User:Brenden/Answers to Question Evolution! with sbs

Response While evolution is actually a theory to explain the diversity of life, it is thought that the first cells could have been formed by the spontaneous formation of plasma membranes due to the polar nature of lipids, thus containing organic molecules required to have life. NB This question had nothing to do with Evolution Response Being a high school freshman, the best hypothesis I can give you is that sequences of common organic chemicals were incorporated into early cells, possibly first as RNA then as DNA. The best hypothesis available is the hot springs hypothesis. There are plenty of organic chemicals in hot springs, and the perfect temperature to kick start life. NB This question had nothing to do with Evolution Response As you already may know, when cells reproduce, small changes may occur in DNA. These changes are usually very minor changes because much of DNA is just old code that has been passed down but serves no purpose. However, sometimes mutations can be harmful or helpful, creating new proteins by changing the order of codons. The helpful changes tend to be passed on when an organism has reproductive success, thus creating a new organism with that heritable trait. These mutations are NOT the cartoon "mutations" where the character rolls in radioactive waste and grows 4 arms, these are subtle changes in the order of the nucleotides. Furthermore, they are not random. It is as Richard Dawkins put it, a path up mount improbability. You cannot simply jump there, but you can slowly change, and wind up there eventually. Response Because it does. Natural Selection works in combination with the mutations discussed above, so if Bug A has a mutation that makes it darker, it will survive better on a dark background than Bug B, which is pure white. However, if the bugs live in the snow, then Bug B will have a higher chance of surviving. In this example, Natural Selection is not the creative process, it is only the method to sort out the best adapted species. NB This question had nothing to do with Evolution Response It is believed that RNA, which has properties of both DNA and Enzymes, were the first to exist. They have the properties of both DNA and the various enzymes, that they could, hypothetically, exist by themselves. As a matter of fact, many viruses only use RNA to replicate themselves. Response Ever heard of circular logic? It does not make sense to assume that a non-falsifyable God created life. Anyways, things ARE evolving before our eyes. To all those wishing not to have their minds blown, skip to 7. To those remaining, people are evolving. Multiple people in Japan have been born without an appendix, and some people have the genes for webbed feet. Even more important, animals are evolving. Tuskless elephants in the wild tend to live longer due to the amount of poaching for ivory, so the number of elephants with a mutation that causes them to stop growing tusks has increased. One more, from "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin. A group on unicellular algae left in a petri dish will develop into clumps of multiple cells when exposed to a predator, but after 1000 cycles only the clumps big enough for each cell to avoid the predator but small enough to take in enough light will be left. The creation of new species is an example against design. Furthermore, science explains the naturalistic, using logical means, whereas simply using logic, can result in logical absurdities. The enlightenment sought to remove that possibility from science. NB this had nothing to do with evolution Response This is too easy, so I will go further than the question. We have already discussed the algae example above, so I won't use that one. Instead, I draw your attention to the placozoan, a 4 celled amoebalike predator. The placozoan developed to be able to skim small algae, thus it must be bigger than the algae to feed via phagocytosis. My interpretation of this question, however, is how differentiated multicellular life arose, and my explanation is that only the most basic multicellular life can be undifferentiated, so differentiation must have occurred in response to predation. This happened via mutation and selection, and most likely led to an "arms race" between species to avoid predators and to feed on more developed prey. Species probably came on land later when competition in water caused prey to move onto land and achieve reproductive success, then predators followed. One of the earliest ocean/land transition fossils to date is Tiktallik, which appears to be a predator, and has an amphibious build that shows it's evolutionary history Response Sex most likely originated when multicellular species grew to sizes where asexual reproduction would cease to be advantageous. Early sexual reproduction might have started with a parent having both gametes and leaving a fertilized egg, then sex may have grown to involve a male and a female when species started schooling and mixing genes created better results. The reason scientists can only hypothesize about this is because fossil records are incomplete (see question 9) Response It is estimated that 99% of all once living species are extinct, so it should make sense that we would find trillions of fossils in the ground. The problem is that not every species becomes a fossil. In order to become a fossil, the bones must be buried in a sedimentary rock, have the right temperature and pressure, and have a good exposure when a scientist is there. Scientists don't excavate unless they have some sign of fossils, and usually erosion destroys exposed fossils if they are not found in time. In short, we do have the fossils of these transitional species, its called sand. You might just have a little bit of T-Rex in your swimsuit next time you go to the beach. Anyways, even if we had zero fossils, Evolution would still be the most logical theory we had. The fact that we are lucky enough to even have them, only solidifies evolution even more. Response If you understand evolution, you would know that for some reason, those living fossils, have found a design that is very advantageous to their existence. Response The game theory accounts for morals and altruism. Game theory suggests that animals are bound in groups, defined by either Zero-sum or nonzero-sum. A zero-sum game accounts for hedonism, in which the actions of one have a direct opposite effect on the other. Nonzero-sum games account for altruism because the the entire group either benefits or is harmed. Nonzero sum games account partially for morality when it would be advantageous for a member of the group to act in favor of everyone. A zero-sum game can also account for part of this by creating a psychological debt, in which a member of the group feels that it must repay another for a sacrifice that was made to benefit that member. Response What are you talking about? or is this just a filler question? The only reason an evolutionist can't answer this is because it's not a question, but I swore on my fishes life that I would do my best to answer these all, so here we go. The reason that natural selection might favor a male who spreads his seed (maybe even fish or coral style, hm?) is because it has a higher chance to impregnate more females, thus creating more offspring, but this would be a bad idea in situations where offspring need attention from the parents, like in humans. Human babies actually are born the instant they can survive outside the womb, taking some burden off of the mother. The human baby needs the parents to raise it in order to finish its development, thus the parents stay. The response is not a "just so" response, the response has its nature because the response depends on the situation. Like if I were to tell you, the reader, that you had to catch and kill something, you wouldn't use a fishing rod to kill a deer and you wouldn't use a rifle to kill a fish, the same applies to the survival strategies of species. Is this relevant to how evolution works? I see a hatchet job designed (unintelligently) to discredit evolution. Response What does this have to do with the validity of Evolution? Response It is an operational science, in that it is acting all around us. Richard Lenski's famous E-Coli experiment showed that precisely, when E-Coli, which cannot consume Citrate, evolved to do so. Response It's not religion, its science. It can be falsifyable (monkey give birth to fronkey), experimentally tried, (Lenski), and has survived all the scrutiny placed upon it. Religion, on the other hand, is an appeal to faith.