Bizarre Human Ev. question

[Muad'Dib]

In my Human Evolution textbook, it says, "Every trait results from the interaction of some genetic program with the environment. Thus, genes are more like recipes in the hands of a creative cook, sets of instructions for the construction of an organism using materials available in the environment."

Am I correct in assuming that if I were raised as I have been I would turn out as a 5 foot 10 inch, 142lb white dude with big hair (as I am now). Then later on (if this was possible), I could be "re-raised" (for example, re-born through some sort of genetic engineering or something) in a different environment (say in Somalia for example) and turn out to be a 6 foot tall, 200 lb black dude!?! Obviously this theory would be hard to test and would depend much on the traits of my parents, but it would be possible through the interaction of the invironment for this to occur, right?

Thanks,

Dimitri - Hey, I figure if Patrick could ask real questions, I could too, right?

whoops, forgot to end my italics...



[This message has been edited by Muad'Dib (edited 07 June 2000).]

[bacon]

I think it is talking about evolution, survival of the fittest and all that stuff. The type of animal living in a certain environment is 'cooked' through generations of random mutations and eventually becomes the top 'pudding' of there enviromental 'menu'. If you get my drift.
How the hell do cucumbers exsist????????mmmm

[Jorden]

Bacon, as you knew how to edit the second post of the doubles, did you notice the delete this post box in the upper left corner of the edit box?

You can use that a next time as well... Easier

Jord.

[bacon]

Thank you Jorden, don't take muck notice of my monitor much of the time.

[Muad'Dib]

Fine, so if you stick me and a couple "hot cucumbers" in a (I don't know, what do you stick cucumbers in?), then in a few generations, I will be all green and picklely (???)? hehehe



Dimitri

[Gurm]

No, see it doesn't work that way.

One of the major flaws in evolution is that it fails to explain how entirely new traits occur. One of the fundamental things we're learning about genetics is that you can't, for example, make a gene to give a giraffe an elephant-like trunk, because there just isn't any way to code for that in the giraffe's DNA.

And yes, I understand the concept of random mutations. However, 99% of the time such mutations are detrimental to the organism's survival, not beneficial.

So one of the problems with evolution is that if you do the math, you would require a period of time substantially longer than the estimated age of the universe to obtain any useful results.

Now, some types of evolution we know to actually happen - for example, several hundred years ago the average height for adult males was 5 feet. Look at the suits of armor in museums, and beds from the Napoleonic era (not counting the short dude himself... heh). So we know that humans are "evolving". However, the kind of evolution that would produce a human with, say, flippers... remains almost impossible to actually prove.

Human evolution (aka the "Descent of Man" as described by Darwin) is in and of itself pretty much bunk. If we were descended from monkeys, we would be able to find the missing link. And I'm not talking about one or two of them.

If we were descended from apes, we'd be SWIMMING in the remains of the "missing link". And not just one type, but THOUSANDS of generations worth of missing links. Not only that, but if that sort of evolution happened, we'd be able to find the missing link between cats and dogs, the missing link between canaries and goldfish, and the missing link between sea cucumbers and impalas.

In fact, with the sheer numbers of organisms that such evolution would require (remember we're talking about thousands or millions of generations here), the earth would be nothing but one big pile of "missing links". The fact that we have found almost none of these indicates a major problem with the theory as it stands.

What do I advocate? I don't know. My personal belief is in some sort of a creation, simply because it's more plausible than some type of random evolution which is not supported by the facts. I'd rather believe in a miracle than in bad science.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Muad'Dib]

Gurm, what is an impala? I know it's a POS shit car that should not have been reintroduced into the production line, but I don't think that's what you're referring too....

Dimitri

[FaRaN]

Gurm, do you believe in (a) GOD?

(WooPS, post number 100!, I am now a man!)

[This message has been edited by FaRaN (edited 08 June 2000).]

[Gurm]

Faran: Yes.

Dimitri: The Impala was a horrible boat. It's early 90's reincarnation was as a killer vehicle that combined a caprice body (boat-ish, but roomy and cushy) with a Cadillac-ish interior and the engine from a Corvette ZR-1. The Impala SS was a beautiful car. The new Impala, like all Chevrolet vehicles, is a front-wheel-drive piece-of-doggie-dung.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[FaRaN]

Instant creation by some 'higher force' is more plausible then (random) evolution?

Like in *poof*: man, *poof*: woman?
Lets create children, and let our children create children.

I have to disagree with you.
And miracles ARE supported by facts?
I could go on. But this will develop in some kind of Nvidea vs. 3Dfx war.
(yes, I have no life)

[uberlad]

The Impala that does not have an obvious evolutionary step between it and sea cucumbers (that's gotta be a crazy mutation) is a kind of gazelle.

African I think, jumps very very high.

Gurm - Surely to look for a missing link between cats and dogs would be rediculous. They have common genetic heritage, but it's never been suggested that cats evolved from dogs, or vice versa.

That would be lunacy.

There is a missing link between canaries and goldfish btw, Dinosaurs.

Uberlad

------------------
-------------------------
8 out of 10 women say they would feel no qualms about hitting a man.
5 out of ten referred to me by name.

[Elyas]

The other thing that causes evolution problems is the idea that it is a number of small jumps that cause the new organ/thingy to form. An eye is a very useful thing to have. A number of complimentary pieces, however, would have to result at the same time in order to for an eye to have any advantage, and mature in to the organs we know of now. The biggest kick in the teeth though is the idea of consciousness. Nobody can figure out where it would have come from, how it could have evolved, and what sort of intermediate steps would a developing consciousness have.

[Paddy]

you can't, for example, make a gene to give a giraffe an elephant-like trunk, because there just isn't any way to code for that in the giraffe's DNA

I would have to disagree with you Gurm. (My fiancee has just finnished a degree in genetics)
To the best of my knowledge....

My functional genes are almost identical to yours. We can look for genes that code for eye colour or hair ears etc.. but most of our physical differences come from the untranslated, so called 'junk' regions.
In fact Drosophila DNA is almost identical to ours!

It shows that a single gene, or even a cluster of them dont code for one characteristic, but it is how all of them interact with each other and the environment that counts.

Dimitri, people can be born 'predisposed'to certain characteristics, but the efect on the environment determines our eventual fate.

All gene analysis can do is to say that:

we predict that you have a DNA configuration that could suggest that you might possibly go on tho develop certain characteristics, but then again you might not...

Of course there are some clear cut examples such as cystic fibrosis and other 'single-gene disorders', but the majority of physical differences are the result of many many genes.

Why should there be a missing link between goldfish and cats? They aren't even remotely similar.

Imagine this:
in a world populated by bipedal humans, what would happen if tomorrow a child was born with three legs?
Imagine if this child was a social outcast, and lived in a cave in isolation. There the child married and had children, and gave birth to a small community of tripeds.

Now imagine that a disaster happen on Earth and all the bipeds died out.
The tripeds who no longer live in fear could leave their caves and repopulate the earth.

This would be seen as a sudden transformation into a new species.

what do you think?

[Gurm]

I think that it's a manufactured case. You would have to have had a million of these disasters, and they would have had to have selectively wiped out only certain geographic populations, because the original species, in many cases, still existed!

And when I say the link between cats and goldfish, I mean this:

Cats and Dogs are similar, right? Therefore they must have a common ancestor. We should be able to find BOATLOADS of remains of creatures that are increasingly coglike (or datlike, if you prefer) as we go back in time. But we can't. We find different cats and different dogs, dating back thousands of years. But no convergence.

Same thing with people. We should be able to find LOTS of remains of shorter and shorter and more and more apelike people. Instead we have found fragments of a handful of remains. Peking Man, for example, consists of a jawbone fragment, two teeth, and something that COULD be part of an arm. From there, it's just conjecture.

If evolution happened that way, we'd be SWIMMING in remains of precursors. But we aren't, which proves fairly categorically that evolution as the "we all evolved from slugs" folk see it is bunk.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Himself]

Instant creation by some 'higher force' is more plausible then (random) evolution?
Like in *poof*: man, *poof*: woman?
Lets create children, and let our children create children.

Just for fun, applying Gurm's process to that idea, if brothers and sisters mate today, they have a high tendency towards birth defects, if their children were to mate it would be almost guaranteed they would either be born dead or severely impacted. The odds of Nth generational survival are nil. Considering the typical life span of extremely primitive societies being at max 30 years, if they are very lucky, and even given births every year starting at 13 for females, (assuming they survive the first few, btw, how old were Adam and Eve when they started out having kids?)and having to produce quantities of viable male and female offspring, I think a non mythical answer is the more likely. It doesn't get much better with a dozen people starting off, let alone two, you'd want thousands for an adequate gene pool really.

Hmm, It could be that all the "neanderthal" fossils were those birth defects, kind of a nasty way to start a species for a devine being though, but about on par for the course I guess, creating floods and whatnot.