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Evolution Resources

Started by Tank, May 16, 2011, 07:30:05 PM

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Dave

Quote from: Recusant on March 02, 2018, 03:45:06 PM
Quote from: Dave on March 02, 2018, 07:02:01 AM
Loads of stuff! PBS Eons has loads of videos related to evolution etc.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzR-rom72PHN9Zg7RML9EbA

Yes, a worthwhile show from one point of view, a horrible waste of money, believe me, from another.

As in it won't get many views, especially in the land of its origin, where its funding comes from?
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Recusant

As in it's produced by an organization that President Bogus thinks shouldn't get any money from the federal government.

PBS is part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and produces some of the rare decent television shows in the US, in my opinion. Since it isn't Republican/conservative propaganda it's viewed by Republicans and conservatives as leaning to the left, and they've been hankering to ax it for years.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Tank

Major fossil study sheds new light on emergence of early animal life 540 million years ago



Model of the Cambrian stem lineage euarthropod Peytoia, based on fossils from the Burgess Shale.
Top left: Closeup of the mouth parts and frontal appendages. Bottom right: Overall view of the body. Credit: Model and image: E. Horn.

QuoteAll the major groups of animals appear in the fossil record for the first time around 540-500 million years ago—an event known as the Cambrian Explosion—but new research from the University of Oxford in collaboration with the University of Lausanne suggests that for most animals this 'explosion' was in fact a more gradual process.

The Cambrian Explosion produced the largest and most diverse grouping of animals the Earth has ever seen: the euarthropods. Euarthropoda contains the insects, crustaceans, spiders, trilobites, and a huge diversity of other animal forms alive and extinct. They comprise over 80 percent of all animal species on the planet and are key components of all of Earth's ecosystems, making them the most important group since the dawn of animals over 500 million years ago.

A team based at Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the University of Lausanne carried out the most comprehensive analysis ever made of early fossil euarthropods from every different possible type of fossil preservation. In an article published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences they show that, taken together, the total fossil record shows a gradual radiation of euarthropods during the early Cambrian, 540-500 million years ago.

The new analysis presents a challenge to the two major competing hypotheses about early animal evolution. The first of these suggests a slow, gradual evolution of euarthropods starting 650-600 million years ago, which had been consistent with earlier molecular dating estimates of their origin. The other hypothesis claims the nearly instantaneous appearance of euarthropods 540 million years ago because of highly elevated rates of evolution...

This makes a very interesting read. Next time you swat a fly, eat a prawn or watch a spider run across the floor remember you're seeing the descendent of the earliest and most successful group of animals that have ever existed.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Bluenose

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that image a reconstruction of Anomalocaris?

Although we have learned quite a bit since it was written, Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life about the Burgess Shales is a thoroughly fascinating read.
+++ Divide by cucumber error: please reinstall universe and reboot.  +++

GNU Terry Pratchett


Dave

Er, there are Wiki entries for both Anomalocaris and Peytoia, look very similar though the first has a fluked tail and the latter does not in the rendered images. Though both articles use the same size comparison diagram - with fluked tail.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalocaris



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peytoia




Used in both entries. Don't want to meet one whilst paddling about!

Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

Added a new site.

Evidence for the Evolutionary Model An excellent resource for primary information such as ERVs and rebuttal's of creationist codswallop. 
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Icarus

A silent thread for a long time.

Evolution and its outcomes are mysterious.  Here is an article about fairy circles and termites that might interest some of you.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-mathematician-who-decodes-the-patterns-stamped-out-by-life?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Tank

We have some fungus related Fairy Circles on the field right next to us.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

billy rubin

how stupid of me not to have thought of that


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Tank

Weeded out dead links from the OP.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Recusant

Developing a draft of a "law of evolution." Seems ambitious, but also fairly reasonable. Need I mention that the headline editor misstates what's going on?

"Missing 'Law of Nature' Found That Describes The Way All Things Evolve" | Science Alert

QuoteComplex, evolving systems abound in our Universe, even beyond the realms of biology. From the growth of stars to prebiotic chemistry, diverse mixes of materials can often be shaped into far more complex forms.

Yet unlike other so many other physical phenomena, their changing nature is yet to be represented by a discrete law.

That's according to a US team of astrobiologists, philosophers, a mineralogist, a theoretical physicist, and a data scientist who describe the "missing law" of nature in an intriguing new peer-reviewed paper.

"Given the ubiquity of evolving systems in the natural world, it seems odd that one or more laws describing their behaviors have not been more quickly forthcoming," the authors write.

The team's own "law of increasing functional information" says evolution in all its forms inevitably leads to more patterning, diversity, and complexity in natural complex systems.

Evolution is certainly not unique to Earth's biosphere; it takes place in other extremely complex systems, such as our Solar System, stars, atoms, and minerals.

"The Universe generates novel combinations of atoms, molecules, cells, etc," says first author of the study, astrobiologist Michael Wong from Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC.

"Those combinations that are stable and can go on to engender even more novelty will continue to evolve. This is what makes life the most striking example of evolution, but evolution is everywhere."

[. . .]

Biological and mineral systems continually interact to influence each other's diversity, and life as we know it is the result of this interaction.

"These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes," the authors write.

"1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function."

So, is there something in the way information can be transferred that accounts for the shared characteristics of seemingly diverse evolving systems? Could there be a universal basis for selection? The team thinks both answers are yes.

"An important component of this proposed natural law is the idea of 'selection for function,'" says Wong.

According to Darwin, an organism's primary function in the context of biology is to ensure its own survival long enough to reproduce successfully. The team says this new proposal broadens our understanding by pointing out the existence of three distinct types of function in the natural world.

The most fundamental function we could call 'static persistence' – maintenance of stable atomic or molecular arrangements.

'Dynamic persistence' describes how systems that are dynamic and have access to constant sources of energy are also more likely to endure.

And lastly, 'novelty generation' refers to the propensity of evolving systems to generate novel configurations, which can result in surprising novel behaviors or characteristics.

[Continues . . .]

The paper is open access.

"On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems" | PNAS

QuoteAbstract:

Physical laws—such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics—codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic natural systems across space and time. We propose that an additional, hitherto-unarticulated law is required to characterize familiar macroscopic phenomena of our complex, evolving universe.

An important feature of the classical laws of physics is the conceptual equivalence of specific characteristics shared by an extensive, seemingly diverse body of natural phenomena. Identifying potential equivalencies among disparate phenomena—for example, falling apples and orbiting moons or hot objects and compressed springs—has been instrumental in advancing the scientific understanding of our world through the articulation of laws of nature.

A pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, including stars, minerals, atmospheres, and life. These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: 1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function.

We identify universal concepts of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—that underpin function and drive systems to evolve through the exchange of information between the environment and the system. Accordingly, we propose a "law of increasing functional information": The functional information of a system will increase (i.e., the system will evolve) if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


zorkan

Apologies if this has already been discussed, but this year I came across the Nick Lane books on cellular biology.
 
Life Ascending.
Oxygen.
Power, Sex, Suicide.
The Vital Question.
Transformer.

After feeling uncomfortable with the likes of Dawkins, at last I found an author that explains just about everything I wanted to know about evolution.

Here is a brief summary of Life Ascending.
https://nick-lane.net/books/life-ascending-the-ten-great-inventions-of-evolution/