From: John Beckett 

"Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news::
> More ad hominem attacks

I have to plead guilty, but only in the opening paragraph (I didn't think
you'd read any more than that).

> I'd say your reading to date has left you
> pitifully unprepared for a thoughtful discussion on the issues Bob and I are
> attempting to discuss.

Please outline one substantive issue you are attempting to discuss. Is it
correct that you believe that religious faith is somehow equivalent to a
scientific assumption? Is so, please give an example of the kind of
assumption you mean, and an equivalent kind of faith.

> Or to confirm that billions of other solar systems even exist at all.  I'm
> not saying they don't, but right now that's just a reasoned GUESS.

I fully admit that we might all be wired up to the Matrix, and all our
sensory inputs might be illusions.

Or, maybe there are some alien practical jokers who are a million miles
from Earth, and they have erected an elaborate screen where we observe what
we think is the universe (similar to that surprisingly good movie
'The Truman Show').

Or, maybe the scientists who tell us there are billions of solar systems
are just wrong.

Whatever the true situation, I think it is a misuse of the word
"guess" to label as a guess the statement that "billions are
solar systems exist". Scientists think that from good reason. However,
as is common in these kind of debates, I am put in the unfortunate
situation where to do more than wave my hands would involve a couple of
days research, and a couple of hours of explanation about how the universe
is observed.

You, on the other hand, are using complex technology derived from science
to broadcast the opinion that significant parts of science are reasoned
GUESSES (this is not an ad hominem attack - just an explanation for why I
can't keep up with your claims, from comments about alligators to solar
systems).

> The entire paragraph has nothing to do with what I wrote.  You are the only
> one talking about such nonsense as alligator heads on sharks.  The fact is
> that out of one side of your mouth you say evolution is easy, necessary,
> must happen, etc etc yet when is pointed out that sharks and alligators that
> have been around longer than almost any other species have failed to ever
> evolve you start talking nonsense about alligator heads on shark's bodies
> out of the other side of your mouth.

Sorry that I have misunderstood what you were saying about alligators and
sharks. I now think you are saying that these are examples of ancient
creatures, so how come evolution hasn't changed them?

Again, I will have to content myself with the barest outline of the
situation to explain. Once the basic design of an alligator (or a shark)
was achieved, there wasn't much that could be done to improve its
reproductive success. It wouldn't help an alligator if it were intelligent
enough to do calculus. It wouldn't even help much if it could run faster,
or if its teeth were longer/sharper etc (bearing in mind that such
improvements would involve a cost -- producing a faster body leaves less
resources for other things such as reproducing). Alligators are quite
capable of eating just about all their available food (i.e. an alligator
doesn't need greater speed or bigger teeth to get sufficient to eat in
order to reproduce). The quantity of alligators in a river is limited by
the food that wanders into the river -- there is no chain of small, random
changes (where each gives greater reproductive success) that would result
in a better alligator.

If the major sources of alligator food were to evolve defences against
alligator attacks, then alligators would need to evolve to match (or
perhaps evolve to be much smaller so other food is adequate). However,
alligators do not kill enough of their prey to offer any reason for the
prey to need much evolutionary defence.

> Either explain using the scientific method
> why a more intelligent ape hasn't evolved yet in light of your past
> statements about the manifest destiny of evolution or STFU.

Umm. How can I put this Gary? You ARE an intelligent ape!

I suppose you mean, how come (for example), chimpanzees don't progressively
become more intelligent (and maybe less hairy etc), until they have evolved
to be more similar to humans.

You are raising interesting points, but again, I would need to spend maybe
an hour writing in order to offer a reasonable explanation (and I wouldn't
expect anyone to want to read such a lengthy newsgroup posting).

The quick reasons we don't see more intelligence evolve in chimpanzees is
that (1) evolution is so slow that we can't really observe it (maybe chimps
HAVE got more intelligent in the last 10,000 years), and (2)  a more
intelligent chimp would not have greater reproductive success than other
chimps (bearing in mind that every improvement to a body involves some cost
that detracts from some other function).

If point (2) is not correct, then we WILL see more intelligent chimps.
However, we will never see them at a human level because there is only room
for one human-like species on Earth.

I see that you strongly disagree with my comment: "once you get one
dominant species,  you aren't going to get another". I was commenting
on one dominant species occupying a particular ecological niche.

In more detail, my claim is: If there are two species of apes with similar
food and habitat requirements, and if resources are scarce, one group will
become dominant and will displace the other group.

Your comments about Neanderthals don't really account for how the world was
when humans first arose. Originally, "intelligent ape"
populations were measured in many thousands rather than in many millions.
There was plenty of habitat and food (I don't mean that everyone got three
meals a day - you might have not eaten for a week, but you usually got
enough food to reproduce). Under those conditions, it was quite easy to
have a few similar species because one group could live over here, while
another group lived over there -- both groups could evolve quite similar
characteristics because they occupied different areas.

However, once populations grow to mean that habitat or food is scarce,
deadly competition begins. If two groups of apes eat similar stuff and
occupy similar territory, one group is going to displace the other group.
The displacement might be sort-of benign, where it's simply luck that one
group can look after their offspring better, or is smarter (and being
smarter is an advantage in their current environment), or is faster (and
being faster is an advantage). That group might simply outgrow the other
group, so the second group dies off from lack of food or whatever.

Or, the displacement might be due to warfare, where the two groups know
that they each needs the same food and territory, and it is kill or be
killed.

> Weren't dinosaurs dominant before the evolution of dominant mammals?

Yes. It is believed that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a global
catastrophe. That allowed the rather tiny and insignificant mammals of the
time to flourish and later become dominant.

> Sub-question, how does evolution know when that dominant species has
> evolved so it can go on vacation and no longer cause evolution in that or
> other closely related species.

I don't recall you stating whether you believe that the process of
evolution occurs at all (or whether you believe that evolution DOES occur,
but is not a sufficient process to explain life as we see it).

At any rate, evolution is a very simple concept so I'm puzzled why you
would need to ask some of your questions. Taking the last question at face
value, the answer is that evolution never stops. When dinosaurs were
around, any random mutation that made a mammal larger, or active during the
day, or slower etc, was probably punished by extinction due to a dinosaur.
There is simply no way for a mammal to compete with a dinosaur. However,
the different species of dinosaurs evolved, and so did the different
species of mammals -- it's just that any mammal that decided to stand erect
and contemplate the meaning of life would be terminated, so evolution of
mammals in the age of the dinosaurs resulted in animals that were small,
capable of hiding and being active at night, and not needing much food.

If you have any other questions about evolution, please let me know!

John

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