Orthogenesis

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   lovetherainposted 7 years ago

   Orthogenesis also known as orthogenetic evolution is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a unilinear fashion due to some internal mechanism or "driving force".-wikipedia
   
   Makes sense to me. As opposed to the theory that we are a random accident.

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   1. 89

      wildernessposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Evolving towards some unknown "goal" infers an intelligence that defined what that goal is - something that has never been shown to exist.  Particularly the goal of increasing complexity, with humans generally being considered the most complex so far.  On the contrary, there are a great many examples of changes for the sake of change (blue eyes over brown) and even more where change was driven by the environment.
      
      While it is easy to look at a group of closely related organisms (recent common ancestor) and declare that they are all evolving along the same general lines, that too is something that is not seen in all cases and seldom seen in different environments. 
      
      It seems far more likely that survival of the species is the "goal", not something defined by humanity and certainly not something with the end result being humans.
      
      Random - while it is easy to speak or write large numbers, when it comes time to truly comprehend the number of random events that culminated in modern wolves it is a different story.  Billions doesn't begin to cover it, but most people have trouble even visualizing a hundred.
      
      On top of that, to say that evolution is "random" isn't really true.  While mutations may be random (or not, in cases where local environment conditions are the cause), whether those mutations are "kept" is most certainly not random.

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      1. 67

         lovetherainposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         There is no proof that the mutations that drive evolution are random. Not one person has ever shown me experimental evidence that shows this. Not the Luria experiments or it's copies.
         
         So if it LOOKS designed, it most likely is.

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         1. 89

            wildernessposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Cosmic rays cause mutations, which can end up staying in the species.  Cosmic rays from stars a million light years away, that just happen to strike a gamete in a living organism; a gamete that out of thousands of others will give rise to an organism that survives to reproduce.
            
            Radiation causes mutations; radiation that varies from intense to almost non-existent in different parts of the earth.  And just like cosmic rays, it must strike a specific site on a specific strand of DNA in a gamete that will eventually survive to reproduce again.
            
            Chemicals cause mutations...(see above).
            
            Chance combinations of two gametes cause mutations...(see above)
            
            Chance division resulting in gametes introduce changes in the DNA...(see above)
            
            Climate or other environmental changes causes one organism to have a higher chance of survival over another, resulting in evolution.
            
            These are SOME of the possibilities of causes for evolution.  Not a single one is anything but random.  Unless you believe that there is a "higher force" guiding that cosmic ray to that atom in that gene that will become that organism in [i]that[i] environment.  I don't.
            
            And no it doesn't LOOK designed.  There is an iguana, descended from a colony, on an island different than that of the colony.  On that island iguanas swim the ocean, scraping moss off rocks for their food; the ONLY group on the earth that does so.  Their mouths are different, their temperature control is different and even their reproduction is different.  Neither form could survive in the environment of the other.  That doesn't look like a designed goal to me; it looks like mutations due to environmental causes.

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