads on evolution, this is one mistake you should not be making, especially twice.

Or Apes (which was actually the old theory a long time ago, not monkeys).

Care to back up the claim that humans and chimps (what I assume you meants) are barely different at all?

No, but without agreed-on definitions, understanding is effectively impossible. This has been pretty frequent itt already.

Reading this thread is tilting me too hard so I'm going to try and end Aarons fun.

yodachoda,

Basically zero people in the world reject the idea that sometimes colourblind people die. Also basically zero people in the world reject the idea that parents pass on traits to their offspring in a somewhat predictable but also very chaotic way. By that definition (the one in your op) no one in the world denies evolution. Congrats.

Your op is a bait and switch, providing a tautologically true definition of evolution and then berating those who argue against the more commonly held definition of evolution (creation of distinct species from a single common ancestor over billions of years via random mutation and natural selection). The fact that you come across as a pompous ass to boot is the icing on the cake.

People generally reject evolution (the common definition) because they either don't know anything about it (my grandpa weren't no monkey) or because of societal pressure from their peers often focussed through the lens of religion. It's an incredibly simple answer and the fact that this thread has gone 142 replies is a testament to your know-it-all pig-headedness and Aarons pedantic glee.

Can we please. Just. Stop!

You ever seen a monkey turn into a man?

My grandpa weren't no monkey.

I am a monkey.

No way. Definitions are the culmination of understanding meanings at best.

Misunderstandings are a problem but definitions are rarely more than a crutch. Aaron wont be stopped by definitons.

How is that you haven't been permabanned from smp yet? God, you're a bigger troll than I am, but with less substance.

I think I have a "adaptationist perspective" on evolution because this is really the mechanism that produces complexity. Mutations and genetic drift can cause evolution, sure, but I don't see how these alone can result in increased complexity over time. For example, if a species reproduces sexually, are monogamous, have exactly two offspring once per lifetime, and those offspring always survive to reproduce, then mutations will cause the species to technically "evolve" but they won't "progressively evolve". This is because even bad mutations will continue to survive in the gene pool. I don't think they would evolve at as fast of a rate as if the species were under natural selection.

Requirements for evolution by natural selection are:

1. The trait has to be heritable

2. Overall the trait must provide more net positive benefit to the organism than not having the trait. The trait may be beneficial if you look at the trait's function alone, but sometimes it will carry a cost with it that makes it so the organism is better off without the trait.

3. More offspring must be born than survive to reproduce.

Yes these are important. Yes, there are situations in which adaptations can develop without natural selection. But let's look at the definition of adaptation. I've learned that it's just "any trait that increases survival and/or reproduction", but usually this should arise through evolution by natural selection. So your question is "can beneficial traits arise in species without the natural selection trait?" and I'd say yes but it requires alot of luck. Most mutations are not beneficial to an organism, but very rarely there is a mutation that IS beneficial to an organism. Through evolutionary time, all these mutant genes that are NOT beneficial to an organism have died out because they were naturally selected against.

I really doubt you can find evidence of this. This would contradict everything we know about genetics and embryology. It's impossible for colloquial evolution to occur without changes in the allele frequency occuring (real definition of evolution). Maybe what you read about is mitochondrial DNA? This DNA isn't in the nucleus, but it's still heritable (you always inherit your mother's only).