Evolution Definition and 735 Threads

Is there any way to estimate the speed of evolution as it should* work by theory (which means: looking at natural selection and random mutations, as opposed to looking at the fossil record and dating them, reconstructing evolution as it has worked)? Is this completely impossible as of yet? Or...

I am a science fiction writer and I need some help with developing a plausible alien species. The species has to end up technologically advanced. What would be the effect on a species that evolved on a world with 74% nitrogen and 25% oxygen (other gases remaining similar to Earth)? Thanks for...

I'm just wondering is the Darwin theory of evolution is actually acceptable? We were thought to believe about this theory since we were young but as our mind expands with other info I seem to find this theory somewhat false. He states that human origin comes from apes... but if its true why are...

Do the rates of galactic evolution (first 3 billion years) agree in all parts of the observed sky? Or does certain part of evolution vary within the universe by ~1 billion years? Could one part of the sky at redshift z=4 be ~500 million years ahead in evolution than another part of the sky at...

Note from SpaceTiger: This discussion originated in the "what existed before the big bang?" thread. Well put marcus. I think we are on the same page [albeit you are more eloquent] - and I tend toward being brutally blunt. We reside in an OBSERVABLE universe. And, by definition, it includes...

If I have two positive definite Hermitian NxN matrices A and B, if I adiabatically change the components of A to B (constraining any intermediate matrices to be Hermitian as well, but not necessarily positive definite) while \"following\" the eigenvalues ... will the mapping of the eigenvalues...

I am going to attempt to write a story. Future humans have polluted the Earth far beyond repair, and they seek to create/alter humans (not sure yet) to survive in the harsh new climate. For some reason, a scientist is going to design the people like vampires (not sure why yet). Regardless, the...

OK I apologize I did it again and overlooked a point and thus you sparked an interest, thanks. Metabolic Process In oxidations of glucose, as described in respiration, energy is released and is shown to be held within atp’s as reserved energy but we also know this reaction is what gives...

Hello all, First I'd like to say that I'm not a great scientists nor a great thinker. All I do is try to derive a common logic. A few days ago, I had a lesson on "how do mutations affect us." And so I copied all the definitions into my notebook. One of them was 'Germ-line mutation" and...

do they have any role on evolution?

Ok, so evolution is the process in which traits are passed on from generation to generation, and I read the basic mechanisms are natural selection and genetic drift acting on genetic variation created by mutation, sex, and gene flow. What does all that mean, I'm a bit confused with all this...

Because Bacteria evolve far faster than humans, bacteria would be ideal for testing evolution. If you isolate one bacteria population from another after a while they should evolve into different species, right? Actually, I have heard this test has already been carried out but is this true? If...

A philosophy that underpins many approaches to understanding quantum mechanics (the many worlds interpretation in particular, but collapse models and other related ideas also) is that continuous Schroedinger evolution is somehow `nicer', `preferred', or `more fundamental' than the "damned...

ok, some stuff doesn't make sense to me, so i'll just sum up all i know... maybe it will clear things up, and i'll mark the parts I am unsure of\want clearification on. for your convenience i'll write numbers for each remark so you can just write the number and your response to it. at first...

Great "why?"s of evolution. We know what happened in evolution - about how cells formed, became eukaryotes. then clumped together, became vertebrates (fish,) amphibians and reptiles, who evolved into mammals and birds. But... why? What was the point of coming out of water? What caused these...

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Stellar evolution modeling is a science that, to put it charitably, plods along. Here is one of the more interesting papers I've seen in awhile: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601502 Stellar evolution of massive stars at very low metallicities

How has Creationism compensated and compromised itself in the face of irrefutable scientific evidence over the past 150 years? Will there come a day when all scientific discovery is alternatively "explained" for zealots in terms of the fundamentalist premise of Scripture, rivaling the...

I was just thinking today that I remember hearing that some insects like ladybugs and monarch butterflies are poisonous to birds that eat them. I got around to wondering how such a trait could evolve. The thing is that, while I see how being poisonous is advantageous to ladybugs in general, I...

Something I read promoting intelligent design states that science is disproving the connection between chimps and people. Now I read a science article on the matter and it states that the base pairs compare and there is about 1 or 2 % difference, but of the actual genes they are as much as 80%...

I have been thinking of the evolution of the human race over time. Obviously, environmental factors have prevented those with detrimental traits from passing them on, bringing us to our current form. However, with the amount of technological advances in our current time and in the near future...

http://www.origins.tv/darwin/pagetree.jpg I was googling for a hominid timeline when I stumbled on this chart which seems to be saying that all our struggles up from a primordial protoplasmic globule have been leading us to Barbi. http://www.origins.tv/darwin/trees.htm

Humans have a big influence on the evolution process of many species. Do you think they should? Is this fair?

Wikipedia states that evolution is fact; however, how evolution works is theory. Is this true? A friend of mine doesn't believe in evolution, and I have been trying to convince him. Is there a scientific dictionary that will give me an answer?

Hey, Just wondering: How does evolution explains the process by which some species, spceially from insects, have mimicry tactics for defense? Thx in advance, Mimicry: The phenomenon in which some species [the mimic] resembles another species [the model] and gains protection from the...

This is a question geared toward human evolution, but I figured a biologist would be able to answer it. There are two parts: 1. If supposedly, we physically evolved (less hair, stand up straight, etc.) because we changed our behaviour, would it be safe to say that generally, as something...

I was wondering if it was possible, via biological thermodynamics, to demonstrate that evolution does not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics in mathematical terms. From my understanding, the Earth is a closed system (this seemed odd, but I read this in a book on biological thermodynamics. I...

Hi. I have a problem with a statement that was in the first chapter of my "World Religions" book for school. It first explains that the word "God" can have many different meanings. It then concludes the chapter with "It is a fact, not a mystery, that God, whatever or whoever God might be...

Here you go people :smile: :smile: :smile: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17162341-13762,00.html *EDIT*oops.. meant Intelligent Design:shy:

people who believe in creation say evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. those who believe in evolution say it does not. who's right? if it does violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics why and how? i just want to know who's right on this issue. p.s. sorry if this has been asked before...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4348751,00.html For those who dream of a better life, science has bad news: this is the best it is going to get. Our species has reached its biological pinnacle and is no longer capable of changing. That is the stark, controversial view of a...

Disclaimer: While I think I'm pretty well educated in math and the physical sciences, I'm pretty much a moron in biology. Be nice to me.:redface: I read the following statement from one George Olshevsky, responding to a Creationist argument: He was responding to the claim that...

Why do antibiotic super bugs keep evolving more and more so they are resistant to antibiotics? Wouldn't this evolution be considered on a macroscale or would you say microscale seeing as how they are becoming stronger and stronger? It's interesting to learn that these things are becoming more...

I've notice a rash of recent papers on galactic evolution. Clearly, this is an important area of study with serious theoretical implications. Comments? GDDS Highlights: Galaxy Evolution Revealed http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510056 Significant evolution of the stellar mass-metallicity...

Many famous people have suffer some form of mental illness, but it is also linked to genius, will this mental illness genius group evolve differently to the rest of the human race ?

Where are the current unknowns in the evolution timeline? It is my knowledge that the progressions from gaslike "soup" to amino acids is believed to have been caused by intense lightning and UV radiation. But the mystery is how we went from amino acid to protein? Are there any other unknowns...

It seems the study of Evolution is always geared toward physical matter; but what about language? If we are so far advanced why are we speaking a backwards language? :confused: According to history all mankind once spoke biblical Hebrew which is much more advanced than English, or any...

I am not good in Biology and I do not have much knowledge. Also I do not have enough time to search all the topics in this forum concerning evolution. I would ask you to help me find some information (articles/webpages) concering what famous living scientists say about evolution. I am not to...

Oh hello This's just strange. We did a small project "Making ice-cream" You know, put milk and sugar and vanilla into a zimploc, place the pack into a bigger one stuffed with ice and salt. We've luckily gone through the questions he asked. But the last question just doesn't make sense to me...

---quote from the science blog Pharyngula---Evolution Schmevolution info PZ Myers • 21 Comments This is going to be good: Science vs. Religion. Evolution vs. Creation. It is an age-old battle whose time has come. "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" will gather together all the experts (or at...

Here's a little something that I read on another forum the other day. Care to share some thoughts regarding this matter? Ok if you say you are a creationist then you are saying the universe was created as we experience it today, and god created a man named adam. etc. And that you take the...

I recall there being several past topics where we debated whether evolution is still ongoing for humans. I just found & wanted to share http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/or_maybe_its_an_example_of_absurdist_british_humor/" ...

I’d guess the majority of people participating at this site would say intellect. After all, isn’t that what most of us believe sets us apart from other animals? In fact, I am fairly certain there are those here who would say the ability to reason entirely distinguishes human consciousness...

In non-relativistic quantum mechanics time evolution is given by the usual e^{\frac{-i\hat{H}t}{\hbar}} (for non time dependent hamiltonians). How does one time evolve a quantum system in the context of relativity, where time and space have been placed on equal footing? We clearly cannot use...

Someone posted in another forum that "Evolution is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection." Is that true?

"the jury is still out" on evolution http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=151471&source=r_science

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0506086 Authors: Jeong-Eun Lee, Neal J. Evans II, Edwin A. Bergin Comments: 13 pages, 12 figures, To be published in the Astrophysical Journal We compare an evolutionary chemical model with simple empirical models of the abundance and with static chemical...

From http://www.whatwemaybe.org/ His new book is free to download from http://www.whatwemaybe.org/

http://arxiv.org/ftp/gr-qc/papers/0506/0506007.pdf Title: A New Interpretation about the Evolution of the Cosmos Authors: Fang-Pei Chen Comments: 16 pages Based on Lorentz and Levi-Civita's conservation laws, it can be shown that the energy of the matter field in the universe might...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/28/national/28smithsonian.html Sell-outs. I can't believe this.