Can't you tell?

i see that i've been present the whole day even if i was not here for real

resserts,

I believe in microevolution (or adaptation as I prefer), actually I think that the Bible has at least one example of microevolution described. Jacob was breeding sheep and made a deal to keep all of the black ones, then he bred them to produce more black ones than white and became very rich.

This is off the subject of chili peppers but still on the subject of evolution. If the theory of evolution is correct, why is the shark which has been evolving for millions of years still a shark when in that same timeframe, man supposedly evolved from some single celled blob in the ocean?

“This is off the subject of chili peppers but still on the subject of evolution. If the theory of evolution is correct, why is the shark which has been evolving for millions of years still a shark when in that same timeframe, man supposedly evolved from some single celled blob in the ocean?”

First off, what you stated here about timeframes isn’t true.

Secondly, there’s absolutely nothing in the process of evolution that demands that a species must change. In fact, if they are doing well in their current environment they have pressure to change. No reason.

The dinosaurs existed for about 300 million years without a large degree of change. Humans (our specific hominid species) had only been around for about 150 thousand years and we have change dramatically. But then again, there were environmental and behavioral reasons that caused this.

These kinds questions have been fully addressed by scientists in who studying this stuff diligently. To think that they’ve missed these types of questions is sincerely naïve.

Let’s take off from Spider’s words for a little more insight into this:

Spider wrote:
“I started the thread to make people think about evolution instead of always assuming that it has to be true.”

Scientists don’t assume that evolution has to be true. On the contrary, scientist are the most dedicated skeptics in the world. Every scientist dreams of being the first to shoot a legitimate whole in the theory. To do so would instantly win them the Nobel Prize and world fame and glory.

The reason they aren’t shooting holes in it is because it’s basically rock solid. The discovering that evolution occurred is not going to be overturned anymore than the fact that he earth goes around the sun is likely to be overturned.

People don’t seem to realize this. It’s a done deal as far as scientists are concerned. Sure, they are still seeking further investigations into the details, but that’s not nearly the same as questioning it’s validity. No serious scientist today questions the validity of evolution unless they have religious motivations to do so. And even then their objections are based more on religious prejudices than on a genuine scientific basis.

Let’s face it, if someone actually came up with a serious reason to abandon years of scientific evidence for evolution, (other than a pure faith-based ideal) scientists would JUMP on it!!!

The reason they aren’t jumping is because none of these reasons people are suggestion hold any water.

The concern about chili pepper were totally irrelevant. And what you’ve just suggested here gardenforge is also not the slightest bit of a problem. A scientist would simply tell you to learn more about evolution because you obviously aren’t well educated in how it works. That’s not meant as an insult or anything like that. It’s just the what you are suggesting here is not relevant. There’s nothing about the process of evolution that suggest that any particular species much evolve to a higher level at any particular rate.

Moreover, it’s quite possible for some species to actually devolve, or degenerate in to extinction. Evolution is seriously a roll of the dice. That doesn’t mean that it’s processes aren’t guided by chemistry and environment, but rather that it has no predetermined goal. It just isn’t like that.

If there were a serious problem with evolution we’d hear about it on the news, and I’m not talking about radical or religious newscasts either.

I seriously don’t care whether people believe in evolution or not. But I’ll tell you what I find totally absurd. The people who demand more “proof” for evolution seem to always the people who are committed to some religious doctrines that have absolutely no proof behind them whatsoever.

What do these people want? Do they want everyone to go back into the dark ages and believe solely in superstitions and just quit thinking?

I’m really hoping that humanity would like to move forward rather than backward. We already went through the dark ages once.

Wow it only took 150,000 years for hominoids to become man, and in 50 million years a shark is still a shark and your reasoning is there is no reason for change if a species is successful. They you go on to say that the dinosaurs changed very little in 300 million years. Then based on that we should have taken a couple hunderd million years to advance to our present state and we did it in only 150,000 wow what over achievers. We have found fosil links to previous species for most animals but none for man why is that. Are we looking in the wrong places? Where is the rock solid evidence? Anything scientific is considered a theory until proven beyond a doubt. That is why they still call it "The Theory of Evolution" not the Rock Solid Fact of Evolution.

Yup, and the bible is just a book written by a bunch of old farts!

Gardenforge wrote:
“They you go on to say that the dinosaurs changed very little in 300 million years. Then based on that we should have taken a couple hundred million years to advance to our present state.”

Our present state???

What makes you think that our present state is so advanced? I personally think we’re pretty primitive yet.

That’s a subjective call to be sure.

Moreover, there are plenty of examples of various rates of evolution for differnet species. It's meaningless to compare the rate of change in one species with another. There are far too many other factors involved.

There are plenty of monkeys that are older than humans yet they haven’t evolved in the same way as us either. We were lucky to have evolved to the point where we are. If you’re trying to suggest that it must have been due to some divine intervention then why even bother with the dinosaurs at all. Why not just intervene early on and create humans first? Why bother playing with the dinosaurs?

I mean, if you’re going to jump to conclusions, why not jump to all of them? If a god created earth for the purpose of creating man, why get sidetracked with creating dinosaurs for 300 millions years. Are you suggesting that God has A.D.D. and gets easily side-tracked like Jess Lee?

Wow I ask a few pertenent questions and right away I get the smoke and mirror routine accompained by one mega sized spin. That's what I like about the evolutinists, when you ask a question they can't answer they immediately resort to smoke and mirrors.

Smoke and mirrors sounds more like a politician.

Sorry I didn't read all 7 pages....but ...


How is this question still presented?


"Doh!" *Slaps forhead*





Evolution's means is not compariable from one genius to another. Supply and demand also applies to Biology. Land and air dwelling creatures atmosphere is much more permeable, then lets say the large amount of earth's ocean dwelling creatures. (Which by the way is soon in need of change; dying coral i.e.)The fact of the matter is evolution's rate of speed, presence, and amount of adaptation is based upon habitat, climate, and in mankind's case how fast we eat ourselves out of house and home.

There are many gaps in our knowledge that can only only bridged by assumptions. Evolution is one of them. Just as there are many laws of nature that are absolute except when a variation is necessary to support life for instance every substance becomes heavier and more dense when it freezes except water. If it were not for this variance of a basic law of nature, life would be impossible because lakes and streams would freeze from the bottom up instead of the top down and all water would be locked in ice.

As was pointed out earlier many established scientific beliefs of the past have been proven wrong. The world is round not flat, the earth revolves around the sun not vice versa. Now the established mainstream belief is the theory of evolution, hummm could that possibly be wrong too? Time will tell.

If its not evolution, than its the Stargate theory! Or maybe humans were just stupid when they grew from wherever and were eaten by dinosaurs until one human was like "wtf, I ain't being eaten" and runs into a cave.

gardenforge wrote:
“Now the established mainstream belief is the theory of evolution, hummm could that possibly be wrong too? Time will tell.”

You’re just behind the times GF. The scientific community as a whole has long ago accepted evolution as an undeniable fact. The only hold-outs are hopeful religious zealots.

There is no question whatsoever that the fossil evidence clearly shows that life evolved on earth from very primitive forms to more complex forms over billions of years. There is no question concerning this evidence in science. It’s a done deal. The observation that evolution has actually occurred will not be overturned. On the contrary, physicists have even taken the process far beyond the earth itself to explain how the very elements evolved within the stars.

The things you are stating here simply aren’t true. Evolution is not merely a ‘belief’, nor it is just a ‘theory’, the physical evidence for it is overwhelming, concrete, and solidly accepted by the scientific community as a whole. As I say, the only ones who question it today are religiously motivated zealots.

I seriously don’t care what you personally believe, but I hate to see the facts distorted for people who would like to know the truth. The truth of the matter is that evolution is not in question in science. It’s only being questioned by hopeful religious zealots. That’s the true state of affairs with evolution today for anyone who is sincerely interested in knowing the truth.

In short, time has already told. It's a done deal already GF.

gardenforge wrote:
“Wow it only took 150,000 years for hominoids to become man”

I’d just like to clarify that you completely misread what I said. I did not say that it only took hominids 150,000 years to become man, I said that “Humans (our specific hominid species)” have changed a lot over 150,000 years. It actually took hominoids several millions of years to evolve into humans.

Perhaps part of your problem with evolution is that you misread information?

In other words, we had already evolved to become man 150,000 years ago. But over the course of that time we have made drastic changes (not even necessarily caused by evolution I might add).

In fact, we have change in our behavior more over the last 150 years than we have over the whole rest of the 150,000 year period. Of course, that change was not an evolutionary change but rather a technological change. Once we discovered technology it only took as a little over a century to become totally dependent on technology. One could argue that becoming depending on technology does indeed have an impact on the course of our evolution.

In fact we are already at a point where we are no longer evolving via a process of “natural” selection, but rather we are evolving via a process of “unnatural” selection in that we are using technology to help people live and propagate who wouldn’t naturally be able to do so.

The important thing to realize is that in the last few hundred years we have “evolved” from an extremely superstitious species into an enlightened species. That is to say that only a few hundred years ago superstitions ruled our view of the world, where today we now understand the world around us a lot better. Yet as a society there are still plenty of people who prefer to cling to our old superstitious ways. It’s hard to change the views of the masses over such a short period of time. You can hand them an I-pod and cell phone, but you can’t convince them that these devices aren’t magic.

"The important thing to realize is that in the last few hundred years we have “evolved” from an extremely superstitious species into an enlightened species"

I disagree abra, while our technology has evolved at an incredible pace from the 20th century onwards, we as a species have not kept up with it as proven by the people u refered to as superstitious zealots. If we as a species had changed as rapidly as our tools, we would have achieved utopia decades ago

I am far from a religious zealot, there are just some gaps in the chain of evidence that I don't understand. Further just because a bunch of "scientists" come together and reach a consensus does not establish fact. Evidence does and there are pieces of the puzzle missing. For instance we had Neanderthal man, then Cromagnon, and I probably butchered the spelling, came on the scene. Did Cromagnon evolve from Nenadertal? The fact that we have changed from a superstitious group to an enlightened group in a few hundred years does not indicate evolution it indicated an advance in education.

I just got done watching "The Universe" on TV guess what, in the beginning there really was nothing. Then there was a "big bang" and all matter was created. Well that's the short version, it took a while for things to cool down. For a very brief period after the big bang, the 4 forces of nature, gravity, electromagnatism, strong and weak nuclear forces, existed as one, that allowed the matter to speed away from the big bang as a speed faster than the speed of light. As I said before I find it absolutely amazing that whenever necessary for us to come into existence, the constant laws of Physics make a necessary adjustment.

sorry I hijacked the chili pepper thread into a discussion on evolution but for me there are things out there that need further explaining.

Even the "good book" says "above all, gain understanding"

Seems like the thread may no longer be interested but I just read it for the first time so I still care.... I see a couple of possibilities:

Don't cayenne and jalapeno's and chili's all have capsaicin? And there are some asian peppers (natives) that are "hot" so perhaps it was another stimulant.. or there could have been another plant that existed that humans ate and adapted to/evolved to tolerate and that plant has since become extinct...

But when I quickly skimmed the recepter for capsaicin it appears that there are 3 different substances that can bind with it- so the recepter could also have evolved to accept one of these other molecules? It would appear that at least one (resiniferatoxin) has been used by humans for a couple thousand years. However, I don't believe that the vanilloid receptor is yet fully understood so there could be more as yet unknown explanations... I'm not the best at biochem but it seems likely that the receptor is not quite as specific as it was initially portrayed in this thread?

E.g. Berkely's Molecular bio dept. had this to say (http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_001/papers/manuscripts/_112.html):

"Ligands of the Vanilloid Receptor

Capsaicin is one of three important ligands of the vanilloid receptor. The second is a molecule called resiniferatoxin. Resiniferatoxin is the active ingredient found in Euphorbium, a plant resin that has been used as an anti-nociceptive treatment for chronic pain for over two thousand years (Appendino and Szallasi, 1997). Euphorbium is a milky substance extracted from Euphorbia Resinifera. It is cited in Greek and Roman texts as a skin and nose irritant, and as a treatment for lethargy. In the Middle Ages, it was displaced by other compounds. In the 1700's, it was used to treat chronic pain from cavities and tooth ache. "

Spider-

I'm just curious, did you by chance first become interested in this question because you were interested in the medicinal, e.g. pain relieving, properties associated with capsaicin?