Origin of Instinct - Mystery or Created?, page 4
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reply posted on 18-2-2009 @ 05:39 AM by nj2day
reply to post by Heronumber0


Or, it could demonstrate the probability of accumulating those specific mutations...

I think it shows both how rare... and how prolific genetic mutations are... all in one fell swoop...


reply posted on 18-2-2009 @ 06:00 AM by Heronumber0
Originally posted by nj2day
reply to post by Heronumber0


Or, it could demonstrate the probability of accumulating those specific mutations...

I think it shows both how rare... and how prolific genetic mutations are... all in one fell swoop...



nj2day - I don't think so. It shows that the effect of mutations from the genotype to the phenotype (characteristics of disease) is quite a relatively rare event and may be:
a) actively suppressed by the action of genes, including those that keep DNA replication free of flaws, or
b) compensated for by the mutation on one chromosome being covered up by the homologous chromosome,
c) by the mutation hitting a non-coding area of the genome - more of the DNA is non-coding than coding for proteins.

etc... Anyway, I would appreciate your comments on the appearance of instinct in termites or the strange life cycle of the Yucca moth rather than digressing into a sidestreet of human cancer studies.

Thanks


reply posted on 18-2-2009 @ 10:05 AM by Astyanax
reply to post by Heronumber0

Only one problem though, evolution excludes the possibility of dualism, of the ghost in the machine, and therefore forces me to look back to God and His Design again.

nj2day: he's right, y'know.

Hero: this is the big problem for you, isn't it? Can't hack the zombie. But what if it isn't like that at all?


reply posted on 18-2-2009 @ 10:40 AM by nj2day
Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Heronumber0

Only one problem though, evolution excludes the possibility of dualism, of the ghost in the machine, and therefore forces me to look back to God and His Design again.

nj2day: he's right, y'know.

Hero: this is the big problem for you, isn't it? Can't hack the zombie. But what if it isn't like that at all?
\

hehe, yah, I know evolution excludes that... but a discussion on dualism doesn't really fall into an evolutionary debate... its more philosophy...


reply posted on 18-2-2009 @ 11:31 AM by Heronumber0
reply to post by nj2day


NJ2DAY - I am freely admitting my doubts about how instinct originated. That is the way I choose to play it because I don't think the scientists know the answers either. Asty is right and he has done a good job for moving out of his specialism to address the subject. Melatonin has referred to Science and has done a splendid job but has no idea how a non -survival based mutation to do with a FAP can offer up a selective advantage.

To summarise the points for those just casually reading this thread, I think this may suffice as an okay summary:

1. Hormones are involved in instinct - agreed upon.

2. The environment is involved in instinctive responses - agreed upon (e.g photoperiod).

3. The brain is involved in instinctive reponses - agreed upon. Transplant of neural tubes from one bird species to another will transplant the instinctive behaviour. Very interesting.

4. Single gene knockout can change instinct - I don't entirely agree. The changes seem to affect a number of genes similar to the cascade of genes affected in Professor Behe's cascade of clotting factors.

5. How does a behaviour become fixed in the brain as an instinct? - No one knows but there have been a lot of speculations and the Selectionist agenda has been pushed at me time and again. I just cannot personally find the evidence compelling and as a result, I have learned loads of new things but the choice is still there - God + evolution is untenable because all Abrahamic religions depend on the centrality of the soul as being accountable for the trial of life.

Thank you to all those who have made their contributions so far. nj2day I will answer you in time.


reply posted on 18-2-2009 @ 12:09 PM by Astyanax
Originally posted by Heronumber0
Asty is right and he has done a good job for moving out of his specialism to address the subject.

This is worth a hundred stars. Thank you most humbly.

I don't actually have a specialism. I'm a writer. We're generalists.

Single gene knockout can change instinct - I don't entirely agree. The changes seem to affect a number of genes similar to the cascade of genes affected in Professor Behe's cascade of clotting factors.

This is a key reservation. But look: mutations come from all over. Their causes must certainly vary enormously in the intensity and locality of their effect. Some will affect a cascade of genes, some only one.

But I think we've talked ourselves to a standstill, melatonin, you and I. Our positions are clear, our arguments fully unspooled, we understand each other's reservations and of course we'll never agree: this for reasons I might describe as - and this is applicable to any and all of us - psychological.

And so, nj2day, when you say

Originally posted by nj2day
but a discussion on dualism doesn't really fall into an evolutionary debate... its more philosophy...

I would agree and say, why not? Look, Hero has already preceded us:

God + evolution is untenable because all Abrahamic religions depend on the centrality of the soul as being accountable for the trial of life.

If banns were being read, this would qualify as a second reading. So what about it, Hero? Care to answer the question I posed in my earlier post?

So long as we don't bore melatonin. And anybody else who hasn't left us to it and tuned out yet.

[edit on 18-2-2009 by Astyanax]


reply posted on 18-2-2009 @ 08:47 PM by nj2day
reply to post by Astyanax


Sorry Asty, I scrolled up and looked, and can't see what question you are referring to...

I'd be happy to give the best answer I can... typically if I don't know an answer, it gives me chances to read lol much like hero's post earlier

If i'm readin' i'm learnin'... and so far, I haven't found any type of learning thats bad

I'll be honest though... I'd be more comfortable giving the types of responses you two have if I had more advanced biology... or perhaps a better understanding of neurology... but I'm game :p



reply posted on 19-2-2009 @ 07:41 AM by Heronumber0
reply to post by Astyanax


Asty, you are right again, I can't hack the idea of Zombies, of sentient meat, communicating with each other in the way they do. I see what you are getting at but this is where Divine Revelation comes in surely? I have problems about the origin and development of human consciousness and human language by evolutionary processes. They seem to my eyes to be a unique endowment to humanity and, as a consequence, I believe in a ghost in the machine. I think we discussed these points to a standstill though.

I could be wrong, of course, but then this is where the personal aspect of religion kicks in. I have seen, in front of my eyes, things happening which seem to confirm the presence of what I would call metaphysical Laws - every bit as fixed and impersonal as the Law of Gravity but nevertheless permeate our world to remind us of the presence of God. So, I don't know, but I have Hope.

nj2day - I have thought about the range of what I would term as social instinct in chimpanzees. However, I would hesitate to call it morality. Morality is a human construct; these animals are acting through instinct. There is no thought of reward or punishment from a Divine (or peer group) source. The consciousness in these animals is not the same as humans but we are transplanting our characteristics on to them. A dog may wiggle its butt, but its not dancing the Twist - right?

It would seem that there would be far more to gain from species that are entirely selfish and robotic, to allow their genes to be passed on to future generations. You would think that bacteria show no cooperation between each other yet even they seem to take part in sexual conjugation and the R-plasmid DNA allows resistance to antibiotic to be spread through different bacterial species.

However, there are, again, three arguments for 'moral' instincts in animals IMHO:

1. There is a Darwinian development and Natural Selection for social instincts in animals that form social groups - so they act contrary to a selfish nature and adopt a culture of altruistic behaviours which may be negative for individual animals but will ensure that the genes survive in subsequent groups. As a consequence, all animals in social groups have these genes. This then needs a genetic study to confirm this hypothesis.

or,

2. God made the Law of Natural Selection and fixed animal traits and instincts only allowing minor changes through the generations.

or,

3. God set all the switches on for Creation, set a Big Bang cooking and then walked out of the kitchen allowing His Creation to proceed and evolve on its own with periodic interventions of Divine Revelation. He left His Laws, physical and metaphysical to proceed but allows evil and good to proceed as they wish because each person must have the impression that he/she has Free Will.

I think BigWhammy summarised it beautifully when he mentioned the following:

Within the confines of naturalism and materialism there is no rational reason why the laws of physics that work on earth should also apply to the stars trillions of light years away. In like fashion, there is absolutely no logical necessity for a universe that even obeys laws, let alone one that abides by the rules of human conceived mathematics. For as the example given by Einstein above concerning Newton’s gravity shows it is not merely the fact that that the universe is intelligible that is amazing, it is the mathematical nature of that comprehensibility which is even more miraculous.

Atheistic scientists today take for granted the idea that the universe operates according to humanly comprehensible laws. They have conveniently forgotten the bedrock of faith science is founded upon. Naturalism and materialist philosophies do not account for a rational universe. The idea of a rational universe was first invented by the pre-Socratic Greeks like Pythagoras. However the concept was quickly stamped out by the pagan God worship of most Greeks who most believed the Gods controlled the universe at their ever dramatic whims. That being the case, from where can we trace the origin of this modern scientific faith in the rational intelligibility of the universe? History points to Christianity. In Science and the Modern World Alfred North Whitehead concludes that "faith in the possibility of science ... is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.”


Science Meet Your Maker- The Big W




[edit on 19/2/2009 by Heronumber0]


reply posted on 23-2-2009 @ 02:43 AM by Astyanax
Originally posted by Heronumber0
There are... three arguments for 'moral' instincts in animals IMHO:

1. There is a Darwinian development and Natural Selection for social instincts in animals that form social groups - so they act contrary to a selfish nature and adopt a culture of altruistic behaviours which may be negative for individual animals but will ensure that the genes survive in subsequent groups. As a consequence, all animals in social groups have these genes. This then needs a genetic study to confirm this hypothesis.

or,

2. God made the Law of Natural Selection and fixed animal traits and instincts only allowing minor changes through the generations.

or,

3. God set all the switches on for Creation, set a Big Bang cooking and then walked out of the kitchen allowing His Creation to proceed and evolve on its own with periodic interventions of Divine Revelation. He left His Laws, physical and metaphysical to proceed but allows evil and good to proceed as they wish because each person must have the impression that he/she has Free Will.

And what kind of a study will we need, Hero, to confirm either of the last two hypotheses? You see the problem, I trust. You refuse to accept the best scientific hypothesis without a molecular-genetic study of a type which (as you know very well) current science is incapable of furnishing; you ignore the very strong support for the hypothesis from ethology and population genetics. But you are only too happy to propose two other hypotheses, the first - in spite of your protestations - thoroughly discredited, the second unfalsifiable. I don't believe either hypothesis will fly for a minute.

I think BigWhammy summarised it...


Please check your u2u's, Hero.

Atheistic scientists today take for granted the idea that the universe operates according to humanly comprehensible laws.

This is not, in fact, taken for granted. It is a working hypothesis. It is based on logical induction and supported by millennia of empirical proof, so it's a very, very strong one - but it is still a hypothesis and there are many, especially in physics, who recognize this.

If the hypothesis is ever disproved we should have to stop doing fundamental science altogether, shouldn't we?

The idea of a rational universe was first invented by the pre-Socratic Greeks like Pythagoras. However the concept was quickly stamped out by the pagan God worship of most Greeks who most believed the Gods controlled the universe at their ever dramatic whims.

What rubbish, Hero. Of course the rabble will always believe in the gods. However, Greek rationalism, far from being stamped out, survived to influence culture in the Roman Empire, particularly in what one might call the Alexandrian world, and through this Christianity. The majority of scholars agree that such is the case. The Christianity you tout is not merely a desert faith from Palestine; it is also the longest-surviving conduit of Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas to succeeding cultures.

The theory that science is the bastard offspring of mediaeval Christian scholasticism is typical of the obscurantist rubbish peddled by the member whose name you mentioned above. It is, of course, a complete lie.

Addendum



He left His Laws, physical and metaphysical to proceed but allows evil and good to proceed as they wish because each person must have the impression that he/she has Free Will.

So God is neither good nor merciful, but condones the existence of evil purely in order to deceive humanity?

Ugh.

[edit on 23-2-2009 by Astyanax]
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