[Lightman]

I realized Darwin was an idiot when I discovered girls were different.

This might be one of the all-time great non sequiturs.

[mikema63]

Dare I even ask.

[MrAnthrope]

This might be one of the all-time great non sequiturs.

Ha! That was my attempt to be succinct and clever all at the same time and you have rightly stuck me with one of my favorite terms.

Basically, I just didn't believe that two radical mutations such as two sexes with complimentary plumbing could occur at the same time in the same mud pit with an instinct providing instructions on what to do next. Therefore Darwinism wasn't credible and neither was the scientific priesthood who espoused it. Right or wrong, it was a think-for-yourself moment.

[Figlio di Moros]

You do realize less complicated species have less complicated sex organs, don't you? The fish's cloaca requires little differentiation between male and female.

[youtube]5aDK6tOwF68[/youtube]

[Social_Critic]

George Orwell for "1984"

Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn for "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich"

Armando Valladares for "Against all Hope"

Robert Heinlein for "Starship Troopers"

Patrick Macrory for "Retreat from Kabul: The Catastrophic British Defeat in Afghanistan, 1842"

[lucky]

I realized Darwin was an idiot when I discovered girls were different. [...] Basically, I just didn't believe that two radical mutations such as two sexes with complimentary plumbing could occur at the same time in the same mud pit with an instinct providing instructions on what to do next. Therefore Darwinism wasn't credible and neither was the scientific priesthood who espoused it.

Neither Darwin's work nor "Darwinism" (which I take to mean the theory of evolution) is restricted to studying the origins of sexual reproduction. It's a relatively small sub-topic. Therefore, even if you point to some new revolutionary research on the topic that reverses everything known so far (which you haven't of course done), it won't show that "Darwin was an idiot", or that "Darwinism isn't credible".

By the way, the "two radical mutations with complimentary plumbing occurring at the same time, along with an instinct providing instructions" hypothesis is yours, not something that I have seen in the theory. If you want to criticize a scientific work, you need to refer to specific published papers.

[Lightman]

Basically, I just didn't believe that two radical mutations such as two sexes with complimentary plumbing could occur at the same time in the same mud pit with an instinct providing instructions on what to do next. Therefore Darwinism wasn't credible and neither was the scientific priesthood who espoused it. Right or wrong, it was a think-for-yourself moment.

Sexual differentiation occurred a long time before humans.

[mikema63]

Sexual differentiation began in organisms that had both male and female reproductive systems, over evolution they simply diverged.

The simpleest non vascular plants have male and female reproductive structures on the same plant. Worms are like this as well, simple organisms Are hermaphroditic.

[Eran]

Sexual differentiation is very easy to explain.

Sexual reproduction itself is much more difficult.

The costs on an individual organism to engage in sexual vs. asexual reproduction is huge. Consider the trouble to which sexually-reproducing organisms, from flowering plants to courting mammals go to reproduce. An asexually-reproducing mutant could use all the saved resources to dominate a local population group within just a few generations.

The advantages of sexual reproduction tend to be slow - to do with faster adaptation to changes, especially to parasites.

Yet sexual reproduction is all-but-universal. I find that puzzling.

[mikema63]

Mutations in an organism with asexual reproduction accumulate over time, without the genetic differentiation of sexual reproduction the accumulating mutations will render the animal group progressively worse off until the line dies.

It is called Muller's ratchet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muller's_ratchet

[Eran]

Again, I am not sure I buy it. Consider a mutant gene that allows an individual in a sexually-reproducing population to reproduce asexually. It is hard to envision a single gene capable of doing that in a very developed organism, but should be much easier in a borderline population.

The reproductive advantage of that gene is enormous - at least double that of its alleles, possibly more (depending on the relative cost of seeking sexual partners). The per-generation advantage of sexual reproduction must be at least that high.

The likely scenario appears to be that asexual individuals swap the local population, displacing most if not all sexually-reproducing individuals. It is true that a few generations later, the population may well be less healthy than a purely-sexually-reproducing alternative. But that doesn't help the early generations of sexually-reproducing individuals, does it?

[Figlio di Moros]

You answered yourself, Eran- in the long-run, the sexually differentiated species wins.

[MrAnthrope]

Well, I did add that my enlightenment was not contingent on my being correct in my evaluation of Darwin's theory. And I withdraw my original pejorative description -- too inflammatory. Darwin just represents the ultimate dogma of the scientific priesthood and a primary example that the high priests of science consider their theories as facts, even those flying in the face of logic and simple observation. On itself this is not a big deal, but it becomes a big deal when politicians make use of this intellectual authority to pass self serving legislation curtailing freedom for the people's own good. Maybe not using Darwin, but global warming as caused by human infestation is a current example. This is the only point I was clumsily attempting to make.

But while we are on the subject of Darwin, however, I think it was a big mistake to include "Origin of the Species" in the title of a work on natural selection. Natural selection is powerful within its scope, but I still have no qualms asserting that it cannot account for sexual reproduction. I'm also not too keen on the plausibility of millions of species evolving from one source. Millions of episodes of perfect separation? Millions evolving similar sexual mechanisms? Pre-separation or post separation? Either way, I'm a heretic.

(Notwithstanding modern advances utilizing current technology) In addition to the many instances Darwin examined which he stated could be taken as proof against natural selection, he also included a deal breaker. He made his entire work contingent on the validity of uniformitarianism -- a theory that fits neither historical record nor observable data. Shoemaker-Levy, anyone?

[Lightman]

No; one species at some point in time developed sexual differentiation; contemporary species with sexual differentiation are descendants of that progenitor species.

[michael3]

Well, I did add that my enlightenment was not contingent on my being correct in my evaluation of Darwin's theory. And I withdraw my original pejorative description -- too inflammatory. Darwin just represents the ultimate dogma of the scientific priesthood and a primary example that the high priests of science consider their theories as facts, even those flying in the face of logic and simple observation. On itself this is not a big deal, but it becomes a big deal when politicians make use of this intellectual authority to pass self serving legislation curtailing freedom for the people's own good. Maybe not using Darwin, but global warming as caused by human infestation is a current example. This is the only point I was clumsily attempting to make.

But while we are on the subject of Darwin, however, I think it was a big mistake to include "Origin of the Species" in the title of a work on natural selection. Natural selection is powerful within its scope, but I still have no qualms asserting that it cannot account for sexual reproduction. I'm also not too keen on the plausibility of millions of species evolving from one source. Millions of episodes of perfect separation? Millions evolving similar sexual mechanisms? Pre-separation or post separation? Either way, I'm a heretic.

(Notwithstanding modern advances utilizing current technology) In addition to the many instances Darwin examined which he stated could be taken as proof against natural selection, he also included a deal breaker. He made his entire work contingent on the validity of uniformitarianism -- a theory that fits neither historical record nor observable data. Shoemaker-Levy, anyone?

One of the many reasons the present priesthood of the reigning 'scientific' paradigm is anything but scientific. Catastophism was early on a clear menace to their aims, which were political as always. Politics is what it always comes down too, that and Money.

[mikema63]

Just stop, you have no idea what your talking about and your understanding of what a scientific theory means and evolution in particular is deeply flawed.

Go take a bio course.

[MrAnthrope]

I'm sure you didn't miss the point. I can only assume you're officious attention to a side issue owes to your being a member of the priesthood or a devout follower.

[mikema63]

What point? Your belligerent repetition that different sexes disprove evolution?

They most certainly do not, and if that is all you have to work with then you should do more reading, I've heard better.

[MrAnthrope]

Okay, sorry, you did miss the point -- politicians will use any convenient instrument, such as popular theories espoused by science, regardless of a theory's validity, to usurp more control.

[mikema63]

Politicians will do anyone to gain more power, including saying god wants them to win, the validity of a theory doesn't even enter into the metric.

The theory is valid and the best we have by incredibly wide margins, with the advent of molecular biology and the mountain of evidence it has given us the theory is farther beyond reproach than general relativity.