Rant on Theories, Laws & Misconceptions Options

[Supersprynt]

I hesitated creating a thread regarding this but this is really the best medium in which many people can talk openly about something w/o much consequence. Plus I'm big on freedom of speech and so here it goes.

Friday night I go and see Damon Wayans stand up. Second time I saw him, and he was pretty funny the first time. This time he wasn't nearly as funny. Mainly because he started attacking anything that wasn't Christian. Oh boy. So he goes on to say that evolution is the stupidest thing he's ever heard and goes about mocking how its ridiculous something just formed and one day hopped out of the water and another day got legs and another day jumped up into a tree and then finally said "I got to get a job" as a human.

Hilarious. Oh wait, its not. In fact I was flabberghasted and the level of sheer stupidity emanating from this mans mouth. Evolution is the stupidest thing he's heard? Did he think it happened in 6 days? He then continued to say that atheism is on the rise and its basically got to be stopped and how its horrible not to believe in anything.

By now your thinking, where is he going with this? My dilemma which is actually eating at me is how many of you think that evolution isn't real? How many people think that evolution happened overnight; and how many people are under the impression that evolution is just a hypothesis, nothing more than a guess; how many people think atheism is evil? Im genuinely curious.

If I dont get any responses to this I'll chalk it up to I wrote too much, you got tired, fell asleep and drooled on your keyboard. I also want to say that if you do decide to respond, you do it in an intelligent, RESPECTFUL manner. I'm not looking for this to get closed because religion is a very very touchy subject. This is primarily for those who have an open mind, and willing to engage in intelligent conversation.

Thanks.

[Jen]

Ironically, this is what I'm studying in Biology right now.

http://bb.fccj.edu/courses/1/Spring2007-BS...iodiversity.htm

[Jen]

Ironically, this is what I'm studying in Biology right now.

http://bb.fccj.edu/courses/1/Spring2007-BS...iodiversity.htm

Okay that didn't work.

this is going to be LONG..

In lecture, before I teach evolution, I tell my classes of all my travels all over the world. The exotic places I have been to: China, Australia (aborigines), New Zealand, (Maories), Nepal

(Buddhists and Hindus), Hawaii, Tahiti and the South Pacific,(polynesians), Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru,(lived in the Amazon with the Indians two summers for short periods), as well as much of Europe and all over the U.S. and Canada.

Why do I tell you that? Because I have listened to the stories of all these different peoples and cultures and they each have a story of how their culture KNOWS the world began. It is all based on their beliefs and that is good and fine. Their beliefs system, also known as religion, determines the laws of the society without which none of us could get along. Beliefs systems are excellent for that purpose, and I have no quarrel with that. However, we, as Christians, have the audacity to think that our bible has the only true story. You have to remember, or know, that Hawaiians believe that Mauna Loa, their huge active volcano, is the goddess of life, and that the Aborigines believe that Lightening Man is the only true God of life. The Amazon Indians have a different belief, as do Buddhists, etc. We are only 30% of the world’s religious populations and, the technology that abounds today was not around when our bible, theTorah, The Koran, etc. were written.

So, as you read and learn this chapter please keep an open mind and know that religious beliefs and scientific theory can go hand in hand…particularly where how the world began is discussed. We need our belief system to get us through tough times and to shape our actions to each other.



Origins of Life


How did life emerge on earth? How did organisms evolve? It started with two types of evolution: physical and chemical evolution. Evidence of the earth’s early history comes from chemical analysis and measurements of radioactive elements in rocks and fossils.



Chemical evolution – of organic molecules, biopolymers, and systems of chemical reactions needed to form protobionts ( first living cells) took place in our early oceans. Combining water and lipids to form the first cells with membranes. Scientists today can replicate the first formations of the protobionts, amino acids, simple sugars, even RNA and DNA in their laboratories, using the same chemicals that were in the earth’s early atmosphere and oceans: methane gas, sulfuric acid, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen gas, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and water. Those ingredients, plus an electrical charge (lightening), form the above cells very nicely in the laboratory today.



Biological evolution – from single celled, prokaryotic bacteria to multicellular eukaryotic cells, and then multicellular organisms. Today, in our cells we have organelles such as mitochondria that make their own DNA, different from the DNA made in the nucleus of our cells. Not so strangely, the mitochondria looks more like an animal viral particle and does not resemble the rest of the cell. And, in the proteins of the electron transport chain in our respiratory system are particles of chlorophyll…both evidence of early beginnings from ancient cells that evolved further.



Our earth has changed greatly from its tumultuous beginnings, cooling, allowing water to form, the temperature to stabilize, and now contains 21% oxygen, whereas the early atmosphere had no oxygen in it. Only when algae evolved to trap the energy of the sun and convert it into an organic molecule (sugar), using carbon dioxide as its carbon source and releasing oxygen as its waste product, was life able to evolve away from the seas and live on land.



ORIGINS OF LIFE - Earth is 4.7 billion years old, life evolved 3.7 BYA



From chemical and biological evolution. We can actually place the time oxygen was first prevalent on earth by such things as the changing of iron ore from one state to another (by its rust), and then by radiometric dating.



How did Chemical evolution take place?
“BIG BANG” THEORY


First there was hot, dense matter. Then, fusion. Hydrogen, helium, other materials form. Gravity, and the sun forms, and cosmic dust forms the earth, the moon from the earth’s mantle. Lighter materials form the earth’s crust, heavier materials form its molten core and mantle.



No atmosphere or oceans at that time



Volcanic eruptions and comets hitting earth release water and vapor, other gases from interior. The early atmosphere contained no oxygen, just sulfuric acid, methane, other gases, eventually carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide.



Water vapor rose, eventually forming rains which caused cooling, erosion…



Energy from volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, lightening. UV light caused chemical reactions that eventually formed amino acids, then proteins, eventually single-celled anaerobic organisms



No fossils on land at the time. We think life emerged from the sea.



Cyanobacteria ( blue-green algae) developed ability to take in CO2 from water, and gave off O2 in water and atmosphere. Radioisotopes from rocks of ferrous iron converted to ferric iron. This only happens in presence of O2…can tell when O2 appeared on Earth by this .



1.2 billion years ago (BYA) - Other organisms evolved - multicelled, that gave rise to other organisms that eventually went to land. Some went back to the seas.



PROOF of EVOLUTION? Scientists theories are based on facts that HAVE TO BE PROVEN OR DISPROVEN. There has to be experiments to prove these facts. Whereas personal belief systems are just that…beliefs..”someone said such and such and I believe it.” No facts…just I believe. We have proof in so many different ways. I could write a book on this, but for brevities sake, here are just a few:



Fossils – of dead organisms…bones, teeth, shells.

Radioactive carbon dating (stromatolites – Canada, Australia)

DNA – we still have photosynthetic cells in human respiratory system and we don’t convert sunlight to energy!



EVOLUTION – The change in a population’s genetic makeup thru successive generations. (Populations evolve, not individuals by becoming genetically different)



THEORY OF EVOLUTION – all species evolved from earlier, ancestral species



MACROEVOLUTION – long term, large-scale evolutionary changes occurring in groups of species, new species formed, others lost.



MICROEVOLUTION – small genetic changes occurring in a population.



Gene Pool - total of all genes possessed in a population. Microevolution is a change in a population’s gene pool.



Most members of a population have the same # and kinds of genes, but some genes have variation, such as in flower color. Variations in a gene are called alleles.



Sexual reproduction causes a random shuffling or recombination of alleles through meiosis. This reshuffling causes genetic variation and is part of the source of evolution.



4 processes that affect microevolution:



Mutation – ultimate source of genetic variability…involves random changes in a cell’s DNA. Caused by radioactivity, UV light, x-rays, mutagens, and random mistakes in our genetic code caused by incorrect DNA processing.



Mutations can be good, harmful, or lethal. Sickle cell anemia was once a gene mutation that conferred an advantage to Africans against malaria. If the person had one defective gene, they survived malaria. But, if they had/have 2 defective alleles, they have full-blown sickle cell anemia and usually die in their 40’s. Many African-Americans and Asians now have the sickle cell gene or genes.



Mutations are also:



Random and unpredictable

The only source of new genetic raw materials

Rare events



Gene flow – movement of genes between populations, leading to changes in the genetic composition of local populations. Ex: frogs in a pond tend to breed with the same frogs in that pond. Sometimes, migration occurs and frogs from one pond may move to another and interbreed. Now there is an exchange of different genes and gene flow has occurred.



Genetic drift – in small populations ---the chance genetic changes in the genetic composition of a population. Important in small populations. Ex: perhaps there is an albino frog in a pond. There is a 25% chance that he will pass that gene on to offspring. However, if a predator kills him before he can mate, that set of genes is eliminated from the population and we say that genetic drift has occurred. In a larger population, there is a greater chance that the frog would survive. That is why genetic drift is more common in smaller populations.



Natural Selection – when individuals in a population have genetically derived traits that allow them to survive and reproduce more offspring than other individuals, we say it is a result of natural selection.



· Must have variability of characteristics e.g. color, size, shape, behavior

· Trait must be heritable – genetic based in order to be passed on to next gen.

· Trait must lead to increased. reproduction…more offspring than other members of a population



N.S. causes any alleles resulting in a beneficial trait to become more common in succeeding generation.



Adaptation – A heritable trait that allows organisms to better survive & reproduce under a given set of environmental conditions.



Read the article and experiment about the Peppered Moths. It is a classic case representation of natural selection.




3 Types of Natural Selection – they each have different environmental conditions and different genetic outcomes. Study the diagrams in your book to see what the terms mean.



1. Directional– “different is better”

Environmental conditions changing, allele frequencies shift, so that alleles at one end of normal become more common than midrange forms. Ex: changes in varieties of peppered moths, insects’ genetic resistance to pesticides.



2. Stablizing – “average is better”



Tends to eliminate individuals on both sides of the curve and favor individuals with an average genetic makeup who have adapted well to the environment.



3. Diversifying or disruptive – “average is NOT better”

Environmental conditions tend to favor individuals at both ends of the curve, and eliminates average individuals. Ex: finches and beaks…medium seed production is eliminated or sharply declines. Those birds with larger beaks or stronger beaks will survive. Those with average beaks will decline.



Co-evolution – 2 different species interact over a long period of time. When changes in the gene pool effect one, the other gene pool also changes.