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Dallas the Phallus replied to Dallas the Phallus's discussion The New Words Thread: Things you ran across, remembered, or had to look up in the group A World of Words
Onyango Makagutu replied to Claudia Mercedes Mazzucco's discussion How Would I Have Learned About Hell When I Could Not Conceive Heaven?
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How Would You Describe Evolution?
The nineteenth century witnessed the flowering of the Darwinian concept of evolution as the process of natural change in the bio-physical world. But what do you mean by “evolution’: the natural unfolding of organisms down through the generations, from earlier forms, widely different (a period of growth and change)? Or by “evolution” we mean a natural maturation process, the fulfillment of an organism’s potential to become a new creature. And in any case does evolution signify “progress”?
The path of evolution is the growth of an organism from the microscopical unit cell into a large complicated and diversified organism through a period of time. The difference between the parent cell and its multi-numerous offspring is often very great in design and function, and certainly the resultant organism is of infinitely greater dimensions and diversity than its somewhat undistinguishing originator. When examined, a cell as such, could hardly be able to indicate to us just what sort of an organism if has intentions of becoming.
What is interesting about this picture is the way it illustrates evolution as a developmental from common ancestors. By changing the developmental biology in early species, nature has produced the modern bird (an entirely new creature) and one that, with approximately 10,000 species, is today the most successful group of land vertebrates on the planet.
It would be inherently true, however, that no progress in their features has been achieved. It has only been that the potential bird which was within the Anchisaurus was unfurled into which we know as the modern bird now. What I am saying is this is a not a progressional difference but a changed manifestation. I don’t intend to insinuate that I understand these fields to any extent, but I identify a natural maturation process. To equate therefore evolution as progress would this be illusionary.
Evolution is beyond reasonable doubt. But Darwin never actually used the word “evolution” in the Origin. The last word of the text is “evolved”, and Darwin unambiguously uses his own phrase “descent with modification” which can also be interpreted as “growth” or “maturation.”
The entire universal phenomenon is but a continuous flow of particles with an equal balance between positive and negative charges. And such a system does in no way allow for a progressive alteration of its factors. We, in our folk-ways, state this by saying that each period breeds the seeds for the next period. The seeds are in actuality the bridge which connects the two halves of the balance system.
A period of generative age has been continuing in our universe since recorded historical time and led us to the conclusion that it always would be thusly. But the logic intervenes and says that the seeds of the degenerative period are being now fostered so that the balance of forces in the world will be restored. The cell only matures into a particular organism, which, in generalized terms, we know to be as the parent organism.
Why does the cell find it necessary to mature and will mature into only one prototype? Why should not each germ-cell develop into an organism of completely unique species according to its own inclinations? What connection exists between the original cell and the ultimate conglomeration of cells that causes the one to mature along a definite path to the other?
The answer lies in the concept of potentiality. The minute single germ-cell has a potential to develop into a given organism and therefore cannot deviate from becoming that organism. Thus the cell in its process of maturation to organism is not progressing at all. It is only revealing its potential into an actual. What has possibility to be achieved is achieved.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Daryl on -
Homo Heidelburgensis to Homo Sapiens. If you say ape to man you are only supporting creationists who would make a mockery of evolution.
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Permalink Reply by Claudia Mercedes Mazzucco on -
The causes or autism remain hidden in the obscurity of neurology. But the dysfunction of the "social module" in the autistic brain is an illusion. What is more, I wouldn’t define autism as the incapability of conceiving that other people have minds of their own, because that implies awareness of their existence and only people who are aware of their own minds can conceive the existence of others. Because I don’t know what mind is, I have not the slightest idea that other people have minds of their own.
I, however, was the recipient of a gift. If an author provides a cognitive system, through a book in which all the functions that my left-brain is unable by itself to do are supplied (among them sequential thinking primordially), I could be therefore aware of the existence of other minds. This partnership is exquisitely timed and controlled. So then what should be said is that it is through the author’s mind that my left-brain becomes functional, so as to bring forth the intellectual process in my brain, not so that my brain itself could make this process since it lacks sensation.
And that is how autism starts: the brain cannot process information coming from the senses. The brain is literally set on fire by the sensorial stimulus; everything comes apart, chaos, ensues, terror, horror, in such a way that as a defensive inevitable action the senses are shut-down early in infancy. Before consciousness ever arises, the brain has a choice between being destroyed by an overdose of stimulus or say good-bye to the world. The child is there no more, which explains the display of rigid, obsessive behavior and largely the lack of ability to relate to family members. We could indeed not distinguish between “people” and “objects.” At this point, autism is diagnosed by external observation of the symptoms, not by reports of the autistic person, who is unable to communicate.
So this is then how I would also explain the vagueness of the current criteria for autism and related disorders like Asperger syndrome (which is not autism). This vagueness has contributed largely to the increase in the rate of diagnoses, which has ballooned to one child in 100, according to some estimates. While most professionals know something about autism, they do not necessarily understand how autism affects people; many are in fact acknowledging that they have a limited understanding of autism. This makes it hard for them to recognize the real thing and describe it appropriately.
Now, however, the problem appears when the autistic person would announce her own desire to use her gift to go beyond her own disabilities and attempt the dangerous adventure of acquiring knowledge about the real world. Indeed, today we have two methods which seem to prevail in every explanational situation. The one is evolution and the other is psychology. And paradoxically enough these two major-domos of our civilization are in direct contradiction to each other in their principal suppositions.
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Permalink Reply by zrdm on -
i wouldnt, I just show the Carl Sagan videos on youtube, why would I bother explaining when someone does it so elegantly, beautifully, and non-confrontationally.
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Permalink Reply by Claudia Mercedes Mazzucco on
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This week top news in Cosmos Online related to this particular discussion:
1. The biological basis of religious chastity, Tuesday, 5 June 2012, by Achim Eberhart
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5650/the-biological-basis-religi...
2. Early primates originated in Asia, migrated to Africa, Tuesday, 5 June 2012, by Gemma Black and Ajai Raj
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5651/early-primates-originated-a...
3. Brain's verbal structures also process emotion, Wednesday, 6 June 2012, by Ajai Raj
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5654/brain%E2%80%99s-verbal-stru...
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Permalink Reply by Egan Penney on -
one of the greatest discoveries in science: things that are good at living don't die
this is how i imagine aliens reacting:
"uh... oh, yeah. yeah! good! that's great. how clever of you to figure out such a hard problem. i'll tell you what. we'll put this right up here on the fridge where everyone can see it. how does that sound?"
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