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Richard142 On February 15, 2015




Greater London, United Kingdom
#91New Post! May 14, 2009 @ 14:48:01
I think it is unfair to blame flowers and insects for our problems. Some insects may spread diseases, some flowers, and their seeds, may be used to excess causing addictions but it is our responses that are the problem. Perfection, like evolution is not static. Nor is there, for long, any static standard theory. It is each of us using the best knowledge and skills we have now, providing we will review this by observing consequences learning from mistakes and successes [hope we have the wisdom to know the difference!]
As Chica points out we can make conscious choices, flowers and insects can't. Our human problem is that the process of making decisions that affect global outcomes are somewhat outside individual acts, unless we decide to act collectively for this planet we hold in trust for future generations. The mess our planet is in shows how difficult this is, but never beyond some controll depending on our collective actions now.
jd873 On July 04, 2009




New York, New York
#92New Post! Jun 27, 2009 @ 03:14:38
john, there is really no need to state that evolution is not an interest of yours, as it is self-evident from your posts that you do not have the faintest idea what evolution actually is.
correct me if i am wrong, but your belief is:
natural selection selects the "fittest" of individuals from a group whose genotype is either derived from the gametes of its parents, or comprised of mostly genes from its parents with rare random mutations.

yes? well, this is correct... however it is here you seem to really have missed a few crucial points:
your example is one of mimicry if i understand your pattern ramblings correctly. Ok, this post could turn into a novel so ill try to condense... lets go with a stick insect (a good example of an insect who relies on mimicry for camouflage)

You seem to believe that, to be the fittest and so be favoured by natural selection, such an insect would have to make a genetic leap from regular insect to a perfect replica of a stick. this would indeed be mathematically very improbable (fermi method - in and around haemoglobin number)
This is not how evolution works however. Evolution is a sequence of small steps from one place in the genetic hyperspace to a distant, undefined point.
The stick insect who looks 1% like a stick will be more likely to pass on this gene to his progeny. Why? several reasons... dont want to ramble... consider variables which amplify advantages of even slightest camouflage like predator distance, light intensity, predator vision, environmental impairments like fog etc etc (not only the fact that the insect looks 1% like a stick!)

Now, you are saying that the next 1% is a "random chance" occurance, that the likelihood of getting it "wrong" is huge... horrific choice of words, but in a crude way this is correct. you are looking at it on a human timescale however, the offspring of this successful organism are mathematically on a level probability field with its parent in terms of survival, generations go by with some organisms looking less like a stick, and being eaten, some looking more like a stick and escaping to pass on their "successful" genes and so on ad infinitum. until one day, the insect looks quite remarkably similar to a stick (but not 100% - have you seen the unnatural symmetry?

but if you prefer to avoid thinking for yourself, or are looking for some mild comedy, try creationism!
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