"Real" ringworlds

[Primogenitor]

My mistake. Ive just looked it up to confirm.
Fish have a two chambered heart and a single circulation (Heart->Gills->Body->Heart).
Mammals and birds have a 4 chanbered heart and a double circulation (Heart->Lungs->Heart->Body->Heart)
I got confused.

It is more basic than a mammal heart however, so it still shows that you dont need a complete mammalian heart to have a working circulatory system.

[ May 16, 2003, 19:18: Message edited by: Primogenitor ]

[Loser]

The argument of the eye, and the approach that Jack used with the circulation system, has a name. It is Irreducible Complexity, and it would disprove evolution if a case of it could ever be proven to exist.

There are a number of candidates for Irreducible Complexity status, and the eye is actually one of them. The problem with the eye is not so much that is competing with other eyes, but that even the simplest vertebrate eye, and a few invertebrate eye, is filled with a clear fluid. It is the formation of this fluid that has the potential to be a case of Irreducible Complexity. Without this clear, and non-living, fluid, the vertebrate-type eye is not possible.

Currently, however, we do not even understand how this fluid forms during the embryonic stages. One moment the entire eye-sack is filled with odd blood vessels, the next is filled with the 'human jelly'. The metamorphosis is not understood at all, Last I heard. It is easily foreseeable that once we understand how this process occurs during the development of every vertebrate life form on this planet we will better understand how it could have happened the first time.

Another example is the cilia. These organelles are constructs that require complex and perfectly configured elements to function at all. Without any one of these elements these rudimentary limbs would simply not function at all. To view matters in evolutionary terms, the whole construct would have had to spontaneously generate in a complete, if relatively simple, form, as there are no 'more primitive' Versions possible. To take away even a single molecule, or even a single atom from one of the constituent molecules, would render the whole apparatus not less efficient but totally nonfunctional

Almost all cilia are made of the same clever molecule, though sometimes (as on the humane sperm) the same structure is repeated on top of itself numerous times to increase the strength of the whip. But this matter has only been studied for a few decades, and you can't hold it against science if the scientists don't figure out everything right away.

There are a couple other contenders for Irreducible Complexity status, but just because they might be irreducible does not mean they are. Give it time, science will pin it all down, even the things it has gotten wrong so far. But when you start questioning scientific theories, you need to use science to challenge them. build a hypothesis, test it, publish it for your peers, respond to their criticism.

Or, of course, you could always just engage in energetic discussions, like this one. They're Grrrreat!

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Primogenitor:
It is more basic than a mammal heart however, so it still shows that you dont need a complete mammalian heart to have a working circulatory system.

I'm confused - where did I specify mammilian? Even worms have hearts, blood, and veins (of a sort).

Edit: Point of fact, I seem to have even specified that I wasn't just talking about mammals:

It appears to be required for any non-plant that is bigger than a few cells

[ May 16, 2003, 22:22: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Loser:
Give it time, science will pin it all down, even the things it has gotten wrong so far.

Just because it might be possible to "pin it down", doesn't mean it is possible to pin it down (to paraphrase yourself). Making that leap (as you appear to) is an act of faith.
Creation theory can readily explain such irreducibly complexities right now while, at present, evolution doesn't seem to be able to. Yet you seem to believe that evolutionary theory is a better explanation of such things. This is a very curious leap of faith on your part.

[Krsqk]

I think the problem with most of these debates was alluded to further down in this thread and discussed quite a bit in the Plato's Pub thread a few months back. Any data (not evidence--see below) we can present can be fit into almost any hypothesis with a minimum of difficulty. Because no one is offering their theory as the "We-have-all-the-details-worked-out" theory (ok, no one who can be taken seriously), it's fairly simple to reinterpret the data to fit your pet ideas.

Probably the biggest hurdle to obtaining true "evidence" is our very limited scientific understanding. Some have estimated that the invention of the computer has allowed us to understand 22,000 years' worth of research in this century (in pre-computer years)--an improvement of 220 times--but all it has done has demonstrate our lack of understanding. Each new advance opens up a new level of complexity which must be studied, and it takes decades before we can be said to have a grasp on a new field of study. We will have no real "evidence" until we reach the informational limits of the complex world in which we live. Obviously, we need to build a Central Computer Complex III to speed things up.

My other peeve with this issue is not one with the real reasoned debaters, but the psuedosciencemongers (did I just invent a new word?). At least in popular media, evolution is portrayed as a scientific hypothesis against alternate supernatural hypotheses. Evolution is not scientific, but naturalistic. The issue is usually one of competing worldviews, not one of science and myth.

[edit]The distinction between scientific and naturalistic is important because most people think evolution is scientifically provable while recognizing that creation is outside the realm of science. The only "scientific" means of proving macroevolution is to observe it (requiring long periods of time), which still would not prove it as the means of species origination.

Also, I don't buy into the currently popular "Evolution has nothing to do with origins" mantra. Micro-evolution has nothing to do with origins, nor is it much disputed(although I think the terminology is unfortunate--adaptation worked quite nicely, thank you). However, when one says "Microevolution, ergo macroevolution," one is dealing with origins and hypothesis. Unless, of course, one wants to Fyronize the word origin to mean "the origin of the first life form" instead of "the origin of all life forms." It's always helpful to know exactly what we're saying here.

[ May 16, 2003, 22:37: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[Fyron]

Krsqk, there is no "mantra" as you put it. Evolution does not deal with how life began. It deals with how life changes. The arguments of how evolution must be wrong because we can't use it to show how life began are irrelevant at best because evolution makes no claims as to how life came from unlife. That topic of discussion is in no way about an evolutionary process. There is no "fyronizing" going on; only explanation of the huge distinction between theories and hypotheses of evolution and those of the origins of life. Several people have already shown that they believe evolution explains the origins of life, when it in fact does not. It is impossible to soundly argue that the theory of evolution is wrong because it does not explain how life began because it does not address that issue in any way. The theory of gravity does not address atomic spin, but noone would say it is wrong because of this. Gravitational force and atomic spin are not related (with current understandings of the physical world) in the same way that evolution and the origin of life are not related.

Most scientific origin hypothesis use evolution in them, yes. But, evolution is still not false if the origin hypothesis is false. This is not to say that evolution is true either, it is to say that no possible connection can be drawn between the two. In fact, it is entirely possible that the form of Creationism in which God created life and then let it go free and the theory of evolution are both true. Evolution does not depend on how life began.

[ May 16, 2003, 23:41: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ok, i figured something out yesterday while falling asleep, note, don't get into that habit. it will keep you up nights. keep your deep thoughts to sensible places, like the toilet.

but, like somebody said, i don't think you can really seperate evolution from beginnings and endings. and, by saying things like soul, i was trying to describe thinking and knowing your thinking. and, my understanding of the theory of evolutuion is that it does try to deal with how T.A.K.Y.T. came about, but if fyron's definition is right, so's he and then i'm not right in saying my theory rules it out.

[ May 17, 2003, 01:36: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Fyron]

T.A.K.Y.T.

Eh?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

thinking and knowing your thinking
and that steel and tin stuff was a metaphor. someone didn't understand that.

[Fyron]

It was not a metaphor as you wrote it. Maybe you intended it to be one, but it wasn't. An analogy, maybe. But, the basis of comparison is poor. For an analogy to work, the items have to be similar already. Intelligence and "better tin" have no similarities. Tin does not "evolve" or anything like that. Tin is tin is tin. It is never worse than tin nor better than tin.

i don't think you can really seperate evolution from beginnings and endings

In that, you are absolutely wrong. Evolution does not address the beginning or the end, only the middle.

[ May 17, 2003, 04:08: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]