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Silver Dragon Breath dragon forums
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DelecheteDareston
Dragonstar
Joined: 06 Oct 2008
Posts: 13
Location: TX
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 Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 11:31 Post subject: |
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This is probably one of those things that's best described as two opposing sides on the same coin. Like Magick and Science. Sure you can evolve, but sooner or later, you'll evolve to a point that you're capable of intelligent design. What I mean by this is currently Humanity is at a stage of evolution where they can forever alter, or destroy themselves, and every species on this planet using Genetic Manipulation. You can intelligently design an evolutionary change, but over time that change will become it's own evolutionary branch. Which means it can be done naturally or manually through genetic manipulation.
I find the whole notion that any big evolutionary changes on a natural scale to take a really long time to be complete and utter nonsense. Why? How would anyone tell exactly when this or that evolutionary change in a species occured, and how long it took to become a viable part of the species as a whole. I find that so many of us Dragons, and Otherkin are so dependant on these humans to educate us on the distant past, or prehistoric times, that we can't think outside the box, or the confines of this level of thinking, whether it's human or just a low level of thinking.
On a natural scale, I find the notion of a small to giant/large evolutionary changes in a small amount of time such as in a single generation to be far more accurate than over a long period of time. The reasons behind such a fast evolution or rather mutation, is plainly on an infinite scale. A few reasons range from nuclear testing/explosions, Uranium being nearby, and or injested some to alot of Uranium to meteors or planetoids slamming into one's planet.
I am highly doubtful that all of these mutations would be beneficial nor detoriatingly bad. I believe it'd entirely depend on whoever the "mutant" bred with would determine whether such mutations would survive to be beneficial or not. I'm pretty doubtful that the ear, ear bones, nerves and other ear functions and properties were merely billions to millions of years of evolution but rather a fast and sudden mutation or evolution. Like one or more members of the original species had the genes for ear creation but laid in dormant. He or she bred with another of their species that had the same gene or an aiding gene, therefore they stood a strong chance of producing offspring that had a partially to fully developed ear(s).
So as what Zuca was saying, it's quite possible that one's enviroment dictates one's evolutionary branch. For me, I'll stick with one's environment having a strong influence over one's evolutionary branch. Since there's not one of us that have our full memories, and true forms back yet here, I think it's safe to say that there won't ever be any definite answers till we can. Which is far safer than time travel as with time traveling... literally any deviations from the original settings could alter or destroy the future.
Have fun and take care. |
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Ragnarok
Global Moderator
Joined: 27 Sep 2004
Posts: 1091
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA.
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| Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 12:07 Post subject: |
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| DelecheteDareston wrote: |
| This is probably one of those things that's best described as two opposing sides on the same coin. Like Magick and Science. Sure you can evolve, but sooner or later, you'll evolve to a point that you're capable of intelligent design. |
This is what I like to call "missing the point".
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| I find the whole notion that any big evolutionary changes on a natural scale to take a really long time to be complete and utter nonsense. Why? How would anyone tell exactly when this or that evolutionary change in a species occured, and how long it took to become a viable part of the species as a whole. |
Good question. The answer is that it's still an area of debate. Ring species, as well as highly diversified members of a single species (e.g. dogs: there's a reason you'll never see a Chihuahua/Great Dane mix; the biology just doesn't work), and non-sexually reproducing organisms (i.e. bacteria); all provide major examples of why it's difficult to pin down a sharp definition of "species". And when all you have are fossils, all of which show gradual modification, it's especially difficult to pin down when speciation has occurred.
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| I find that so many of us Dragons, and Otherkin are so dependant on these humans to educate us on the distant past, or prehistoric times, that we can't think outside the box, or the confines of this level of thinking, whether it's human or just a low level of thinking. |
First, it's pretty egotistical to think that being otherkin makes you any better than anyone else, and second, it's not relying on people, it's relying on evidence.
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| On a natural scale, I find the notion of a small to giant/large evolutionary changes in a small amount of time such as in a single generation to be far more accurate than over a long period of time. |
Darwin's Radio (a decent work of fiction, though it takes the idea of punctuated equilibrium a little too far) aside, no one has ever taken such an idea seriously. "Fast" change, yes, but that's fast on a geological time scale.
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| The reasons behind such a fast evolution or rather mutation, is plainly on an infinite scale. A few reasons range from nuclear testing/explosions, Uranium being nearby, and or injested some to alot of Uranium to meteors or planetoids slamming into one's planet. |
Radiation makes DNA unstable and so is NOT a good way to promote positive mutations.
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| I'm pretty doubtful that the ear, ear bones, nerves and other ear functions and properties were merely billions to millions of years of evolution but rather a fast and sudden mutation or evolution. Like one or more members of the original species had the genes for ear creation but laid in dormant. He or she bred with another of their species that had the same gene or an aiding gene, therefore they stood a strong chance of producing offspring that had a partially to fully developed ear(s). |
Well, to put it simply, you're wrong. Ears, eyes, sense of smell, etc, were all gradual processes, and there is evidence to back it up. In a modern context, just look at the number of species with sensory capabilities ranging from zero to far superior to humans. A same starting point, maybe, but millions and millions of years to reach widely different results.
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| So as what Zuca was saying, it's quite possible that one's enviroment dictates one's evolutionary branch. |
Evolutionary BRANCH? Zuca never said anything of the sort.
*Tag* Raya, your turn. 
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Rayadragon
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 28 Oct 2003
Posts: 264
Location: Somewhere between reality and imagination
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| Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 12:58 Post subject: |
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| *Tag* Raya, your turn. |
*busts up laughing*
Now to go back and actually read these posts... I just couldn't resist pointing out that I'm lucky no one else is over here at the moment, or else my co-workers would be giving me strang looks or want in on the action.
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Shiari
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Joined: 26 Apr 2008
Posts: 227
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| Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 14:16 Post subject: |
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The only reason why you won't see a great dane/chihuahua is because a- a female chi would die from trying to whelp the resultant pups and b- if the female is the dane, it's hard for the chihuahua male to reach. I'm sure it's been done somewhere.
For example, my mother had a corgi mix when she was a teenager. This corgi got loose and mated with something the size of a great dane. Her belly dragged on the ground by the end of her pregnancy, and the pups were delivered by c-section. There were 3. They were enormous and hideous.
thus, the biology technically does work, you just have certain conditions that need to be met.
As to my thoughts on intelligent design... if species were created with intent, then whichever deity created the urogenital design of sheep and goats should be fired for ineptitude and stupidity. |
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Rayadragon
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 28 Oct 2003
Posts: 264
Location: Somewhere between reality and imagination
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| Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 14:20 Post subject: |
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| *Tag* Raya, your turn. |
I shall endevor to do my best. That and this gives me a chance to ignore my thesis writing, which is my favorite thing to do at the moment (the ignoring part I mean).
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| This is probably one of those things that's best described as two opposing sides on the same coin. Like Magick and Science. |
I've always been a fan of this idea, whether it's Magick and Science, or Religion and Science, or any other combo you can come up with. I think the three try to address different questions, and that they're not necisarily in competition with each other (except when you're trying to use one to entirely explain away something in the other).
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| What I mean by this is currently Humanity is at a stage of evolution where they can forever alter, or destroy themselves, and every species on this planet using Genetic Manipulation. |
I've written up several posts in regards to genetic manipulation/engineering/etc, but I'm not sure if any of them have survived the periodic purges. There's two different points I want to make here. First, humans have been at this stage of evolution for a while (several thousand years). It's not that the species is at a stage of evolution to do these things, it's that we're at (or more accuratly, sort-of-but-not-quite approacing) the knowledge necessary to do genetic manipulation.
Second, we're really, really NOT (really not) at the stage of genetics knowledge to be able to actively, or manually as you stated, alter the genetics of anything on a scale larger than an additional gene or two (such as with GFP, the discoverers of which just won the chemistry nobel prize this year). I'll spare most of the details for now, but point out that the more we learn about genetics, the more we realize that there's a lot we don't know and understand. It's not just about the genes, there are whole levels of regulation that people only had a vague idea even functioned a decade ago. We're no closer to understanding that regulation than we were back then.
As you said though, there's still "natural" genetic manipulation. This was going on long before us though, and will continue long after we're gone.
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| How would anyone tell exactly when this or that evolutionary change in a species occured, and how long it took to become a viable part of the species as a whole |
While evolutionary biology/genetics can be hard to pin down, there's certainly ways to predict when (not to the day, mind you, but in evolutionary time frames) certain mutations and genes arose in different species based upon known rates of mutations and construction of a consensus sequences, which is most likely the ancesteral gene. The viability part is conciderably harder to pin down, simply because we can't take snap shots of evolution of specific species.
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| I find that so many of us Dragons, and Otherkin are so dependant on these humans to educate us... |
Just a quickie reminder that not everyone on this board conciders themselves to be otherkin. Even if you are, you are also still human. Don't be so quick to judge your own species.
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| ...that we can't think outside the box, or the confines of this level of thinking, whether it's human or just a low level of thinking. |
It's not that there's an issue with thinking outside the box. What we know about evolution comes from observation of what data we have in front of us. While it may someday be proven wrong (spontaneous generation comes to mind), it is currently the scientific theory that is best supported by the evidence.
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| On a natural scale, I find the notion of a small to giant/large evolutionary changes in a small amount of time such as in a single generation to be far more accurate than over a long period of time. The reasons behind such a fast evolution or rather mutation, is plainly on an infinite scale. |
A single generation is not 100% feasible for a mutation to even enter the population, let alone become prevalent. Long example time, sorry in advance (for the length of this whole post actually). I'm going to use a dominant mutation, because under the right circumstances that could enter the population in a generation. If you're REALLY lucky, the mutation occurs while the eventual organism is still a relativly small embryo (under 100 cells or so) then you might even see an effect in them. If not, you have to hope for the mutation to occur in a gamete (sex cell, one of 10-50 trillian cells in an adult body, never mind the ones that die and are replaced) that then goes one to actually become an embryo and eventual organism. At which point the mutation is actually expressed in an organism. The organism has a 50/50 chance of passing the mutation on to their offspring. The chance of passing it on doesn't change, but the number of offspring that the first mutant organism has may or may not be different based on what that mutation actually does. Bad mutations mean less offspring (though with dominant that's not the case, i.e. Huntington disease), good mutations mean more. How quickly this mutation gains prevalence in a population depends largely on how much of an advantage the mutation gives and how large the population is to begin with.
I don't get the "plainly on an infinite scale" comment. Is it in reference to the ways in which mutations can quickly add up (which you talk about next)?
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| A few reasons range from nuclear testing/explosions, Uranium being nearby, and or injested some to alot of Uranium to meteors or planetoids slamming into one's planet. |
Nuclear radiation to induce mutations is a bad idea. It's not going to make little alterations, it's going to make big alterations to lots of things that are far more likely to induce death than introduce a benificial mutation that will be passed on through the gametes. The short explanation is that radiation damages the DNA basepairs, the cell repair systems go psyco trying to fix it, and it winds up hacking out several thousand basepairs around the damaged DNA basepair and throwing in whatever it can to fill the gap. More often than not this destroys the gene, and if it's important enough, the cell dies. Repeat this enough and you've got the death of the organism.
Meteors or planetoids slamming into the planet wouldn't induce the mutation, unless it's throwing up mutagenic agents when they hit. Any environmental effects would act on the mutations already present in a population.
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| I am highly doubtful that all of these mutations would be beneficial nor detoriatingly bad. I believe it'd entirely depend on whoever the "mutant" bred with would determine whether such mutations would survive to be beneficial or not. |
To some extent. Recessive mutations have to be bred to get two copies with the same mutations to see an effect. In that sense the emergence of that mutation does depend on who the mutant is bred too. Even if the recessive isn't seen because of the presense of a dominant gene, it's still there though.
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| I'm pretty doubtful that the ear, ear bones, nerves and other ear functions and properties were merely billions to millions of years of evolution but rather a fast and sudden mutation or evolution. |
Ragnarok's got this summed up pretty well.
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| For me, I'll stick with one's environment having a strong influence over one's evolutionary branch. |
The environment may help impact the evolutionary branch you belong to, from a historical standpoint. The evolutionary brand you're a part of though depends on what you're born as though.
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| Since there's not one of us that have our full memories, and true forms back yet here |
*sigh* on the true forms comment.
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| Which is far safer than time travel as with time traveling... literally any deviations from the original settings could alter or destroy the future |
Sorry, can't resist. How do you know that this "false form" that you're in now isn't the one that's going to be necessary for the future? No need to answer, just a thought.
Random, totally off topic note: My boss came by twice during the typing of this response to ask me stuff on the aforementioned thesis. And my login timed out. And Shiari posted in the middle of my writing this.
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"People who are easily offended need to be offended more often."
"Do on to others as you would have others do on to you." |
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Hyraxylos
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 805
Location: Atlanta, GA
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| Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 14:33 Post subject: |
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*glares at Ragnarok and Raya for beating me to it*
On my old forum we had a long enjoyable thread on this, alternating back and forth between debating and all-out flaming, before it lived out its life and finally died down from sheer boredom. Nothing like bringing back the good old days...
| DelecheteDareston wrote: |
| What I mean by this is currently Humanity is at a stage of evolution where they can forever alter, or destroy themselves, and every species on this planet using Genetic Manipulation. |
This is because humans seem to have some strange obsession with controlling nature for some weird reason. Go figure.
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| How would anyone tell exactly when this or that evolutionary change in a species occured, and how long it took to become a viable part of the species as a whole. |
Archaeologists can date fossils based on how far down in the ground they're discovered and on radiometric dating methods with isotopes of carbon and potassium/argon. When arranged in chronological order, the fossils show a notable pattern of mutation over large periods of time.
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| I find that so many of us Dragons, and Otherkin are so dependant on these humans to educate us on the distant past, or prehistoric times, that we can't think outside the box, or the confines of this level of thinking, whether it's human or just a low level of thinking. |
Who else is digging up fossils? Who else is using radiometric dating? We otherkin are all dependent on "human levels of thinking" because we have human brains and human brain chemicals. With all the evidence we've dug up, I'm not complaining any in that area; in fact I wish more people in the world would USE their brains for thinking rather than their stomachs or whatever.
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| So as what Zuca was saying, it's quite possible that one's enviroment dictates one's evolutionary branch. For me, I'll stick with one's environment having a strong influence over one's evolutionary branch. |
Certainly. Actually this is the kind of evolution that's been observed and documented as it was happening.
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| Since there's not one of us that have our full memories, |
I do, actually. All the ones that matter anyway.
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| and true forms back yet here, |
Daydreaming about it happening is fun, I'll grant that, but I've no real conscious desire to lose my life just because my body "doesn't always feel right".
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| I think it's safe to say that there won't ever be any definite answers till we can. |
I'm lost. How, hypothetically, would a person's spontaneous mutation into a large reptile possibly produce any information on evolutionary theory? 
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Shiari
Moderator
Joined: 26 Apr 2008
Posts: 227
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| Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 16:28 Post subject: |
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Well... we'd quickly get to see if said spontaneously mutated large reptile had evolved... to do with our genetic base pairs in order to produce the proteins necessary to sustain life, and much sooner would find out if they had evolved to be able to tolerate the gasses and concentrations thereof in our atmosphere.
*biggest "omg were gonna gets or tru formz bak!"-party pooper ever*  |
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Rayadragon
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 28 Oct 2003
Posts: 264
Location: Somewhere between reality and imagination
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| Posted: Thu 09 Oct 2008 18:52 Post subject: |
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| *biggest "omg were gonna gets or tru formz bak!"-party pooper ever* |
You're going to have to fight off Ragnarok, Hyraxylos, and myself for that title I think
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"Do on to others as you would have others do on to you." |
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