Evolution and Sex.

a reply to: Nothin

observations you say !

would those be observations which would appear objective to humans ?

a reply to: cooperton

If evolution isn't real , and chromosomes don't fuse in nature

then how do we account for the large variation in species of life which share most of the DNA to a certain degree

saying that chromosomal fusion doesn't happen , what is the alternative , without saying GOD or aliens

what is the alternative scientific theory to evolution ?
is there even a competing theory or is science pretty much happy that the evidence firmly points towards something not unlike evolution ?

a reply to: sapien82

Hi Sapian.
Good catch if you had watched the vid posted by Arbitrageur about what an 'observer' may be considered to be, as far as interpreting QM goes.
If you didn't watch: sorry then, was just me extrapolating my own experience of having just watched it.

Have added that line to my sig for now, so that the good folks don't take these words too seriously.

In this context: was using 'observations' in a subjective meaning.
Your mileage may vary... LoL !

Back to the subject: Did you know that folks are now attempting to use Sex™, to evolve themselves into a 2.0 ?
Shocking ! Isn't it ?

originally posted by: cooperton
Observation of the slit (via a measuring device) is the variable that determines whether or not a photon behaves like a wave or a particle. This leads towards the conclusion that it is human consciousness, with the extension of a human-made observation device.

No, it doesn't as explained in the paper I linked to and in the video by Sean Carroll.

Explain in your own words using quotes from the paper.

The paper is technical and I've had many years of training in physics to understand it which can't be duplicated in a single post, so if you can't understand it that's fine but for your request of simplification, that's what the video by Sean Carrol was for, to explain that anything can be an observer if it causes a wave function collapse, and that can include non-man-made things like a rock, as Carroll explained. Here is some further explanation from a less technical source than the technical paper:

Follow-Up #5: confusion between the uncertainty principle and the observer effect

Q: There's a lot of confusion between the uncertainty principle and the observer effect, leading to the new age, nonsensical claim that we can willfully create the world around us by altering our thoughts. So, to be clear (because there's a lot of conflicting info out there), when we talk about "observing" an electron and thereby changing its state, we're talking about using equipment to measure it, not simply observing with the naked eye, right?
- Ian (age 29)
California

A:
Right, we have no indication at all that interaction with conscious beings (e.g. us) does something different than interaction with any other large object in which some record is left of the results. Of course, the only events we are aware of are those of which we are aware, but we can leave that worry for the philosophers. At any rate, the structure of quantum mechanics, in particular its violation of the Bell Inequalities, would run into big trouble if the random outcomes of quantum events were influenced by any local variable, including human will.

So you're right on all your key points...

Follow-Up #7: Unconscious observers

Q:
Has the double-slit experiment ever been done with animals, birds, insects or other creatures "watching"/"not watching", AND also without any man-made recording devices turned on ("watching")? If so, what were the results of having ONLY non-human conscious beings "watching"/"not watching", who presumably don't even know that they are "watching"/"not watching" anything?
- Marshall Curtis (age 59)
Bellevue WA USA

A:
Any measurement process that has a permanent effect on the system of interest causes the collapse of the wavefunction to a particular state, regardless of whether/how the results are interpreted by a human being.

As Carroll mentioned in the video on observers, a non-human made rock can make an "observation" of a particle such as when a photon strikes it, the photon is no longer in a superposition of states after striking the rock. They also mention they are aware of people trying to imply some magic of consciousness to take advantage of the complexity of the topic and resulting confusion:

As is common in cases of confusion, some people use the occasion to claim to be the center of the universe and to have magical powers. Other people buy it.

But it will always remain the same essential thing. It will never become something other than the essential form that makes it a wolf.

We already see large diversity in appearance and genetics, and the selective breeding has probably been happening less than 40,000 years. Try to think of the divergence continuing on longer time scales and for an ordinary person it should be apparent how this may lead to diversified species given enough time and generations, but I fear your bias will prevent you from seeing how much the diversity can increase on longer time scales.

Despite millions of generations of attempting to evolve a fruit fly, they still remain fruit flies.

Biologists claim to have observed speciation in the laboratory:

Biologists Watch Speciation in a Laboratory Flask

Biologists have discovered that the evolution of a new species can occur rapidly enough for them to observe the process in a simple laboratory flask...

“With these experiments, no one can doubt whether speciation occurs,” Meyer added.

Should Meyer have added "no one except for ATS member cooperton"?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

So as I understand it , the very act of measurement of a quantum event collapses the wave function
thus no conscious observer is required in order for this to happen.

A sensor or a device designed to take measurements for human enquiry is all that is required to collapse the wave function to give a result.

So if consciousness is not required , and all that is required of an observer is a measurement
then how can an inanimate object like a rock act as an observer if it was not designed to measure anything
for human enquiry but is a natural formation . or is it that the rock is interacting with the environment through physical and chemical processes does this mean its making measurements in rock type way.

Its interaction at quantum level that causes the collapse of the wave function !

So any interaction from any matter at a quantum level is the act of observation

it is likely then that something in an upper dimension was interacting with the singularity and caused the big bang
its just that we couldnt see that happening as its outwith our realm of enquiry at present.

I think if there is any species that will evolve into another in the shortest time it will be a beetle

because there are more beetles on earth than any other species

originally posted by: sapien82
then how can an inanimate object like a rock act as an observer if it was not designed to measure anything

Interaction with the environment is sufficient to collapse the wave function. When Quantum Mechanics was developed about a century ago we knew about the so called "measurement problem" but we've made some progress in the last century understanding how decoherence works. I don't know if this will make sense since it's from an advanced course in quantum mechanics, but it explains how the wave functions can be collapsed by the environment without any particular measurement being made, in effect even the molecules of air can play the role of observer, or rocks or plenty of other things without any consciousness.

stahlke.org/dan/publications/qm652-project.pdf

Decoherence attempts to explain the transition from quantum to classical by analyzing the interaction of a system with a measuring device or with the environment. It is convenient to imagine a quantum mechanical particle or system of particles as an isolated system floating in empty space. This simplification may be fine in some cases but in the real world there is no such thing as an isolated system. Typically a particle in flight will collide with air molecules or will emit thermal radiation that gets absorbed by the environment. Any interaction with the environment leads to an entanglement between the particle's state and the environment's state. As the entanglement diffuses throughout the environment the total state can no longer be separated into the direct product of a particle state and an environment state. What was once a superposition of particle states becomes a superposition of particle X environment states. At this point the particle ceases to act as if it were in a quantum superposition of states, instead acting as a statistical ensemble of states.

The end result of the decoherence process is that the particle will appear to have collapsed in a manner described by the Born probability law...

Decoherence tends to happen on an extremely fast timescale in most situations. The decoherence rate depends on several factors including temperature, uncertainty in position, and number of particles surrounding the system. Temperature affects the rate of blackbody radiation ­ each radiated photon will interact with the environment. Uncertainty in position tends to create a wide range of interaction energies and thus a rapid spread in vector components. The number of particles in the surroundings affects the rate at which interactions can happen. The rule of thumb is that decoherence occurs when the environment gains enough information to learn something about an observable. In any case it takes only a few interactions before a system has become completely decoherent. A single collision with an air molecule is enough to cause a chain reaction of decoherence as the collision molecule in turn collides with its neighbors.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Yeh I think I get what you mean .

So essentially nothing is in its own "isolated system"

as I understand from David Bohm's view that we look at everything as if it were its own isolated system

when in actual fact the whole universe is one entire system

SO given that everything is always in a state of flux and interaction
then the whole system is essentially entangled and constantly collapsing wave function.
the singularity that gave rise to the big bang, must have been interacting with matter in another dimension in order for it to produce reality

Just thinking a bit more about this and is this how spooky action at a distance would work for FTL comms

you remove all observers in an isolated system in a vacuum , introduce two photons , which interact and entangle , then separate the two photons , then induce a state on one photon and gives the same on the other , wouldnt this be FTL communication ?

Sorry I am going off topic

The Thread is about Evolution and sex. No can answer the male and female part when it comes to evolution.

How often do apes have litters of offspring?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Does a virus have male and female bits?

a reply to: TheSkunk

there must be an evolutionary advantage to sex ,
it must provide a greater opportunity for viable offspring or a greater chance of genetic diversity , disease resistance
rather than having a single organism reproduce via parthenogenesis

I think that sex provides a greater probability of passing on genetic information
it was the next best step in evolutionary terms to ensure the passing of genetic information.

Looks like sex beats the other forms of reproduction based on its positive outcomes rather than its negatives

a reply to: sapien82

How do you pass that information from one offspring that has no other breeding partner?

a reply to: TheSkunk

No , a Virus replicates, it doesn't reproduce

it creates a duplicate of itself and so doesnt require sex organs or sex apparatus.

Are you asking how sex differentiation occurred ?

your guess is as good as mine its one of the biggest questions in biology right now

the answer seems to lie with sex being a better method for genetic diversity and protection against mutation.
it has selective advantages over other methods of reproduction.

a reply to: sapien82


Pretty certain that I asked if you have one offspring that changed species How do you get a male and female from that one offspring with different Chromsomes and that is a different Species?

a reply to: TheSkunk

And even if the Egg came before the Chicken or Vice Versa there is still only one chicken in the end.

just so you know the egg came first. chickens came from cross breading jungle fowl. raised on a chicken farm trust me on that.

a wiki cause it's fast,

Galliformes, the class of bird that chickens belong to, is directly linked to the survival of birds when all other dinosaurs went extinct. It was water or ground-dwelling fowl much like modern partridges that survived the fireball wiping out all tree-dwelling birds with the rest of the dinosaurs.[30] Some of these evolved into the modern galliformes, of which domesticated chickens are a main model. They are descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and are scientifically classified as the same species.[31] As such, they can and do freely interbreed with populations of red junglefowl.[31] Recent genetic analysis has revealed that at least the gene for yellow skin was incorporated into domestic birds through hybridization with the grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii).[32]
Chicken

originally posted by: sapien82

then how do we account for the large variation in species of life which share most of the DNA to a certain degree

You would expect mammals to share similar DNA strands. This is because they have similar operating programs, otherwise known as proteins. Take for example lactation, a common trait among all mammals. There are certain genes that are required for this process in mammals, which all mammals would have programmed in them.

All Mac computers have similar programming because they have the same design company.

saying that chromosomal fusion doesn't happen , what is the alternative , without saying GOD or aliens

Intelligence is obviously necessary in the creation. Mathematical formula keeping everything in order, biological avatars harboring intelligence, and so on. It is our good fun to discover the Creator. Whoever finds it unlocks the source code.

originally posted by: TheSkunk
a reply to: sapien82


Pretty certain that I asked if you have one offspring that changed species How do you get a male and female from that one offspring with different Chromsomes and that is a different Species?

From my reply on page 3-

A close look at our genome and the genome of our close relatives reveals that we didn’t. We just combined a couple of them. Every now and then, chromosomes fuse. This fusion occurs as sperm and eggs develop, as pairs of chromosomes fold over each other and swap chunks of DNA. Sometimes two different chromosomes grab onto each other and then fail to separate. Scientists have observed both humans and mammals with fused chromosomes. Chromosomes typically have distinctive stretches of DNA in their center and at their ends. From time to time, scientists will find an individual that’s short a chromosome, but one of the chromosomes it retains now has an odd structure, with chromosome endings near the middle and other peculiar features. This might seem like a fantastic mutation–something like a human and a horse being joined into a centaur. Remarkably, however, fused chromosomes are real, and there are surprising number of normal, healthy people carrying them.

a reply to: peter vlar

They are fused side by side. Not mixed up to create a separate new chromosome.

a reply to: cooperton

yes apparently the creator has a penchant for beetles then !

I was wondering what the competing scientific theory to evolution was if there is any?

saying the creator isnt an answer its an excuse

originally posted by: TheSkunk
a reply to: peter vlar

They are fused side by side. Not mixed up to create a separate new chromosome.

The only way to walk away with your conclusion is to not read any citations or links provided. What I quoted above clearly takes about chromosomal fusion. Or you’re simply misunderstanding all of the science. One or the other. Regardless, you’re entirely incorrect in your own conclusions.