Cockroaches and Evolution

Corcaigh · June 24, 2008

The pressures of Extremeskins skeptics have forced me to evolve, and be more efficient via cut and paste.

A perfect example. This species thrives in this hostile environment though adaptation.

By the way, implying that evangelicals are ****roaches was in no way intended as an insult to ****roaches

joeknows · June 24, 2008

What does William Tyndale have to do with anything?

merely to show that the bible is NOT infallable because he himself made some "adjustments" to his versions of the first bible to be distributed outside of the church.....

prior to tyndale only church elders had copies of the bible.... its how they controlled the masses......

the point being is that if tyndale has the ability to change and distribute a bible then how many times has it been changed to meet the current days needs?

techboy · June 24, 2008

merely to show that the bible is NOT infallable because he himself made some "adjustments" to his versions of the first bible to be distributed outside of the church.....
prior to tyndale only church elders had copies of the bible.... its how they controlled the masses......

the point being is that if tyndale has the ability to change and distribute a bible then how many times has it been changed to meet the current days needs?

And how do you know about these hypothetical changes?

Exactly. The literally thousands of Greek manuscripts, spread across vast areas, which we have to compare.

Which is exactly how we know that the texts of the New Testament we have today are virtually identical (Dr. Wallace puts it at about 98%) to the originals, with most unresolved issues being things like grammar or spelling, and no essential doctrine effected.

You can speculate all you want about sinister agents changing things for their own selfish ends, but the fact is that we have so many manuscripts, from so many areas, so early, that such changes just don't stand anymore. This is not William Tyndale's day, and we're not working from just 2 or 3 Greek manuscripts.

To put it bluntly, believe what you want, but the best scholarship of the day says you're wrong (as I cited in the link as well as in this thread).

You might as well believe that the Earth is 6000 years old for all the support you have in the academic community.

techboy · June 24, 2008

By the way, implying that evangelicals are ****roaches was in no way intended as an insult to ****roaches

I was about to be nice and write something congenial like "Hey... I went there first", you ****. :laugh:

Corcaigh · June 25, 2008

I was about to be nice and write something congenial like "Hey... I went there first", you ****. :laugh:

It was too obvious to resist to this simple, nasty mind.

ChocolateCitySkin · June 25, 2008

Well for one, they don't all stop with the exact same adaptations, hence the various genus of ****roach. Each branch of the species will adapt to it's own environment or it will cease to exist. Survival of the fittest.
As far as how fast it occurs, I'd say that depends on the organism and the adaptation. For example, bacteria are now evolving themselves to be immune to the vaccines and medicines that we humans created only a few generations ago. That's pretty fast.

But in the case of an animal, the animals in any given environment are there because they are the product of the single cells evolving over a long period of time to try to get to the top of the food chain.

it's a perplexing question as to the missing link, it's one of the biggest ones mankind has been ever trying to answer.

One day we'll either know, or we won't, I guess.

They say red-haired people have a genetic link to Neanderthal man. That would be interesting, considering I have red hair. (With the ever fashionable bone tied in it, of course!)

I also believe that evolution can be coaxed. Humans for example have very complex brains and the ability to reason. However, are our minds identical to a man living 10,000 years ago? If so, why could he only comprehend the flint and spear, why didn't he figure out microprocessors and space flight? The Romans created huge aqueducts, paved roads, all sorts of things, why no radio, or even electricity? The raw elements for both are there.

By continuing to learn and push our limitations, have we not evolved ourselves by educating ourselves and learning about what is around us?

I believe we continue to evolve. We may look the same, but we're not. Modern man is much taller on average than he was just 200 years ago. (And we were even before we started eating and drinking hormone injected meat and milk) Our ingenuity and learning capacity is staggering in comparison to any age in history. Our evolution will continue and is progressing faster and faster. Our minds have invented and our hands have created technology that will carry us beyond what we can't even imagine today.

We have created technology and learned enough about nutrition that our bodies can be brought to the peak of human conditioning.. would one of the first Olympians even make a modern team in any event?

Let's say you could bring Galileo back to life, could even he comprehend what he sees? Or would it drive him insane if you just tried to explain to him how the internet works?

For that matter, what would his body do from the sudden assault of radio waves, cel waves, radar waves, etc? The air is filled with radiations that simply did not exist in his time. What would happen?

Are we humans the same creature as the Roman, the Sumerian, the Cro Magnon? Or are we more?

~Bang

Not to be rude but huh?

Galileo would be just fine. Neuroplasticity albeit requires repetition -- is your friend.

As per why did stuff the romans discovery become lost technology -- if the technology is not a necessity for the masses at the time its discovered(see: disc of phaidon) it can easily disappear.

ChocolateCitySkin · June 25, 2008

If I recall correctly, scientists (?) have speculated that at the end of the last ice age there were only a few thousand humans left. (If I recall correctly) There were a lot more than a few thousand right around the pyramids time.
As for the explosion in human population, that's attributable to the development of agriculture, fire (and thus, metal weapons to kill off our competition), and language (basis of reasoning and sophisticated social order).

Heres a guy that looked at population theory.

Malthus's expectations of growth in population

More from wiki

Evolutionary history and relationships

Mantodea, Isoptera, and Blattaria are usually combined by entomologists into a higher group called Dictyoptera. Current evidence strongly suggests that termites have evolved directly from true ****roaches, and many authors now consider termites to be a family of ****roaches[2][3], as Blattaria excluding Isoptera is not a monophyletic group[1].

Historically, the name Norman has been used largely interchangeably with the name Blattodea, though in most recent treatments, the latter name refers to a larger grouping that includes numerous fossil groups that were related to roaches, but not true ****roaches themselves. Another name, Blattoptera has come into use for this same paraphyletic group[4]. These earliest ****roach-like fossils ("Blattopterans" or "roachids") are from the Carboniferous period between 354–295 million years ago. However, these fossils differ from modern ****roaches in having long ovipositors and are the ancestors of mantids as well as modern ****roaches. The first fossils of modern ****roaches with internal ovipositors appear in the early Cretaceous.

Bang · June 25, 2008

Not to be rude but huh?
Galileo would be just fine. Neuroplasticity albeit requires repetition -- is your friend.

As per why did stuff the romans discovery become lost technology -- if the technology is not a necessity for the masses at the time its discovered(see: disc of phaidon) it can easily disappear.

Isn't Neuroplasticity a fancy word for 'coaxing evolution'?

As we've learned more our capacity for learning and what we're able to do with our new knowledge has increased. So are our brains further developed as a result, or are we no more intelligent than the ancient Egyptians?

As far as necessity being the reason for these innovations or evolutions in thinking, why was it only relatively recent in human history that we've begun to conquer disease?

The Romans were conquerors, yet invented no guns or anything that would make their job easier except for the hand weapons of their era.

The raw elements for gun powder, for radio communication, they were all there, yet they never thought of them, even with the necessity of maintaining a far flung empire right there. I

They believed that the sun was pulled across the sky in a chariot, that the stars were holes in the shroud of night. Now space flight is a reality, we have an eye in orbit that can see as far as we're able. Their beliefs are humorously childish when compared to our modern knowledge.

The thing I'm saying is that we've taken the same things that were available to earlier incarnations of ourselves and made wondrous things of them, especially in the last 150 years or so. (Shoot, just the last 50 years have seen exponential development of our knowledge, technology, and grasp of understanding things that used to be nothing more than the fantasies of science fiction writers. Why is it we've progressed so far in such a short period of time, when our predecessors took centuries to invent the wheel?

We've coaxed our own evolution by continually challenging ourselves, and always looking for something new.

~Bang

PokerPacker · June 25, 2008

Isn't Neuroplasticity a fancy word for 'coaxing evolution'?
As we've learned more our capacity for learning and what we're able to do with our new knowledge has increased. So are our brains further developed as a result, or are we no more intelligent than the ancient Egyptians?

As far as necessity being the reason for these innovations or evolutions in thinking, why was it only relatively recent in human history that we've begun to conquer disease?

The Romans were conquerors, yet invented no guns or anything that would make their job easier except for the hand weapons of their era.

The raw elements for gun powder, for radio communication, they were all there, yet they never thought of them, even with the necessity of maintaining a far flung empire right there. I

They believed that the sun was pulled across the sky in a chariot, that the stars were holes in the shroud of night. Now space flight is a reality, we have an eye in orbit that can see as far as we're able. Their beliefs are humorously childish when compared to our modern knowledge.

The thing I'm saying is that we've taken the same things that were available to earlier incarnations of ourselves and made wondrous things of them, especially in the last 150 years or so. (Shoot, just the last 50 years have seen exponential development of our knowledge, technology, and grasp of understanding things that used to be nothing more than the fantasies of science fiction writers. Why is it we've progressed so far in such a short period of time, when our predecessors took centuries to invent the wheel?

We've coaxed our own evolution by continually challenging ourselves, and always looking for something new.

~Bang

I think that is about societal evolution rather than actual biological evolution. take a modern day person (as a baby) and put them in the ancient Roman or Greek societies and they'll fit right in.

ChocolateCitySkin · June 25, 2008

Neuroplasticity is the ability for our brain to form new neurons and make new connections past child hood. Our brain is incredibly capable and adaptable to new circumstances and generating new creative thoughts later in life provided the environment is stimulating. Now it gets a little bit fuzzy because a stimulating environment can be a buddhist meditating or a scientists reading a book or a hiker wandering through a forest. But, plasticity itself has the prerequisite of repitition of said action in order for the new neurons to form.

The only things that I would consider for ancient man vs. modern man to adapt would be linguistic accents. It seems that accents are the one thing that the human brain can't truly adapt later in life.

In addition, you also have to factor where a memory goes in the brain -- for example, playing a instrument, driving a car, walking all fall under procedural memory. It's a skill set that needs to be trained so it can be done unconsciously -- otherwise, we'd be a mess if we thought about every action we take (although, there is a form of meditation where one is supposed to be completely aware of every action and take note that one takes)

Also, remember that philosophers and scientists alike during the roman empire believed the universe to be composed of earth, water, fire and air. While this model was perfectly suitable for their time period it didn't allow for the technological innovations and a general understand of elements and compositions of things. It wasn't until the collective knowledge accepted elements that the next step could be made in research.

I kinda come from Fuller's school of thought that tools represent an extension of ourselves and all we have is become better at making such tools. I.E. A cup first was your hands and then was made from stone and ceramic and so on -- however, the basic theory of the cup remains the same.

On the fundamental level we haven't really done anything "new" just extended our tools further.

I guess what I'm getting at is that a generally accepted theory is kinda what drives innovation and technology. I mean if the evangelicals school of thought ruled -- we wouldn't have things like nuclear technology because it requires a disbelief in certain fundamental principals (quantum mechanics).

Take for example when we started truly combating diseases is when we "believed" that clean linens and soap had a strong correlation to removing those elements. It's not that we knew of the existence of germs just saw the correlation and so on we went to posit the theory.

But, these theories and beliefs I don't see as following a straight path I see brilliant people come up with equally brilliant ideas only to disappear and reappear years later. Take for example string theory (while I don't really understand it) string theory was largely abandoned until recently because scientists have unable to make observable leaps in quantum mechanics (btw string theory kicks ass i wanna meet a two-dimensional being)

Okay, I'm rambling... hope this sorta makes sense.

joeknows · June 25, 2008

Shoot, just the last 50 years have seen exponential development of our knowledge, technology, and grasp of understanding things that used to be nothing more than the fantasies of science fiction writers. Why is it we've progressed so far in such a short period of time, when our predecessors took centuries to invent the wheel?

We've coaxed our own evolution by continually challenging ourselves, and always looking for something new.

~Bang

reverse engineering at are 51? :whoknows:

DCSaints_fan · June 25, 2008

Isn't Neuroplasticity a fancy word for 'coaxing evolution'?
As we've learned more our capacity for learning and what we're able to do with our new knowledge has increased. So are our brains further developed as a result, or are we no more intelligent than the ancient Egyptians?

In a biological sense, probably not. We are more "intelligent" because we are able to draw on the accumulated knowledge of our ancestors.

As far as necessity being the reason for these innovations or evolutions in thinking, why was it only relatively recent in human history that we've begun to conquer disease?

We needed good optics to even know that those tiny little microbes existed, which wasn't invented until around 1600. Not sure why it took biologists nearly 300 years to figure out that they were the primary carriers of diseases. (Paging PeterMP :silly: ).

The Romans were conquerors, yet invented no guns or anything that would make their job easier except for the hand weapons of their era.

The raw elements for gun powder, for radio communication, they were all there, yet they never thought of them, even with the necessity of maintaining a far flung empire right there. I

They believed that the sun was pulled across the sky in a chariot, that the stars were holes in the shroud of night. Now space flight is a reality, we have an eye in orbit that can see as far as we're able. Their beliefs are humorously childish when compared to our modern knowledge.

Well the Greeks figured out alot of stuff(Aristarchus of Samos beat Copernicus to the heliocentric theory by ~1500 years), but alot of that knowledge got lost when the Great Library in Alexandria was burned to the ground circa 400 AD heralding the onset of the 'Dark Ages' in Europe (the Arabs did later pick up some of the slack) . The reason the knowledge was 'lost' was in large part I believe, due to a lack of a printing press (see below). Making copies was still expensive. The Greeks had no paper like the Chinese did, they had to use cruder things like parchment and vellum, which was not easy to produce or use.

The thing I'm saying is that we've taken the same things that were available to earlier incarnations of ourselves and made wondrous things of them, especially in the last 150 years or so. (Shoot, just the last 50 years have seen exponential development of our knowledge, technology, and grasp of understanding things that used to be nothing more than the fantasies of science fiction writers. Why is it we've progressed so far in such a short period of time, when our predecessors took centuries to invent the wheel?

In terms of the last 150 years you have a couple things going:

1) Farming became much more efficient and started requiring a lot less labor, which freed up more people to engage in scholarly/industrious pursuits. The steel plow was a big one I believe, and in general the emergence of mechanized farming equipment which meant you didn't need huge amounts of labor to plow, irrigate, harvest, etc. with few exceptions (e.g. there are still people who pick strawberries all day long, because we haven't developed a machine that can do it more efficiently)

2) Alot of inventions seem to have this snowball effect and synergy with other inventions, leading to this sort of exponential growth. For example, I above mentioned how advances in biology would not have been possible without the development of microscopes. The steam engine was another big one. Without it, you don't build railroads, without railroads, you don't get the industrial revolution. Without a fundamental understanding of electricity, how to produce it and control it, would not have enabled the telegraph, electric lighting, the telephone, radio, television, etc. The development of the transistor would be another. As any electrical engineer would probably tell you, everything we've done in the past 40 or so years to advance the field of computing looks like baby steps compared to that single invention.

We've coaxed our own evolution by continually challenging ourselves, and always looking for something new.

~Bang

You seem to be confusing what Richard Dawkins has called 'memetic evolution' with biological evolution. As with species, human societies seem to have a 'survial of the fittest' with respect to culture/ideas. But the big difference is that culture can be the result of a significant amount of 'horizontal' transfer (your siblings/cousins) as well as 'vertical' transfer (your parents). The English language, for instance, is part of the Germanic or Teutonic family. Yet we've imported tons of words from Latin, French, Spanish, etc. which aren't Germanic languages.

If you're really interested in this stuff, you might want to check out 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. I actually have only read parts of it, but have heard it is quite good.

ChocolateCitySkin · June 25, 2008

^^agree Guns, Germs and Steel -- Thats where I got my Phaidon Disc reference (the actual first printed object circa 3,000bc

The only thing I disagree with is you say "accumulated knowledge" and I say "accepted theoretical beliefs." Newtonian physics falls apart on a quantum level but its quite functional at larger scales. I say the beliefs actually support the technology not the knowledge. Example, the pope asks astronomers to not look into what was before the big bang b.c. thats god realm. Belief impacting theory quite simply. Although I think the church needs to stay outta science cuz the more we study our universe the more theoretical support for a divine circumstance.

Big Mac Patty Wack · June 29, 2008

Evolution doesn't exist. God created the world. They may be reconcilable, but I don't believe in it anyway. Too many things had to go right.

PeterMP · June 29, 2008

Evolution doesn't exist. God created the world. They may be reconcilable, but I don't believe in it anyway. Too many things had to go right.

So you bumped to old thread to essentially spew the same ignorant garbage:

http://aac.asm.org/cgi/content/full/46/2/267

Cockroaches and Evolution

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