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Evolution: Past, Present & Future
Discuss evolution: its past, how it has changed, its present and its possible future.
Discuss research, on line resources, You Tube
resources, religious, educational and political
implications.
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Evolution takes in alot of territory.
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This is your group.
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms... have all been produced by laws acting around us...
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Charles Darwin -Origin of Species -conclusion
Feel free to start a message, make a reply, or invite a friend.
This is your group.
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms... have all been produced by laws acting around us...
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Charles Darwin -Origin of Species -conclusion
about 1 month ago
Recent Messages
Very, very improbable?
I find it intriguing that some creationists describe the original formation of life from inorganic precursors as very improbable, even very, very improbable. Note that no-one has come out and stated absolutely impossible. You would question their credentials if they did.
Consider though, that the earth was formed about 4.3 billion years ago. The first tentative signs of life are carbon smears of curious isotopic composition from sedimentary rocks in Greenland from 3.8 billion years ago. That`s a difference of 500 million years. When you have the whole planet to work with, for that length of time, it does not matter how many "very`s" you put in front of improbable, it is very likely to happen (very, very likely?). That is a very big test tube, shaken and stirred, for a very long time.
It only ever has to happen once. As soon as one molecule is formed that is capable of self replicating, it will. Then there will be two of them, then four, and so on. We are off and running.
Many researchers have been working on this issue, and quite a number of possible mechanisms have been suggested for this first step. It may even have been a race between very improbables
Consider though, that the earth was formed about 4.3 billion years ago. The first tentative signs of life are carbon smears of curious isotopic composition from sedimentary rocks in Greenland from 3.8 billion years ago. That`s a difference of 500 million years. When you have the whole planet to work with, for that length of time, it does not matter how many "very`s" you put in front of improbable, it is very likely to happen (very, very likely?). That is a very big test tube, shaken and stirred, for a very long time.
It only ever has to happen once. As soon as one molecule is formed that is capable of self replicating, it will. Then there will be two of them, then four, and so on. We are off and running.
Many researchers have been working on this issue, and quite a number of possible mechanisms have been suggested for this first step. It may even have been a race between very improbables
Creationists are at it again
Did you know Creationists have there own Wikipedia?
I was doing some Google’g, and instead of a reliable source, this WikiAnswers Webpage keeps popping up. Here is an example of what is in it. God help our kids trying to do their homework.
Do Neanderthals still exist?
Prehistory is an oxymoron. No, they never existed. Man was created perfect, using 100% of his brain, though now, thanks to the initial sin, and the fall of man, our sin nature and generational degradation, we only use 1% of our brains, and only live 10% as long as the eldest generations.
I was doing some Google’g, and instead of a reliable source, this WikiAnswers Webpage keeps popping up. Here is an example of what is in it. God help our kids trying to do their homework.
Do Neanderthals still exist?
Prehistory is an oxymoron. No, they never existed. Man was created perfect, using 100% of his brain, though now, thanks to the initial sin, and the fall of man, our sin nature and generational degradation, we only use 1% of our brains, and only live 10% as long as the eldest generations.
Evolution on the WEB
I am looking for Web sites that you think are helpful in explaing evolution.
Used this one today in another group where the ark and dinosaurs were being discussed:
view link
Do you feel Wikipedia is fairly reliable?
Berkley has a good site.
Used this one today in another group where the ark and dinosaurs were being discussed:
view link
Do you feel Wikipedia is fairly reliable?
Berkley has a good site.
Ventastega Fossil found
From CNN:
-- Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history, which should help them better understand the evolution of fish to advanced animals that walk on land.
The 365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders and part of the pelvis of the water-dweller, Ventastega curonica, were found in Latvia, researchers report in a study published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Even though Ventastega is likely an evolutionary dead-end, the finding sheds new details on the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods.
Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds and mammals.
While an earlier discovery found a slightly older animal that was more fish than tetrapod, Ventastega is more tetrapod than fish.
The fierce-looking creature probably swam through shallow brackish waters, measured about three or four feet long and ate other fish. It likely had stubby limbs with an unknown number of digits, scientists said.
"If you saw it from a distance, it would look like a small alligator, but if you look closer you would find a fin in the back," said lead author Per Ahlberg, a professor of evolutionary biology at Uppsala University in Sweden.
"I imagine this is an animal that could haul itself over sand banks without any difficulty. Maybe it's poking around in semi-tidal creeks picking up fish that got stranded."
This all happened more than 100 million years before the first dinosaurs roamed Earth.
Scientists don't think four-legged creatures are directly evolved from Ventastega. It's more likely that in the family tree of tetrapods, Ventastega is an offshoot branch that eventually died off, not leading to the animals we now know, Ahlberg said.
"At the time there were a lot of creatures around of varying degrees of advancement," Ahlberg said. They all seem to have similar characteristics, so Ventastega's find is helpful for evolutionary biologists.
Ventastega is the most primitive of these transition animals, but there are older ones that are oddly more advanced, said Neil Shubin, professor of biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, who was not part of the discovery team but helped find Tiktaalik, the fish that was one step earlier in evolution.
"It's sort of out of sequence in timing," Shubin said of Ventastega.
Ahlberg didn't find the legs or toes of Ventastega, but was able to deduce that it was four-limbed because key parts of its pelvis and its shoulders were found. From the shape of those structures, scientists were able to conclude that limbs, not fins were attached to Ventastega.
One question that scientists are trying to figure out is why fish started to develop what would later become legs.
Edward Daeschler, associate curator of vertebrate zoology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, theorizes that the water was so shallow that critters like Ventastega had an evolutionary advantage by walking instead of swimming.
-- Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history, which should help them better understand the evolution of fish to advanced animals that walk on land.
The 365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders and part of the pelvis of the water-dweller, Ventastega curonica, were found in Latvia, researchers report in a study published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Even though Ventastega is likely an evolutionary dead-end, the finding sheds new details on the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods.
Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds and mammals.
While an earlier discovery found a slightly older animal that was more fish than tetrapod, Ventastega is more tetrapod than fish.
The fierce-looking creature probably swam through shallow brackish waters, measured about three or four feet long and ate other fish. It likely had stubby limbs with an unknown number of digits, scientists said.
"If you saw it from a distance, it would look like a small alligator, but if you look closer you would find a fin in the back," said lead author Per Ahlberg, a professor of evolutionary biology at Uppsala University in Sweden.
"I imagine this is an animal that could haul itself over sand banks without any difficulty. Maybe it's poking around in semi-tidal creeks picking up fish that got stranded."
This all happened more than 100 million years before the first dinosaurs roamed Earth.
Scientists don't think four-legged creatures are directly evolved from Ventastega. It's more likely that in the family tree of tetrapods, Ventastega is an offshoot branch that eventually died off, not leading to the animals we now know, Ahlberg said.
"At the time there were a lot of creatures around of varying degrees of advancement," Ahlberg said. They all seem to have similar characteristics, so Ventastega's find is helpful for evolutionary biologists.
Ventastega is the most primitive of these transition animals, but there are older ones that are oddly more advanced, said Neil Shubin, professor of biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, who was not part of the discovery team but helped find Tiktaalik, the fish that was one step earlier in evolution.
"It's sort of out of sequence in timing," Shubin said of Ventastega.
Ahlberg didn't find the legs or toes of Ventastega, but was able to deduce that it was four-limbed because key parts of its pelvis and its shoulders were found. From the shape of those structures, scientists were able to conclude that limbs, not fins were attached to Ventastega.
One question that scientists are trying to figure out is why fish started to develop what would later become legs.
Edward Daeschler, associate curator of vertebrate zoology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, theorizes that the water was so shallow that critters like Ventastega had an evolutionary advantage by walking instead of swimming.
THE ORGIN OF LIFE
Nature and or a lab can create organic compounds from inorganic minerals simply by combing a carbon atom with any number of different elements under heat and pressure. This occurs naturally on earth and also is found on many comet and asteroid samples which have landed on earth (That’s one reason why the moon rocks were so important).
By adding energy (lightning) science has already created the building blocks of evolution in the laboratory from these organic compounds (in almost any kind of atmosphere) -- proteins, amino acids of several different flavors. They expect to be creating the first DNA sequences shortly; but having the proteins turn into a little man who can jump out of the test tube took evolution billions of years; we can trace steps, but the whole process would take millions of years even if we accelerated it.
We know inorganic compounds can become life. We can replicate same . . . micro or macro. But we have no idea why this occurs . . . yet.
As far as macro evolution, please review the posts on this site describing exactly how laboratories are already doing that – turning chickens back into dinosaurs and man back into monkeys by playing with the DNA sequences we call genes / chromosomes etc. If that is not macro evolution, what is?
By adding energy (lightning) science has already created the building blocks of evolution in the laboratory from these organic compounds (in almost any kind of atmosphere) -- proteins, amino acids of several different flavors. They expect to be creating the first DNA sequences shortly; but having the proteins turn into a little man who can jump out of the test tube took evolution billions of years; we can trace steps, but the whole process would take millions of years even if we accelerated it.
We know inorganic compounds can become life. We can replicate same . . . micro or macro. But we have no idea why this occurs . . . yet.
As far as macro evolution, please review the posts on this site describing exactly how laboratories are already doing that – turning chickens back into dinosaurs and man back into monkeys by playing with the DNA sequences we call genes / chromosomes etc. If that is not macro evolution, what is?
REgarding Birds-Dinos
I was glad to read the post as I have wondered about that. My thought is that the DNA (or the precursor of it) was evolved further by some, such as the Dinosaur (well, the winged ones anyway)which went on to become as large and advanced as the potential could bring them, while birds evolved only as far as the same DNA they shared, got only as far as the weaker strain of the DNA would allow them to. It maybe just my imagination or one of my many random thoughts.
TED,com on EVOLUTION
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.
The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).
This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.
view link
The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).
This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.
view link
Spore- Evolutionary game out in Sept.
Will Wright, the mastermind behind the hugely popular Sims games,
has teamed up with EA games once again to make another awesome video
game. This one is called "Spore". You start as a tiny little creature
living in the ocean. You obviously try to stay away from things that want
to eat you, and seek out things for YOU to eat. You evolve throughout
the game and choose your creature's adaptations, such as lungs or
gills, fins or legs... the last level will allow you (if your species has
survived and become intelligent enough) to explore space and other solar
systems! Crazy huh? Might be a good present for your evolutionary
minded teens or young adults.
view link
has teamed up with EA games once again to make another awesome video
game. This one is called "Spore". You start as a tiny little creature
living in the ocean. You obviously try to stay away from things that want
to eat you, and seek out things for YOU to eat. You evolve throughout
the game and choose your creature's adaptations, such as lungs or
gills, fins or legs... the last level will allow you (if your species has
survived and become intelligent enough) to explore space and other solar
systems! Crazy huh? Might be a good present for your evolutionary
minded teens or young adults.
view link
The Mystery of Mass Extinctions Is No Longer Murky
If you are curious about Earth's periodic mass extinction events such as the sudden demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, you might consider crashing asteroids and sky-darkening super volcanoes as culprits.
But a new study, published June 15, 2008, in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment over the course of geologic time, that is the primary cause of the world's periodic mass extinctions ...
Read more at the National Science Foundation (NSF) site.
But a new study, published June 15, 2008, in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment over the course of geologic time, that is the primary cause of the world's periodic mass extinctions ...
Read more at the National Science Foundation (NSF) site.
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EVOLUTION
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What it is a...
14 days ago
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LiveLoveLaug...
22 days ago
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Microraptor
about 1 month ago
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Perched erra...
about 1 month ago
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CREATIONISM
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