Edtharan

Yeah, the speed of thought is pretty slow. A good Human reaction time is around 0.25 of a second (yes 1/4 of a second). And this is not actual "Thought" but the speed neurons travel from the brain to the limb - so it would be faster than thought. However, what I think the OP is meaning by "thought" is some kind of telepathy or extra sensory perception. However, even if these existed, they would still be limited to the speed of light, so no, you couldn't travel faster than light like that (if that were possible). If you read the very first sentence of that article it reads: "A bioship is a type of spacecraft described in science fiction." (italics mine) Please note the last three words: "in science fiction". In other words, they aren't real. But lets for the moment consider the viability of a biological ship. Firstly, they won't be able to travel faster than light speed, so these ships are going to take hundreds, if not thousands of years to reach the nearest stars. This means they ahve to not only take the fuel to reach there (and slow down too), they will also need to carry the life-support needs of both the crew and themselves) and the fuel to accelerate and decelerate this mass too). Why go to the bother of doing that if you don't need to? A Bioship would have to have a metabolism (it is living after all), so it needs food and would produce waste (the waste might be used as fuel/propellent - or weapons, which gives the phrase "Getting into a pissing contest" a new meaning ). All these need to be dealt with or taken along with you. It is hard enough getting to other planets, not to mention the difficulties of getting to another star, so why would you make it harder? Many Bioships in fiction state they make them biological because it makes them easy to repair/maintain (because it can regrow any damaged parts). However, what they all forget is that this would take longer to do (how long does it take a wound to heal as compared how long it takes to replace a damaged component) and cost more energy/resources (repair is so resource intensive for animals that many forgo full repair and just stop more damage from occuring - do we regrow arms?) So, Bioships, although they sound good in fiction, would actually not be very good in reality. The only reason I can think of using a Bioship is that they can reproduce easier. A factory can only produce a certain number of ships in a given time, and the only way to increase this is to build more factories. However, with Bioships, they production capacity increases exponentially as the number of ships increases. However, it is feasible to make mechanical ships that can reproduce themselves using 3d Printing/fabrication techniques. These would ahve all the benefits of a Bioship (exponential replication, self repairability, etc) without any of the problems (waste management and life support for the ship, etc). So again the question: Why bother with a Bioship when there are better alternatives?

But you are forgetting Relativity. If we can accelerate a probe to near light speed, then to it, the journey between galaxies would not take millions of years, but could in fact take only a few years. If we could just give it 1g of thrust (9.8m/s/s) the time dilation of the journey would put it in the range of reliability we can do today. For us it would seem like millions of years, but to the probe, it might only seem decades.

Black Holes (in a sci-fi sense) might be a good source of power. If one could harvest the Hawking Radiation from a Microscopic black hole, one could feed the hole enough matter to counteract the loss from the Hawking Radiation and the black hole would "convert" it into the hawking radiation. So long as one has a convenient source of matter (any matter) one could turn it into energy for use in a power station (on a space ship for instance). Also, if you fed it enough charged matter (protons, or electrons) to give it an electrical charge, then you could move it around quite easily and (relatively) safely but placing it in a electromagnetic trap. It would also be a way for you to dispose of wast (dangerous chemicals in the environment, just dump them into the Hawking Generator. CO2 choking your atmosphere? Try the new Hawking Generator. Sequester your carbon and generate clean renewable energy today! ). then of course, there is all the plot that can happen (terrorists plan to dump a large amount mass into it to cause the planet to be swallowed up by the hole, etc )

First of all, the article says that in polar areas, because of the amount of variability there and that there is not many monitoring stations, it is difficult to detect the signatures of global warming. However, the Northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming regions in the world. The article is actually saying that: not only do they have evidence of global warming (from else where) but that looking for subtle changes near the poles is not actually a good idea. However, if clear signs are found, near the poles, of global warming, then these signs must be strong enough to exceed the "noise" of the natural variability of these locations. If anything, this article is pro-global warming. The article even ends with them stating that trying to apply a global model to a specific region is not a good idea and will not provide accurate predictions. It is also a mistake to think that Global Warming will mean that temperature, all over the Earth, will go up. Instead Global Warming (which by the way was a catch phrase not invented by the scientists, but by the media who were being dismissive). Instead, "Global Warming" is about energy. Simply put, there is a (relatively) constant amount on energy being input into the Earth climate systems from the sun and a (relatively) constant amount of energy being dissipated from the Earth's climate systems. When sunlight hits the Earth, some of it is reflected, and some of it is absorbed. Eventually, all of the absorbed energy will be re-emitted, usually as infra-red light. However, some of that infra-red light will be absorbed by certain chemicals in the atmosphere, and will be re-emitted back to the Earth (and some out into space too), the rest will just be radiated out into space. Eventually, all of this light too will be emitted back into space, but for a time it is trapped here and while this energy is here it has to go somewhere. The more of these chemicals that can absorb and re-emit this infra-red light there is in the atmosphere, the more infra-red light will be absorbed () and the more that will be trapped here. Now, infra-red light is emitted by hot objects, so the more infra-red light there is the hotter the object (hence the warming bit of global warming). However, the energy in this infra-red light does not ahve to go into making things hotter, it can go into moving things around. Which can include heat, so some parts will get warmer, but others might get cooler. But, in that article, they mentions that the winds surrounding Antarctica are getting faster. Wind is just air being moved around right... The faster the wind is moving the more energy it has. As I said: The energy contained in the infra-red radiation does not just go into making things hotter, but can go into moving things around. It is the energy contained in the sunlight and that is trapped in the climate systems that is causing the winds around to Antarctica to blow, and the more energy the contain, the harder they are blowing. 10 to 20 percent increase in the speed of the wind (as per the article) is a massive increase in energy. As energy can't be created or destroyed, then the energy to increase the wind speed has to come from somewhere. If this amount of energy was being taken from somewhere else on the planet then it probably would have been noticed, and not only that, it takes energy to move energy around. So, where is this energy coming from? The best place I can think of (and that fits with the evidence) is that it comes from more energy being trapped in the climate systems of the Earth. This means that the gasses that absorb infra-red radiation in the atmosphere are increasing. These gasses are also know as Greenhouse gasses (as a greenhouse is designed to trap heat in the greenhouse). The increased wind speed, and the warming of the peninsula is pretty clear evidence (especially when you include the rest of the world too) that global warming is occuring. Although this article seems to be pitched against global warming, they actually do a good job in the argument for global warming (it is just that you need to know that Global Warming does not necessarily mean temperature increase, but can mean things like wind speed increase too).

Yes, I have even mentioned these Mirror Neurons myself (in this thread even). However, these mirror neurons also activate when we see a robot do things too. But, as you said computers don't have Qualia, so these neurons are not being triggered by something that is innately human about the subject. Actually back onto qualia, how can you know that a computer doesn't ahve qualia? How can you know that I have qualia? The answer is: that you can't. You can not tell if something does or does not have qualia, so any "theory" about reading minds based on this premise has a major flaw (that qualia exist at all). Can you prove to me that you have qualia? Can I prove to you that I have qualia. Again the answer is no. If you can not show that something exists, how can you show (or even say) that it exists? Also the process you are talking about (refining a "model" of a subject) is already done by computers and they can do it much better than we can (in certain aspects of behaviour - just do a quick google search and you will see the extent this is being applied). It is often used in research to make models of human behaviours and in the last couple of decades this method has been revealing much about human behaviours that we didn't know before. So, as computers are doing this, and you are saying this is what you mean by "reading" another mind, then computers are able to read another mind (by your definition). BUT: You also said that having qualia was essential for this ability. But you have also said that computers do not have qualia. I can not reconcile your proposition with the evidence in front of me. As I said before a solution without a problem begs for a problem to exist and people will try to fit the solution to whatever problems come along. This is what I think you are trying to do. Mirror Neurons do not allow us to "read" minds, they allow us to mirror another's actions better. Motivation and thoughts associated with those mirrored actions are purely up to the observer and involve no information being transmitted from the other doing those actions.

There is no "trying". All that is occuring is that a stable structure is better able to reproduce itself (but too stable and it can't adapt). Because reproducing structures will dominate over non reproducing structures, then what we see is reproducing structures that are stable (because they are the ones that will dominate). There is no direction, trying, purpose or end point. It is only in the immediate (repeated many times).

But, still this would not be "reading" another's thoughts, this is instead imposing your own thoughts onto you imagined mind of another person. There is no reading in this. It is in fact the opposite. The danger in thinking like this is that you are making assumptions about that other person, so if you think that you are "reading" something form them, then you are ignoring information that is coming in. Sure, you might (mostly) get it right , but because you are imposing your own assumptions about the way they are feeling/thinking, you will also get it wrong. This is how misunderstanding can occur and if it is assumptions about another, then that can make them feel taken for granted and cause problems. So this is a actually not a very good way to go about trying to understand how others feel or think. What you need is to look at how they are actually thinking and feeling not what you expect them to think and feel. As an example (because it does happen a lot on forums - including one), what if I assumed something about you based on past experiences: If I were to assume, from past experiences in dealing with people on forum, that because you disagree with me, that you are going to get angry and threaten me (this has not actually occurred to me but I do know someone who it did occur to - not on this forum though). then if you disagreed with me, I might take this as the start of a downward spiral that will end with you threatening me. Have I actually "read" something about you? No. I don't think you would do that (this is just an example), but if that was my past experiences, then my assumptions would be wrong and the actions I then take based on that would be, in my mind, valid (especially if those actions caused you to get angry, etc). So as you can see, just because in your past you have had experiences that made you feel one way, doe snot automatically mean that other people will feel the same way. To assume that they do is wrong and you are not reading anything from them (you are in fact shutting down your reading because you "Know" how they feel and don't need to see how they actually feel. (And, as the saying goes: To Assume is yo make an Ass out of U and Me. )

Well the simple answer would be that reproduction is more advantageous than immortality. The more complex answer is: Entropy. Well, it is a bit more complex than just one word. Let me explain: No system is immune from decay. The energy can be expended to prevent, or reverse that decay, but it is difficult to do and takes a lot of energy. Also, if the repair mechanisms decay, then the system breaks down and nothing can be repaired (of course, you can have backup repair mechanisms, but even then something can go wrong with all backup systems too). So an organism that spent so much energy and effort into maintaining their own repair mechanisms would not be all that efficient at gathering food. If an other organism comes along that has discarded these repair mechanisms in favour of reproduction, then even though the parent might die, there will be more of them and they will not be as inefficient at gathering their foods. Eventually, because of reproduction, there would be many more of these "reproducers" than the Immortals. Not only that, these reproducers would be better adapted at living off smaller amounts of food. Because there are so many reproducers, the finite influx of nutrients (food) will be used up. Then, only organisms that have the ability to live off these smaller amounts of food will be able to survive. So these immortals, who need a lot of nutrients to maintain themselves against entropy (see it does have something to do with it all ) will not be getting enough nutrients to maintain themselves. Entropy then starts to cause them to fail (including their repair mechanisms) and they die. However, the Reproducers will still be alive (as they can survive on much smaller amounts of nutrients because they are not constantly trying to fight entropy - although they do to some extent, but not enough to make them immortal). However, in ecological niches where an abundance of energy/nutrients are available and very little competition, then immortality might just be a viable trait. Notice in all that, I didn't actually refer to evolution. This was because the differences between Immortality and Reproduction in this situation does not require any referral to evolution. There is no need for reproduction with variation, all you need is reproduction as compared to immortality. Because Immortality is a high resource consuming strategy (to fight off entropy), then any organism that uses a lower cost strategy (reproduction) will be automatically better adapted for situations where resources are scarce. Reproduction naturally leads to a scarce resource situation, and as it has a lower resource cost than Immortality, it is therefore better adapted than Immortality (and it creates, by its existence, the very situation where it is better adapted for). I hope this helps.

What you are talking about here is called "Processing". It is where you take some information, then run it through a process (that might involve adding other information to it) and getting a result. This is NO different than what a CPU in a computer does. Would you consider the functioning of your computer's processor to be Telepathy? The way the brain processes information is through a distributed associative network. Associative networks process information by forming associations between them, links between the data it previously receives and has stored and then using those associations to derive the result. As you can see, an "Analogy" is just one of these associations (you are saying one thing is like another). If you convey that analogy to me, then what my brain does is process that analogy by forming more associations and testing them. This is not telepathy. This is no different than what is done in databases by computers (although the brain is more complex). That is, unless you consider your computer as being capable of telepathy (and if such a simple system is capable of it, then all animals should be capable of it and then evolution would have exploited it - as evolution hasn't, then we can rule out this too). The reason we recognise the words on the screen is that we have associations between those shapes (letters) and the sounds (the words spoken). We then have associations between those sounds and events that have occurred in our lives (education). This is not telepathy. No information (beyond what has been transmitted by sharing that analogy - and you seem to agree that the transmission of that analogy does not constitute telepathy) has actually been transmitted between our minds. As you seem to agree Prior Knowledge does not constitute telepathy. So why do you think that the education I have, and my experience of you (all of which is prior knowledge) now constitute telepathy? It seems to me that on one hand you are saying that 'X' can't be telepathy, but then turning around that saying that 'X' is telepathy. Either you think it is, or you think it isn't. Either Prior Information is not considered as being telepathy, or it is considered telepathy (but then how do you reconcile this with information being transmitted now, as in 1 seconds time it would be then prior information and now considered telepathy).

I don't see this as shifting the goal posts so much as approaching it from a different angle. Instead of leaving the mechanism as a "black box" of unknown (or un-knowable), you are trying to propose some new mechanism that would allow for telepathy to work. As it is, without a mechanism, you see telepathy as illogical. The problem with this is the same as the one that forufes had trouble accepting: With or without reference to mechanisms, if telepathy works (not how it works, just that it does), then evolution would be able to (and should have) exploited it. But, as we don't see such an effect, then we can say that either telepathy is not advantageous (but I can't see why, especially in a social species - and one that has been social far longer than it has been a single species), or it does not exist (along with all the other reasons why it can't exist). There is no point trying to explain how telepathy works, if you can't actually show it exists. Then you would agree: Telepathy, as it is defined, is not possible. Actually, it would be possible to send a secure message through a channel. We do this all the time. Your mobile phone uses a broad cast system where it send out the signal that anyone (with the right equipment) could detect. But decoding that information is much harder (but it can be done). However, just because a signal is broadcast, does not automatically mean that anyone can simply intercept it in a meaningful way. I agree that we can make a guess at what is going on in other people's minds, but this is not telepathy as no information is really being transferred during these sessions. Information is transferred before the session, but then one could argue that foreknowledge is not telepathy. If I read a book once, and then read it again some time later, it is a form of "telepathy" that I can know what the characters are going to do? No, of course not. This is the same as with the scenarios you proposed. Here is another scenario. Imagine that you read the schedule of a friend and find that they are meeting another friend for coffee on Friday at a particular cafe at 17:30. Is it then telepathy if you know that they they are having coffee at 17:40? No. You had knowledge of their activities before hand, so this is not some information transfer from their brain to yours, except through the medium of the person's schedule. The problem word here is "Apparent". Unless there is actual information transfer, then you can't actually calim that infomration is sent. There are many things that "apparently" happen, but this is often an mistake by the people involved jumping to conclusions and not basing their conclusions on evidence. Imagine if this kind of thinking occurred in courts of law: Jury: "We don't need to see any evidence about this case. We believe the defendant to be guilty." What if you were the defendant? Would you want to just accept the conclusions of the court based on assumptions, and not on evidence? But, despite all this, if Telepathy was occuring this way, then it would have a measurable effect of the receiver's brain. This could be determined and conclusive proof of telepathy could be delivered (and then a mechanism for it could be worked out). Unless there is evidence of an effect that needs an explanation, then any explanation is like a solution looking for a problem (and usually when any opportunity presents itself the look promising, the solution will be used, even if it is not the correct solution). So, as soon as anything that even remotely looks as if it could be called "Telepathy" (even if it isn't) comes along, if you have a ready made explanation of telepathy then you will want to use your explanation for it. This is actually exactly what you have done. You are trying to use "telepathy" for such things as foreknowledge, theory of mind (creating a model of what other people might be thinking to try and guess at what they are actually thinking) and other know effects (with known causes) and that are absolutely not telepathy. And that is precisely what I am talking about. This is what is called theory of mind. It is a known phenomena with a known explanation. We even know the exact neurons involved (mirror neurons) and where they are located in the brain (premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex). This is not, in any way, telepathy. If it is, then imagination is also telepathy because the same regions fire when you imagine yourself doing things or being is a situation (I like to think of it as the "Dungeons and Dragons" part of the brain - that we have specifically evolved to play Role Playing Games ) Actually, this supports my argument: If telepathy was possible, then as a social species, evolution would ahve exploited it in us. Just look at the level it has exploited the ability to mirror other people's behaviours and map our own motivations to them (a lot of what we consider as typical human behaviours are base on this "theory of mind" / "Mirror Neuron" effect). Being able to even guess at another person's thoughts is of such an advantage in working together that this ability has given us massive advantage. IF we could actually send information directly between minds without the guess work, then this would be even more of an advantage (oh, and humans are not the only species with mirror neurons (other primates, and even some birds have them ).

To put is in the simplest way. It is not that matter can't be created or destroyed, but that Matter/Energy can't be created or destroyed. Just as you can turn one type of energy into another type of energy (chemical energy in the petrol/gas in your car into kinetic energy of the car moving), you can also turn energy into matter (in the form of an Electron/Positron pair) and back again (when they annihilate).

Using an fMRI machine to "read people's thoughts is not the same as Telepathy. If using a device built to transmit "thoughts" to a receiver, and the receiver being in possession of a device that allows that signal to be received, is not the same as telepathy, or mobile phones are telepathy (and the Internet is a Hive Mind ). Actually, the fact that we can see such advantage from technological telepathy (phones and stuff), and this has propelled our species to ever greater power over its environment, this just supports my evolutionary argument against "natural" telepathy (if telepathy existed, any organism that had it would be able to out compete other and so the prevalence of it would come to dominate the gene pool of that (those) species. Just look at how fast mobile phones have spread around the world. If you think of it in terms of Memetics rather than Genetic, the Meme of the Phone has been such a massive advantage, people who don't have them are severely disadvantaged. Those that have them have access to the other abilities that they bring (the hive mind of the internet which allows people to get information from around the world and use it in a way that aids them - this is because it has evolved into a more refined Meme set). It is just this very thing that shows that no animal on Earth has yet evolved a natural (non technological) telepathy.

You are focusing on the medium. Before any medium can be inferred, you have to know what the effects are. Since no effect on the target brain has ever been recorded (from any medium not already identified), then there is no effect to propose a medium for. If there is no effect, then discussing a plausible way that non effect can occur is meaningless (illogical). What consists of this "middle gray zone" in logic? Logic is a branch of mathematics, so you should be able to at least describe this grey zone in terms of maths. If you can't describe this zone in terms of maths, then this means that if it isn't logical, then it must be illogical. Now, remember that Logical/Illogical is a binary term, it is either/or. It is one or the other. So mathematically speaking, if something is not logical, then it must (by mathematical definition) be illogical. Also, if something is not illogical, then it must be logical. Using maths again (in a convoluted way, but that is perfectly valid): If something is not, not illogical, then it is illogical (the "not"s cancel each other out and the statement becomes: "telepathy is illogical"). Illogical means Not logical. So the statement actually works out to be: Telepathy is not, not, not logical. Two of the "not"s cancel out and the statement reads: "Telepathy is not logical". The qualifier "beyond today's tools' sensitivity" also means "beyond the brains ability to receive it". regardless of the medium, if the signal (even if through a magic medium that science can never be applied to) must have an effect on the receiver's brain. If this signal (regardless of the medium it is transferred with) has no effect on the receiver's brain, then the receiver's brain has not received it. If the receiver's brain has not received anything, then telepathy, regardless of its form, medium or the ability of science to describe anything else about it can not have occurred. Even if everything else about telepathy was logical, if no effect occurs in the receiver's brain, then telepathy has not occurred. Since no effect in a receiver's brain has ever been detected, even though we have long had the sensitivity to easily detect such an effect in the brain, then we can say that telepathy has not occurred. We are not trying to detect any medium of transfer. So there is no need to be concerned about whether or not our devices can detect the magnitude of the signal, or that the medium is or is not currently know (or even if it can ever been known). We can detect the activation of individual neurons (in the lab), but in the brain we can get this sensitivity down to the point where we can detect below the minimum threshold needed for activation (so even if a single neuron fires, we can detect it, but we just can't accurately say which one unless we place invasive devices in the head). But the important thing is that we can detect activation below the threshold of activation. This means, that if any signal is being sent between brains, by what ever means, if it has an effect on the brain, we can detect it. As no effect within the brain has been detected (despite people looking for it and even claiming that they have had such experiences while being scanned). Ergo: Telepathy is not occuring. Remember, if there is no effect, then there is no point in discussing how it might work. You keep saying that you are trying to explain how telepathy might work, but as there has been no effect of telepathy, then there is nothing to explain how it works. It is like trying to explain how the DNA sequence of Unicorns effect the twisting of their horn. As unicorns don't exist, then there is no twisting of their horn that needs explaining. No. Because we are not trying to detect the medium of telepathy, but the effects it MUST have on the receiver's brain. As I said. If that celestial teapot would have an effect on something (say that it could be detected by the heat it gave off as it made the tea), then we should be able to detect that heat signature. If 100% of the area it has to be in is scanned and no heat signature is found, then we can say that that teapot does not exist. Unless you can demonstrate an effect in the human brain that is caused by telepathy, then no telepathy is taking place. If I wanted to demonstrate the effect of Leprechauns on pots of gold, I would first ahve to show that Leprechauns (and pots of gold) exist. Without them, there is nothing that needs describing. Ahh, but you say, what if we could not detect Leprechauns?. Well, this is exactly what I am talking about. If we can show that pots of gold exist (the receiver's brain) and then detect any effects on them of sufficient magnitude for Leprechauns, and we eliminate any of those effects caused by know sources, then we can propose Leprechauns as the cause of the effect. But, if we do this and find NO effect of sufficient magnitude for it to be a Leprechauns , then we can conclude that Leprechauns don't exist (or at least interfere with pots of gold - but as that is an essential part of what Leprechauns are, then they must). It dismantles any theory of telepathy where by there is a sender and receiver of information that does not rely on senses. In other words it dismantles any theory of telepathy that has direct Mind to Mind communication (of any content). Because telepathy is direct mind to mind communication: by definition, then any form of telepathy is therefore dismantled. My disproof of telepathy does not rely on the medium. It can be anything from electromagnetic waves, sound or even fairies. It does not matter the slightest. If no effect is found in the receiver's brain, then there is no effect to be explained. If there is no effect to be explained, then what effect are you trying to explain. It can't be telepathy as there is no effect from it. This is not telepathy. This is non verbal communication. It is not driect mind to mind communication. It is communication through normal, known channels. It would be like saying that: when I type on this forum it is telepathy because information in my mind is being transferred to yours. As it is a form of information transfer that is not direct mind to mind communication, me typing here and you reading it, is not a form of telepathy. Again, this can not be a form of telepathy as it is not direct mind to mind communication. As I also said, the medium of transfer is not important, so long as it is direct mind to mind transfer of information. If it is necessary for there to be an effect of a minimum magnitude, and we can detect effects of smaller magnitudes, and we have looked for these effects and not found them. Then we should ahve picked up the effect if it exists. As no effect has been found, we can say that the effect we are looking for (the effect of direct mind to mind transfer of information) does not occur. No. Because the "magnitude" we are looking for must be of a minimum size or it won't have an effect on the receiver's brain. It is like this: If you have two detectors, one that can detect a sound of 10 decibels or higher, and another that can detect a sound of 5 decibels or higher, and you don't detect a sound with the 5 decibel meter, then you won't detect a sound with the 10 decibel meter. If you detect a sound with the 10 decibel meter, then you can be certain that you will detect it with the 5 decibel meter. Compared to our detection equipment, the brain is the 10 decibel meter and our monitoring equipment is the 5 decibel meter. If we have an effect that is strong enough to register with the brain, then our other detectors will also pick up that effect (in the brain). If we don't pick up any effect on the brain, then there is no effect on the brain that will be effecting the brain (because if it is enough to effect the brain we can detect that effect). Unless you are proposing a conspiracy theory to suppress the existence of any scientific data relating to the existence of telepathy, then any scientist that had discovered such an effect would be winning the Nobel prize and revolutionising the communications networks of the world. Also, any effect of that magnitude (ie: that had ANY effect that allowed the direct mind to mind transfer of information on the recipient) would have long ago been exploited by evolution to our (or any other species) advantage. As it has no, then the effect (if it exists) does not allow the transfer of any form of information (and so can not be considered telepathy anyway) or telepathy does not exist.. I can't use something that has no effect. Consciously or unconsciously. You can't ride (use) a Unicorn if unicorns don't exist. Simply that information is in one brain, and then without the need for known physical medium like sounds, chemicals, light or contact (etc), information is delivered to the recipient. Exactly what it says. If no information is transferred, then no communication has taken place and telepathy has not occurred. Umm, key word there: "Sight". It is therefore not telepathy, but vision...

As a computer game designer, I like to examine these things and how people think they work so as to enable me to include the effect in a game design. This is why I have a lot of details of something that I don't believe exists: It makes good fiction. However, I am also interested in discussions, and yes, in challenging my beliefs. Thus, when this thread came up, I decided to look into it and challenge my beliefs and see if someone could prove that "Telepathy is not illogical" (as the thread title states). This means that I won't just accept someone claim that it logical. I will examine their claim with logic to see if the claim is true. If telepathy is not illogical, then it must therefore be logical. Thus, if we examine any claim for logical consistency and that it matches evidence, then I will accept their claim that telepathy is indeed logical. In this thread, the best theory put for is to: remain ignorant of any other possible cause so that you can believe that it exists. This is not a logical argument, and so if this is the only "proof" of telepathy, then this means that telepathy is not logical (which proves the premise of this thread false). As for the non-existence: As I said, the effects telepathy must have on the brain (it must change it in a significant way - on at least equal par with changes that occur naturally in the brain), and because we have been able to detect this level of change for more than two decades and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of scans of this kind has been performed with no evidence of any effect of a scale large enough to account for the effects claimed by telepathy (that any information is being transferred). This same principal is used in many other fields of science. In particles accelerators, they look for the effects of theorised particles. If no effect is found at the required scale for the particle to exist, then it can be said that the particle can not exist (of course, in particle physics there is many different models and so many different expected scales that a particle might exist at, but when these are examined and no effect is found, they have discarded proposed particles because of this). So, my method is well founded in scientific and logical principals. What you have tried to do is apply principals from a completely different method to this (which is in effect a strawman of my argument as the methods you are trying to use are not logically valid in the method I was using). This is the problem with any proposed telepathic effect. no matter what method is proposed in how it operates, ultimately it has to have an effect in the recipients brain. There has to be some detectable effect of a minimum scale regardless of the mechanism proposed for the actual transmission. I am not looking at the medium or the source. I am looking for an effect on the receiver. There has to be an effect on the receiver, or the receiver could not have been influenced by the source. Regardless of the way the source or the medium work, there has to be an effect on the receiver and it must be of a sufficient strength to illicit a change in the receiver. We have been able to detect effects of these magnitudes for over two decades now and no influence from any source, or medium (known or unknown). In fact, there is a machine called a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator ( Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation ) that can cause changes to the way the brain operate. This means we know the exact strength of an effect that is needed to influence the brain for a certain effect. We have been able to detect these effects for well over two decades (more like 50 years) and we still do not ahve any evidence of an influence on the brain large enough to carry any information from one brain to the other (regardless of the medium - remember we are looking for a specific effect in the brain of the receiver). So, like you said, if Telepathy is supposed to leave some kind of trail, the strength of this trail on the receiver's brain has been well within our ability to detect for nearly half a century. And yet, we still ahve not found any effect like this. Also any information that could be passed directly from brain to brain would be an astronomically advantageous adaptation that it will have become widely spread and highly developed within the gene pool of whatever species that develops it. As no species ever studied (including humans) have ever shown such direct information transfers, then we can conclude that it does not exist. We don't need to find the medium, but we do need to find an effect (as without an effect any proposed medium that causes that effect would be a pointless and illogical discussion). The effect, of telepathy, has not been observed. Ever. An effect on the brain from an outside influence (which can not be accounted for by known source, like the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator) has never been observed (or even to convey information). In short, ther eis no logical reason to accept that Telepathy exists, adn as that was the topic of discussion in their thread, then one can propose all the illogical forms of telepathy one wants, but that can never make it logical. I don't mind someone arguing for something that they don't really believe in (playing devils advocate), as long as they make it clear that they are doing so and do not make personal attacks (which you haven't). These kinds of debates are interesting and I think important, because it helps to challenge beliefs that we hold. As science works on challenging the accepted to see if it stands up to reality, this is an essential part of good mental operation. I believe it will be possible, through technological means, to develop a system that could theoretically mimic the effects of telepathy, but it would not really be "telepathy" like you have proposed, or any other form that has been proposed. It is really just an extension of phone technology (so if you want to call phones a form of telepathy, then you are completely redefining what is meant be it - and if that is the case, then Telepathy can be said to exist ).

@forufes So let me know if I have this right. Youa re proposing a completely new form of telepathy. One that does not resemble the effect od causes of the traditional belief of telepathy. You are saying that people can sense things about other people without sensing anything bout them. This doesn't make any sense, so let me know if I have it wrong as I really think I do. In this case, these engineers have had year of experience of the cars, and know in advance what most modifications the cars will have. So ther eis no real analogy between any form of telepathy and this. If I were to study how people behave in certain situations, and then place someone who I ahve done a detailed psychological analysis (including asking them what they would do in that situation), and then place them in that situation. Is it telepathy if I correctly predict what they would do? No. Not at all. It is just knowledge gained before the event through normal sensory channels (sight, hearing, etc). This, I think completely sums up what you have described as "telepathy". You describe it that if someone has detailed experience and extensive knowledge of the subject in that situation, they cna correctly predict what they are going to do. This is not telepathy, this is just modelling. If this is your requirement for telepathy, then computers can perform telepathy because they can predict, through experience with people, their reactions in certain situations. But, you said that consciousness is needed for telepathy. Would you consider a computer as being conscious? I wouldn't (well not yet ). So, either you have to say that computer are conscious, consciousness is not needed, or your definition of telepathy is not actual telepathy. In any of those choices it is bad for your claims. So what you are saying here, is that if the person that performs these actions and correctly predicts the behaviour, but does not know how they did it, despite there being a valid explanation (which can be confirmed by careful examination of what actually occurred), and despite this confirmation is considered telepathy on the basis that they simply didn't know how they did it. So you can only perform telepathy if you are ignorant of how your own brain works. that if you don't think about how you think. replace telepathy with UV. Oh, you mean like Bees and insects being able to see in UV. Yes. UV light exists, it is advantageous for animals who use it, and evolution exploited it. this is exactly what I said. However, seeing in UV light, for most animals, is not much of an advantage as there is no information that is useful to them that can be conveyed through UV that isn't already conveyed through normal Visible light. This counter argument of yours actually prove my point. If there is a sense that is an advantage to an animal, then evolution will ahve exploited it. If there is no advantage for an animal, then it won't be selected for by evolution. So, any form of telepathy would be extremely advantageous for a social animal. There are thousands of different species that are social animals. Why then, as your example of UV proved, when an ability is advantageous for a species, does it not get exploited by evolution. Not even once! Yes, as I said. If it existed in humans, then the advantage of it would be so great that we would all be very good telepaths by now. As we aren't ther eis only two conclusions: 1) Telepathy exists, but is completely incapable of sending any information what so ever (which would not actually make it telepathy now would it). 2) Telepathy does not exist. Actually there can be. If that something would leave a residue, and no residue is found, then it can be shown to never have existed. For example. I can prove that a Nuclear Explosion never existed 3 days ago where I live. Simply because if it had existed then there would be a massive amount of damage and radiation form it. As there is none, I can conclude that it never existed. So there can be evidence against something existence. In the case of Telepathy, if it existed, then evolution will ahve exploited it (this is the residue). As evolution has not exploited it, then this counts as evidence that it does not exist. However, it does not prevent it from existing in the future. But if it is created in the future, it still will not make it exist now or in the past. Thus I can say now, that telepathy does not exist (and has not existed in the past). This is very different from what you talk about when you say that in the future that they can prove the existence of telepathy as this "proof" you are talking about is a retroactive proof that it exists now (according to us) and in the past. Telepathy could be created by a future (and not too distant future - 20 years from now give or take a decade) technology. The basis of it exists now. There have been experiments where a scientist at Redding university (the heard of the cybernetic department) implanted a chip into his arm that detected the neurological signals as he attempted to move his arm. These were then interpreted by a computer and transmitted over the internet to a robotic arm on the other side of the world and cause the robot arm to move. Further experiments had another chip placed in his wife's arm and signals sent when his hand was touched to her chip and then she felt the touch on his hand. This is technological "telepathy", and is very different from your proposition (and from traditional telepathy too). They also ahve the ability now to directly stimulate individual neurons, and also detect the activation of individual neurons. they can essentially now read and write information directly to individual neurons. If you couple the experiments from Redding university with this newer technologies, then you can easily conceive of a chip that can be implanted into your brain that reads and writes information directly to neurons in your brain in such a way as to emulate traditional telepathy. Brain imaging and analysis needs to be improved to the point where they can detect the states of individual neurons and the connections between them (not as far off as you might think). This kind of telepathy I can accept (mobile phones are a first tentative step in that direction), but if you are proposing a method of two brains communicating directly without aid, then there is no evidence that this occurs, and as such an ability wou7ld be a huge advantage, if we have it at all, then evolution would have exploited it to the point where it was easily observable (we would ahve evidence long ago of this and the mechanics it worked by). As this evidence does not exist (even though it has been extensively looked for), and if telepathy did exist this evidence should be easily gathered, I can say that this counts as proof that it does not exist due to the absence of the residual. Not at all. That is a strawman of what I was saying. I am saying that science is advaned enough NOW that we can detect events and effects far smaller than would exist if telepathy existed. If telepathy exists, then it must have a measurable effect on the recipient's brain. If it did not, then it would have no effect of the recipients brain and could therefore be said not to exist. As science can measure the scale of effect that telepathy would need to ahve on the recipients brain, and we don't detect this effect, then we can say that the effect (telepathy) does not exist, or has so small an effect on the recipients brain that it does not change it in any way (which amount to the same thing). We are not at the pinnacle of science. I never said that and you are putting word in my mouth in a vain attempt to try and prove something that has well and truly been proven to not exist (due to the absence of detected effect - and as it is supposed to ahve an effect, then we should be able to detect it, right). The situation is completely different here. We are not trying to prove/disprove an explanation, but to prove/disprove the existence of an effect. Simply put, if an effect has to have a certain magnitude, and no effect of that magnitude or even much smaller magnitude: down to the point of small clusters of neurons. We can also study the clusters of neurons directly in the lab, and still we don't' find any effect. So should we conclude that the effect is of a smaller magnitude than individual neurons. But we can study the make up of individual neurons and see any effect within them, and we still do not find the effect. So may be it is an effect on molecules, but we can study the effect on molecules and we still do not find any effect. So may be it is at the scale of atoms. But we can study individual atoms too and we find no effect. So may be it is sub atomic. But we can study the effects on sub atomic particles too and we still find not telepathy effect. Under stand now. We have the ability to detect things at all these scales, an no effect that could account for telepathy has ever been detected. So, either the effect is so small it has no effect, or it doesn't exist. It is proof of non existence by disproof. If it is impossible for something to exist, then there is no way it does exist. Yep, it is supposed to be a teapot, but a toaster is good enough. the problem here is that we aren't looking for something that is undetectable. If it was undetectable then it would not be possible for it to work. Any telepathy HAS to have an effect on the receiver's brain, otherwise how would the receiver be able to receive that information? therefore there HAS to be some effect we can detect if Telepathy, in any form exists. There has never been any such effect detected, so we can say for sure that no such effect has occurred. If it has never occurred, then it never existed. Simple really. If we take the teapot/toaster example. If is was necessary for the existence of that object that is had to leave a shadow on the Earth that could be seen daily, and no such shadow had ever been detected, even when it was necessary for the existence of that object for there to be a shadow there, then we can say for certain that there is no such object as the necessary requirements of its existence has never been detected. The difference between the Toaster and telepathy is that the toaster does not ahve any necessities for its existence that we can detect (other than being able to see it when we get close to it - or have a big enough telescope), and Telepathy does have such necessities (the effect it would have on the brain). If telepathy has always existed, then the big question is still there: Why hasn't evolution exploited it (like it has UV light). If telepathy has always, and does, exist, then it would ahve a measurable effect on the brain. Our detector have been sensitive enough (for around a decade) to detect any such effects of sufficient magnitude necessary for the effects of telepathy. No such effect has been found so we can conclude that the prerequisite effects for the existence of telepathy have not been found despite people looking for them with devices more than capable of detecting these effects, which means that telepathy can not exist. Going back to the teapot/toaster example. If I said that there was a teapot orbiting between 200 and 1000 kilometres above the Earth, and we had telescopes powerful enough to detect that Teapot, and we made a survey of 100% of that area and found no teapot, is it not logical to say that the teapot does not exist? Science has reached a point where it is more than capable of detecting any effect of sufficient magnitude that it would reveal telepathy, and there have been people that have searched for this extensively using these machines. No effect has been found.

Ok. Could yuo stop with the straw men here. It is getting utterly ridiculous. At that point, I was not trying to prove that web browsers were or were not created by intelligence. I was not even trying to disprove intelligent design. Please read what I write and not make up your own versions of it. I was actually trying to prove that Algorithms have a basis in mathematics, and this bases links all algorithms. Thus, if you can mathematically prove that a certain algorithm works, then using that same type of maths, you can prove that other algorithms work (or not). That was what I was trying to establish there. I then whent on to show that Evolution is an algorithm and has been mathematiclaly prove to work. There is no way you can argue against the FACT that the algorithm of evolution can not occur unless you can prove that 1 + 1 does not = 2. It is a mathematically proven fact that the algorithm of evolution works. This is completely indisputable. This only leaves the claim that living organisms can exhibit the algorithm of evolution. This is your only avenue of argument against evolution in organisms. Now, the real problem for you in this is that DNA has been shown to be able to operate as a Universal Turning Machine. Yes, not just a Specific one, but a Universal Turning Machine. They have even built "Biological" Computers that use DNA to perform the role of your CPU ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computing ). What this means is that DNA is capable of running the Evolution algorithm as any Universal Turing Machine is capable of simulating any Spceific Turning Machine. This is a mathematical FACT. In other word. I have just shown you that Evolution is a mathematical fact and that DNA and living organisms can perform the necessary functions to implement the Algorithm of Evolution (of course I have skipped over the mathematical details, but these do exist and if you take half an hour or so to look them up it is not too hard to understand them - most of modern information technology works because of this maths so it is probably important for you to understand them anyway). So unless you can now prove that 1 + 1 does not = 2, then you have to accept that biological evolution can occur. All I was doing in that section is to prove that Evolution is an algorithm, just like ant computer program (whether intelligently designed or not) and that this Algorithm has been mathematically prove to work. So you can no longer claim that Evolution does not exist (this is just like trying to say that 1 + 1 does not = 2). It does and has been mathematically prove to do so. So give up trying to disprove it. It exists. Accept it. One form of abiogenisis, that of creation form nothing. Oh but wait, this is what creationists are claiming. So they again have disproved themselves. The creation of living matter from non living matter goes on all the time actually. Plants take non living nutrients form the ground and turn it into more of themselves. See, there was an old proposition that living matter had some "animate essence" (called Elan Vital) that was not made of matter. Or that the matter that was in living organisms was some how fundamentally different from non living matter. Chemistry has long since disproved this Elan Vital proposition. SO unless you are syaing all of chemistry is wrong, you have to accept that non living matter can be turned into living matter. But if this can occur in living organisms, and there is nothing in these living organisms that is different from non living things, other than the arrangement of this matter, then it is not all that big a jump to accept (and this has been proven to occur) that without there being a living organism to do so (just through ordinary chemical processes - which are the same as those in living organisms). So all a plant does is to take chemicals from its environment, and then through energy supplied by the sun, it arranges those chemicals so that they can be used to take more chemicals from the environment and with energy from the sun arrange them so that they can be used to take more chemicals from the environment... This is, by definition: an Auto-catalytic process. So this seems to be the requirement for life: That it arranges chemicals in its environment in an auto-catalytic process. Did you watch those videos I linked to? The responses that you ahve been giving since my last post seem to indicate that you haven't. If you watched those videos, then you will see that through natural processes that existed on the pre-biotic Earth (and still exist today on Earth) can form, without the need for a lab or any interference from an intelligent designer, to form structures that enter into auto-catalytic processes. I know that you haven't watched those videos because you stated that no scientist has been able to prove such an event can occur. But you use a source from 1995 that they said it was theoretical. Well it is now 14 years later and the experiments have been done, the natural environments needed to reproduce these lab results have been show to have existed (and still exist) and the process has been observed to occur in total. If you once again state that no one has shown it to be possible for simple chemical reactions in the right environment to form structures that could lead to cells as we know them and even to produce DNA and RNA as we know them, then you can be called a liar because you have the links to the evidence already. This means you can accept my word for it (and there is no reason you should), or you can follow the links and learn about i for yourself. Either way, if to continue to post that it is impossible for chemical reactions to react to produce structures that will closely resemble the basics of a cell and that these structures can not exhibit the processes of the algorithm of evolution, then you are either delusional, or are guilty of fraud. Actually, you seem to have a problem that scientific theories, if shown to be wrong are then examined and re worked to make them fit better. You seem to think that a person can have just a single thought that completely captures the processes that go on without any error in it. Sorry, nothing in the world works like that. The bible claims it works like that. Science has never claimed to work like that, so why are you under the impression that it does (and so have a problem when it doesn't operate like that)? See, this is the problem with Strawmen arguments (and why I keep telling you to stop using them). A strawman argument makes stuff up and then shows that the made up stuff doesn't work. So, when scientists realised (through experimentation) that the proposition: that life spontaneously appears from stuff like rotting meat does not occur, it is exactly the correct thing to do to reject that proposition and look at the evidence and work out what is occuring. You say on one hand that we should accept the proposition that there is an intelligent designer because you claim that you ahve evidence that Evolution is wrong. But, on the other hand, when another proposition has been rejected because there was evidence against it, you seem to think this was the wrong thing to do. So, should we reject a proposition if there is evidence against it, or should we stick to it regardless of the evidence against it? Could you let us know in your response to this post please. It has been shown that even without external input, life can and does form on its own. Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation that fits the evidence is most likely to be true. As it is possible for life to form without any external input, this means that any proposition that there was and external (intelligent designer) adds extra things to the explanation (that would be the designer). So unless there is evidence for said designer, or evidence that states chemistry does not work, then we all have to accept that life does not need a designer to start. To accept a designer without evidence of that designer is to accept a delusion. frankly, I think that reality trumps imagination when it comes to working out what is real or not. Well watch those videos I linked to and you will find out. This process has been SCIENTIFICALLY accepted as being true. In other words: It can happen exactly as it stated it happens. And, what happens in life appears from chemistry (and a little bit of thermodynamics). the environments needed for the process are known to have existed at the time life started on Earth. The chemicals needed have been shown to have existed at the time life started on Earth. So all the components of the process existed (and still do) for the process have been proved to exist at the right time. So why can you not accept that the process did occur? It would have taken intervention to stop this process from occuring, and then intervention to make the process start. So all an intelligent designer would ahve to ahve done is not do anything and it would ahve occurred naturally anyway. The evidence is there, the experiments have been done, and the mathematics prove that is exists. So unless you are going to ignore the evidence, and ignore the mathematics and go live a delusion, then you have to accept that life does not need a creator to get started, and that evolution does occur. The ONLY way to argue against this is to prove that chemistry does not work and that mathematics does not work. Good luck with that...

Actually it is not that science does not know how life got started, it is that science doesn't know which way it got started. There are around 6 (AFAIK) ways that scientists think that life could have got started. Each one has been confirmed that it can produce the necessary components of living organisms and that these components once they exist do go on to produce living organisms. But, which of these was actually the way life got started here on Earth? That is the question being asked, not: "Could it have got started?" Think of it a bit like playing the game "Cludo" (or "Clue" in some countries). You know that the murder has occurred and you know that one of the suspects did it. But which suspect was it? No. Even if life was started by some Magic Man in the sky, Evolution would still be valid. Evolution is a process. In fact it is a special type of process called an "Algorithm". Algorithms are a set of mathematical instructions, and as such can be analysed mathematically. It has been mathematically shown that the Algorithm of Evolution works. So even if the Universe was created 5 seconds ago, Evolution would still be True. A guy called Allan Turing (a mathematician) described a theoretical (at the time) machine that would follow a set of mathematically defined set of instructions on a mathematically defined set of data. These instructions were called "Algorithms" and the Machine was called a Turing Machine. The thing is each set of instructions needed a new machine for it. Allan Turing when on to describe another type of Machine that was much more complex. This was a Turing Machine that was designed that if it followed a set of instructions, it would emulate any other Turing type machine. It was called a Universal Turing Machine and the device you are using to read this is an actual implementation of such a Universal Turning Machine. Yes, the very computer you are using is proof that Evolution works. If the mathematical processes that describe Evolution didn't work, then the mathematical processes that your computer uses to do anything would not work. If Evolution didn't work as described, then no computer would work either. Evolution is not a theory. It is an Algorithm. And yes, evolution has been implemented on computers and it is used in many industries from Air craft design to medicines to car design to computer design (and even in the design of canoes ). Evolution is no more a Myth than your Web browser. Life was not "programmed" in the first cell. Life is the process that the chemistry of a cell does. Have a look at this You Tube Video: . It explains it all alot better than I can here. Yes they can: See the video above. Again: See that video. You don't need a cell as complex as a modern one. A very simple type of cell can spontaneously form and exhibit all the necessary functions for it to be considered "Alive", and it is complex enough to execute the algorithm of Evolution. To "know" something requires a brain (or some other form of information processing structures). Single cells don't have this, so even modern single celled organisms can be said not to "know" that they have to survive. All that is needed is a situation where the Turing Machine for the Evolution Algorithm can operate and you will get evolution. You can get evolution with straws: 1) Get a lot of straws and some scissors (be careful with sharp scissors). 2) Cut around 10 of them to random lengths 3) Pick out 2 straws and discard the shortest one 4) With the straw you have left, cut another straw to a similar length (a bit shorter or longer or even the same length) 5) Return both of these straws back to your pile of 10 6) Repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 Over time you will see that the lengths of the straws will increase. And to show that this is not a fluke, do it again, but instead of discarding the shortest (in step 3) you keep the shortest and discard the longest. This time you will see that the straws become shorter over time. The straws don't know that they ahve to survive, they have no complex structures in them that can do that. You could automate this with a machine and remove the Human element and so remove any "knowledge" that the straws have to survive from that. But even then, you will still get the straws evolving. Evolution is a blind process (algorithm) and does not need any knowledge of survival. When you have a situation where you have something that replicates with variation, and there is some way that one can out replicate the others, then you will get evolution. What you are doping is putting something into the process of evolution that never existed in the process (you are making up your own version of evolution) and then you are showing that your fake version of evolution can't work. Well, that is no surprise. If you make up something that is designed not to work, and then show that it can't work, you really haven't shown anything of value. That kind of argument is called a: Strawman Argument ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man ). This is why, if you are going to try and disprove evolution you have to understand what Evolution is, and then direct your arguments to that. But as Evolution has mathematically been proven to be true, you have to disprove that all maths is wrong - that is you have to prove that 1 + 1 does not equal 2. Please watch that video. And remember, this is only ONE way that it could have started and it has been confirmed that this process does occur as stated. There are other ways and they too ahve been confirmed to work. The only question now is which one was the actual way life got started. Yes it does. It is an algorithm and has been mathematically prove to work just as the algorithm that is your web browser has been proven to work (actually evolution is a LOT simpler than the algorithm of your web browser). The algorithm for evolution is simple: 1) Establish a population of data structures 2) Replicate the data structures with variation (note: this variation does not have to be random) 3) Remove the members of the population that don't match the selection criteria (Not: the selection criteria is not random, but it doesn't have to be a static criteria - it can change over time) 4) Repeat 2 and 3 It is that simple. If you can prove that that algorithm does not work (which is actually impossible as it has been mathematically proven to work already), then you can claim that evolution does not work. No. See the video as it explains how a cell can spontainiously come into existacne. Actually, have you ever washed up dishes in the sink. You know how as you wash the dishes you agitate the water, and that water has detergent in it, well that detergent has similar properties to the lipids that the video talks about. What occurs with both is that they have one end that is attracted to water, and the other end that is repelled from it. The ends that are repelled from it end up being pushed together and the ends that are attracted to water move away from other lipids. This causes them to line up in a double line two molecules thick. And, as the attraction applies to ones next to it, it forms a membrane. The most stable state for this membrane to have when immersed in water is that of a sphere. The result is that you get soap bubbles. Yes. The soap bubble in your sink are similar to how life got started. Actually, there are several fossils that show the formation of structures that lead to a skeleton, and fossils with proto-skeletons that are not joined up. Ignorance is not evidence. Just because you haven't seen these does not mean that they don't exist. To assume that is hubris in the extreme. No, not at all. I can see where you are trying to go here. Irreducible Complexity. Well Irreducible complexity does exist, but it can evolve. See this video (BTW: its by the same guy as did that last one): Actually every animal is a transitional animal. We are a transitional animal. To give you an idea why the fossil record is incomplete: About 1 in 1,000,000 animal that dies is fossilised. Over time many of those fossils get destroyed (it is only by extreme effort that the fossils we collect are able to survive). So for every animal that gets fossilised, perhaps millions (or even billions) get destroyed before we ever get to them (or haven't been exposed yet). Some parts of animals fossilise better (bones, teeth, shells, etc) and some animals don't have these parts. Not all animals are in environments that will produce fossils anyway. And many animals feed on the carcasses of dead animals (scavengers) and so they destroy the remains and it can't fossilise. The fact that we can get any fossils is amazing. It also means that there will be many gaps in the fossil record. One of the arguments that people who don't understand fossils or evolution use is that we don't see transitional forms. they expect some kind of Chimera, but what they forget is that each step the animal has to be able to survive in its environment and compete in that environment. The kinds of Chimeras that these people expect would not be successful and they usually design these chimeras to be that way to disprove evolution. As I stated before, this kind of arguing: making an argument against a position by creating something that is not their position and in such a way as to fail is called a Strawman Argument and does not disprove the other's position at all. Instead it only weakens your position because it means that you either don't know what you are talking about, or you don't actually have anything that disputes the other position (ie: there is no evidence against their argument - which in this case would mean that there is evidence for evolution in maths and there is no evidence against it). Yes and no. If some one (be it God or Aliens) created life, and had the intelligence to do so, why then were they so incompetent? There are thousands of changes that could be made even to humans that would improve us greatly. Why do we have to have cancer? Why do the telomere at the ends of our DNA get shorter when a cell replicates (in sperm and egg cells they don't, and we know the chemical that would allow us to prevent them form shortening - it is called Telomerase reverse transcriptase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase_reverse_transcriptase - the code for it is in our DNA already ). Why is our throat "designed" so that we eat and breath through the same passage? It causes many people to choke to death. It can be designed differently, so the only conclusion is that the designer is either incompetent or enjoys that we choke to death (not a nice guy if they do). Evolution explains this easily without the need for a designer (basically it is adaptation of existing structures and that it doesn't give us too much of a disadvantage for it to be selected against). this is creationists Strawman Argument against evolution. they expect life to be created with a flash and it to be as complex as modern organisms. Well, it is only in the bible that anyone claims that kind of creation, so does their own argument disprove creationism then? If they are saying that life has to be created in whole, and there is no evidence that it was, does that not prove that creationism can't be true? Evolution says that life was created from simple structures and it then evolved (one it existed). This has been proven in the lab. We have seen evidence of this is the fossil record (there were no complex organisms early on in the history of life). So by the very argument you are using: Creationism can not have occurred. That means we are left with abiogenisis and evolution. The evidence supports evolution with the fossil record (no complex forms early on with more complex forms developing later) lab experiments ahve confirmed around 6 different ways that life could have got started (which one it was we don't know but we know that there are at least 6 ways that it could), the algorithm of evolution has been mathematically prove to work and that the structures of cells and DNA is capable of running this algorithm. That pretty much clinches it. If cells are capable of running the algorithm for evolution and the algorithm for evolution has been mathematically proven, then it means that cells do evolve. It has also been proven that life does not need any external help to get started and it can spontaneously start from simple chemical and physical reactions that existed early in Earth history (at the time when we accept that life got started). So if structures that can execute the algorithm for evolution can (and do) spontaneously appear without any external help, then all of your arguments are disproven and the argument for Abiogenisis and Evolution are proven. Humans are we accept them have only existed for around 300,000 years. At an average generation time of 25 years, this gives us around 12,000 generations. That is not long enough to really diversify enough to speciate. In real life you need to look at around 20,000 generations or more to get speciation. We can do it in less time it if we apply a very strong pressure (or the populations are an optimal size) for it, but these don't usually (but can occasionally) occur naturally. IIRC, there is about 8 key genes that seem to directly effect human ability to interbreed. If these are changed, then interbreeding would be impossible. These genes don't seem to be used for anything but making sure we can interbreed, and couples that have mutations in these have been shown to be unable to have babies. SO it seems that Humans are capable of developing to the point where we can't interbreed with another group of humans. However, if these mutations occurred in a single person, they would not be able to breed with other humans. But, if several people had a recessive mutation in these, this new muation could spread through a population and eventually it would reach a saturation point and someone with this mutation would likely find another with the same mutation and so be able to breed. If there was then a selection pressure to prevent them form breeding with other groups of humans, then it is quite possible that humans could split into groups that could not interbreed (and be on the way to separate species). So what I am getting at is that Humans have evolved mechanisms that keep us as a single species (most organisms do), and it is only if an isolated group existed for around (500,000 years - depending on the population size) that we would likely see a speciation event for humans, but there is evidence that suggests that the mutations that were needed to kick-start this off were already appearing and if we didn't become a global species with the ability to move around quickly, it would have been likely that it could have occurred in a few tens of thousands years.

You are saying that animals in similar niches will evolve to be similar. That is pretty much accepted, but it doesn't give proof of directed evolution. Similar niches, have similar selection pressures. That is why we recognise them as similar niches, if they had different selection pressures, then they would be different niches. There are adaptations that work (for a given selection pressure) and adaptations that don't. It is therefore not surprising at all that given the small number of possibilities that an organism can adapt to to meet the requirements of the niche, that different organisms in different locations but the same niche evolve similar adaptations. Again, this is not evidence of directed evolution, only that there is a finite number of ways that an organism can adapt to a given set of selection pressures. I would strongly disagree here. Intelligence is not an ultimate end goal of all niches. If there were so, then bacteria, who reproduce much faster than us (around 220,000 times faster ) would be far more intelligent than us. But this is not so. It is more likely that an animal will become more specialised in time (better to fit the requirements of the niche). If an animal is well adapted for its niche, then it does not have need for much intelligence as its behaviours can become hard wired and so reduce the amount of brain capacity needed to perform those behaviours. This makes the responses much faster and it takes less energy to operate a smaller brain. So, as an organism becomes more adapted to the niche, there is actually a selection pressure to reduce brain size and make the responses more specialised. Humans are interesting in that we are omnivores and we are not adapted for a specific niche (this has also allowed us to spread to many more environments as well). Omnivores tend to be opportunistic feeders as they have evolved in a situation where a regular type of food is not reliable. They have been forced to eat a variety of things to get the nourishment they need to survive. Also, being opportunity feeders, they have to be able to seek out that food and investigate new foods. This requires intelligence as you have to be able to discriminate between food and not-food and work out ways of determining this in ways other than trial and error (trial and error is disastrous if you eat something that is poisonous). So when there is many different type of foods, but any one type (or even a few types) are not plentiful enough to support an organism, then omnivores are at an advantage. However, because an organism that has become specialised is... specialised, they are better at exploiting their given food source than an omnivore is. This means that a specialised organism has an advantage over omnivores when there is only a few types of foods available, but there is plenty of any given food. So when an organisms becomes specialised, it no longer has to worry about sorting out what is or is not edible as it has a plentiful source of their given food and they therefore do not need the intellectual capacity for this exercise (and it is therefore selected out as big brains use lots of energy). So, Norris 's belief is pure hubris: Because we are successful and we are intelligent, then intelligence must be the end goal of evolution. This is not so. Evolution is nothing like this at all. It selects for the immediate environment and nothing else. It is incapable of working out what the future holds (well for starters, evolution has no brain with which to do this with as it is just an algorithm) and it has no memory of the past (again no brain and there is nothing in the algorithm of evolution that references the past either). This means that there is no way for evolution to plan for the future, or remember the past. A Direction requires a start point and an end point. As the process that is evolution has nothing in it that uses (or requires) a start or end point (it only acts on the immediate), then it is mathematically speaking impossible for evolution to have a direction or and end goal. As I sated above, evolution has no way of working out the future, or examining the past, so it is impossible for it to have a direction. As you said: "I'm not as familiar with modern life forms as I am with past life forms", this shows that you ahve a memory and so can think in directions. Evolution does not have a memory and so can not "think" (it also doesn't have a brain in which to think either) in terms of direction. Evolution is not directed in any way. To suggest so means that evolution has to ahve the capacity to "think" and as it is a blind process it has no capacity to think. Yes. Organisms adapt, but they only adapt to the immediate environment and even then it comes down to the ability of one organism to out compete another. To put it in a metaphor: You don't have to run faster than the lion, you only have to run faster than the slowest guy. Evolution is not necessarily about being the best adapted, but it is more about not being the least adapted.

In ancient Greece, although they got the mechanism wrong (but almost right), they still were able to propose a mechanics for light and how we see with it. So, if they were able to propose a mechanism for light that was almost right hundreds of years before 0ad, then it still should be possible for you to propose a mechanism of how telepathy works now (if it does). The phenomena of extra sensory perceptions has been investigated for more than 1000 years (it was called different things at different times), but in all that time no one has managed to reliable perform telepathy. no one has managed to propose a plauseabel mechancism for it. There are phenomena that have only been discovered much more recently (within the last 100 years) that have a much more subtle effect than any telepathy (moving atoms less than the diameter of the atom) that we have discovered, proposed many mechanism and found the correct mechanism of how it works. There has, over the years been more effort searching for telepathy than some of these newer phenomena, and yet, no evidence has been acquired that it really exists. If you looked for a set of keys for over 2,000 years, and didn't find ANY evidence that they ever existed, and found lots of evidence that says they never existed, would you still think they exist? Well replace "keys" with "telepathy" and you get the point we are making. If telepathy existed, then evolution would have exploited it and it would be as common as sight or hearing. This is evidence that Telepathy does not exist. We can detect the formation of thoughts, almost to the point were we can know (in a general way) what you are thinking of. We have never detected anything that has given evidence that telepathy exists, even with these sensitive machines. This is further evidence that telepathy does not exist as we should ahve detected such an event in the brains of people undergoing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. There has been many tests done by many people to prove telepathy, but when the situation is controller to avoid the examiners unconsciously tipping off the subjects, or in other ways to avoid any other forms of contamination, no effect is found. These subjects have been people who claim that they can perform telepathy at will and under these circumstances, and yet, they show no evidence of it at all. This if further evidence that telepathy does not exist (that is, the very people who claim to be able to perform telepathy can not do it). This is the results of over 2,000 years of investigation, and we can detect subtly effects (eg: the frame dragging cased by the Earth's rotation) that have not even been thought of before 100 years ago (less in the case of frame dragging). So how long will you look for your keys (sorry: telepathy), before realising that they don't exist.

From what I understand, it is not the fact that one is a Particle and the other an Antiparticle, as both have a positive mass. This means when either Particle or Antiparticle escapes, then the black hole has effectively lost mass. If an escaped antiparticle were to then collide with a normal particle, then this would release the energy as photons (gamma rays). As I said above, an Antiparticle is not a negative mass, it has a positive mass. And as Energy and Mass are related through Relativity, a Positive Mass is a Positive amount of energy too. If there is Mass and/or energy leaving a black hole, then it must loose that same mass energy. As the particle or antiparticle falls into the black hole it looses energy, and as energy can't simply vanish (it has to go somewhere), it is actually in the other particle. Eventually the amount of energy that is lost from the particle/antiparticle that fell into the black hole, the particle/antiparticle that escape from near it is then considered a real particle/antiparticle (rather than the virtual ones if the sum of energy were to be 0). To put it simply: The object that falls into the black hole looses energy, but the object that escapes gets that energy. What you are talking about is a particle with a negative energy (also called exotic matter - and it has a negative mass ) and is completely different to antimatter (it can come in an exotic antimatter form as well as exotic normal matter). This too is different to dark matter (so don't get any of these confused ). This exotic matter is not the type of matter that is being described by Hawking Radiation. Hawking Radiation is made up of normal matter (Matter and Antimatter) and so has a positive energy (and therefore mass).

Electrons don't move around in an "Orbit" in an atom. This is the problem that occurs when teachers try to explain quantum theory to students that don't understand probability functions (I don't really understand them either, but I know enough to know I don't understand them very well ). As best as I can put it: Particles are not exactly as we think of them. We are told in school that they are like little balls spinning around and bouncing off each other. Unfortunately they are not at all like that. In fact, there is nothing that we have ever experienced that could be used as a good analogy to what particles are really like. The best that can be said is that they are like waves and particles depending on how they interact with their surroundings. But even this is not really good as what they are is something that is not a wave or a particle, but something that interacts like they are depending on the interaction. When an electron is bound to an atom, it is acting more like a wave. Specifically it is acting more like a wave that has constraints. Think of a guitar string. When you pluck the string it vibrates, that is there is a wave that travels along the string. However, not any wave can exist. Because the string is constrained at either end, the string vibrates at particular frequencies. This is the note that you hear. In a similar way, the wave of the Electron is constrained by the atom it is bound to. Firstly, it can't get too far from it as it is attracted to the positive charge of the nucleus, but other forces (The Uncertainty principal IIRC) force it away from the nucleus. The Wave of the electron (which describes it probability of where it is) is forced by these constraints (among others) into what is though of as "Orbits" but are really nothing at all like an orbiting planets.

Your entire post can be summed up as Homo centralism. That is the world revolved around us, that we are the pinnacle of evolution. Wee, what will be the pinnacle of evolution 1,000,000 years from now? It won't be the same as us, that is for sure. So we are not the pinnacle of evolution. But, if we are not the pinnacle of evolution, then what is? Answer: nothing. Evolution is NOT a directed activity. There is NO universal scale that measures how better all things are in relation to all other organisms. Let me put it to you like this: If Humans are the pinnacle of evolution, then why do we still die from infections? Surely, being so well evolved, and having such a great intellect, we should be able to survive any attack from "Lesser" organisms. So then, why do we die from infections? Is it because we are the pinnacle of evolution? Or is it that there is no such thing as the pinnacle of evolution? Ahh, "But!" you might say, our intellect has enabled us to eradicate infections, like Small Pox. Well, no. Small Pox still exists, and we have not eliminated a single species that infects us. In fact, all our attempts to eradicate these organisms have actually made them tougher and they ahve evolved defences against all the products of our (so called) "Intellectual" might. In terms of survival, we are about on par with any infectious agent, and loosing ground rapidly. So, if our "Intellect" is such a huge advantage that it makes us the "Best", then why are we having so much trouble fighting off the (least evolved) single celled organisms. No, despite all our best efforts, we have not been able to eliminate a single single celled organism or virus from the face of the planet. At best we can get a temporary stalemate until they develop resistance to our current efforts. Even with our "intelligence" we are not "Better" than them, we are (at best) a struggling equal.

I agree, in part. If you look at any Quantum system (and in this you can think of the universe as a quantum system), then it is expressable as a wave function. One of the features of a wave is that it can have interference (like in the two slit experiment). A Time Traveller would act as interference on a Universal scale. If you think about Sum over Histories, the History can take any path as long as two of the points are fixed: The point where the Time Traveller arrives in the Past and the point where the Time Traveller leaves the future. So long as these two points remain fixed for the Universe, any intermediate history should be possible. Any history that causes a violation of these points, would suffer from negative interference and end up not being possible. Interestingly, this also includes any historical path that loops multiple times through the time loop. This makes the number of histories effectively infinite, but even so, there are also an infinite number that are excluded. When working out the path that a particle takes, they use this sum over histories in the analysis. This even works for multiple particles. In these Antimatter works just like normal matter going backward through time (it doesn't mean that it does, it just works like it does). So this type of analysis might be used to analyse Time Travellers. Instead of Antimatter acting like a time traveller, you have a time traveller, and the analysis works with multiple particles too. So using a sum over histories, and by applying interference to work out which histories are impossible, you can work out the effects that Time Travel might have.

If you read my posts again you can see why (i did answer that in the first post). The reason is that both "branches" don't stop evolving. However, one branch might not experience a large change in their environment and so not have a large pressure to develop very different adaptations than the common ancestor. In simple terms, it appears to stop evolving and you get what are commonly referred to as "living Fossils". Not all species end up with living fossils because when all the groups experience different environmental changes then all the groups need to adapt to these new environments and the original features of the common ancestor can be lost. So for the "one cell" problem. Single celled organisms are highly successful, the far out number multicellular life forms in biomass (weight for weight). However, in the environment of single celled creatures, there is some pressures to go multicellular (to avoid predation by other single celled organisms for one). However, this is not the only solution, so not all single celled organisms will evolve this trait. No. The first sentence is the evidence, the second sentence is the conclusion from that evidence. The first sentence: "Groups of animals of a species do not have an identical genetic code." means that different Animals DNA has been observed to be different. The second sentence: "There exist differences even within a population of animals." is the result based on the evidence presented in the first sentence and the knowledge that DNA controls the development of an organism. In any argument you first present you "premises" (that the DNA of organisms are different) and then reach a conclusion based on those premises. That is all I did. Yes, in many cases this is true, however the offspring of the Hybrids is often sterile and so can not produce offspring of their own. However, in some cases, especially if the species have not yet developed too much specialisations, the resultant offspring can be more vigorous than either parent, but this only really occurs when specialisation has not yet occurred and if you look at what I posted I said that specialisation had to have occurred. However, you also said this: So in one place you are saying that the traits will be conserved, and the other you are saying they are lost. Genetic traits are not like mixing water an milk. You don't just get a more dilute solution. This was one of Darwin's problems, at the time it was thought that the genetic traits were like a fluid and that these fluids mixed with half from the mother and half from the father it would dilute the fluid. So he could not easily see how traits could evolve. There was a guy called Gregor Mendel. He discovered that traits were not like a fluid, but were discrete packets (genes). Since these packets could be conserved against dilution, it means that the traits can be retained through generations. The problem is that certain "packets" rely on the existence of other packets to be correctly produced in organisms and also that there exist two copies of connected "strings" (DNA molecules) of these "packets". Some packets only need one copy to be expressed in an organism and other require two copies (it also gets more complex as sometimes one copy allows the gene to be expressed, but if two copies exist then the gene might not be expressed or even result in a disease - Sickle Cell Anaemia is one such case). So, each organism has 2 strings of packets, each packet can work with or against other packets or work on its own. This creates a lot of complexity and a lot of variation on what occurs with offspring and the traits they express. Of course, the ability to express traits within the frame work has also evolved so that when important traits are needed the DNA of the organisms will be arranged so that they are less likely to have bad matchings. It is also why tow populations can easily develop the inability to successfully interbreed. If one group (or both) have changes to their DNA that require an other packet to exist (or not to exist), but the other group does not have it, then this can prevent interbreeding. Because these traits are conserved as "packets" that don't get diluted, then a species does not necessarily become homogeneous (they won't necessarily look similar). However, as certain traits rely on combinations of "packets" this means that within a species there will be a lot of similarities because the set of packets are needed (BTW: these "sets of packets" can also be seen as packets in their own rights too as they can be conserved and can rely on the existence of other "sets of packets"). But, if the "sets of packets" are broken up (mutations, the other packets were on a different strand of DNA, etc) then this can prevent a successful breeding. Sorry if I seemed angry, but the question you were asking has been answered repeatedly in this thread and so I was a little annoyed that you were not paying attention to the effort people are going to, to answer your questions. In my previous post (about the Aunty), I was trying to help you visualise the answer that had been given to you (by AzurePhoenix in post #38). You said that you were having trouble understanding it. I was therefore not trying to answer the initial question, just answer the question of your ability to understand the AzurePhoenix's answer. But then you turned my analogy, intended to help you understand the answer, as a refutation of AzurePhoenix's answer. See, you keep pushing this question, but the answer is that that particular question is not a valid one. You are using the analogy of the trunk/branch as the model (this is what I was saying in my last post). You can not do this as it results in strawman arguments. To sum up the entire set of answers: 1) No species is more "advanced" than others because the ancestors of an organism is not the criteria by which fitness is measured. It is the immediate environment that is of any consequence. ANd besides, organisms can become less "complex" through evolution as much as becoming more complex (viruses are so simple they can not even reproduce without help from another organism, but they could not have evolved from scratch, they were once an organism that could reproduce on its own, they just lost that trait because they no longer needed it). 2) The Branch/Trunk dichotomy does not exist. It is an analogy and if you push any analogy too far it breaks down. The reality is that species are changing all the time. This might not result in new forms, but internally they can change (responses to new pathogens, etc). When two groups from the same species are separated for a long time, then the way they develop can result in an inability to successfully breed, and they can be exposed to different environmental pressures or even just develop different adaptation to even the same environmental pressures. This means that although they share a common ancestor, they are both not the same as that common ancestor (even if one superficially resembles it). This is why they didn't like your insistence on using the "trunk" part of the analogy as the two groups are always changing and when separated the "trunk" actually splits into two "branches" (to push the analogy, but as it is only an analogy it is not the model of what occurs). 3) Organisms that existed in the initial environment (and how can you even say what this is as environments are changing all the time) don't necessarily slow down their rate of evolution. Actually "rate of evolution" is not really a god way of putting it. Rate of evolution would be exactly the same as saying "time between generations". As bacteria have a generation time of a few hours, it could be said then that bacteria are evolving faster than humans (which have a generation time of approximately 25 years). "Rate of Mutation" is probably what you are trying to say, but even then, this would not really apply either. Mutation rate is pretty constant for any species and across species, but there is variation. But Mutation rate doesn't govern how quickly species adapts on its own. There is also "Rate of Speciation" but this is also not really what you are after wither as it says nothing about how "Advanced" or "Complex" an organisms is. "Advanced" is only meaningful in what context it is put in, but as there are so many ways one can put the term "Advanced" into examining evolution and organisms, just using the term becomes absolutely meaningless unless you are very specific about what context you are using it in. What you are doing is looking back along an evolutionary history of an organisms, then applying a preconceived assumption that we are complex and that we came from a non complex ancestor. Therefore if our ancestors were simple, and there are organisms alive that are similar to it, then these must be "Simple" too. This is a logical fallacy called "equivocation" (not between words, but between forms of animals). Any organism alive today has had the same length of time of evolutionary history as we have. Therefore, by the only metric available for that, they are equally as advanced as us. Sure, they might have a form that is superficially like our ancestors, but they only look that way because they have become so well adapted that there is nothing more they can do to be any "better". How is that for advanced: They don't need to change because they are the best at what they are doing. Where as humans have changed quite a lot recently (speaking of course in terms of evolutionary time), so this must mean we are not all that well adapted for the environments we were in. One could say therefore is we are less adapted to the environment than another species, then that other species was more "advanced" than us. So single celled organisms are "Better" than us because they have become so well adapted to their environment that they have not had to change significantly for billions of years. We can be said to be more advanced than single celled organisms because we have a complex system of celled that work togather. Can you now understand, it depends on what Metric by which you measure "advancement". If the metric is how well adapted an organism is, then single celled organisms are far more advanced than multi celled organisms. If you are using the metric of coordination, then multi cellular organisms are more advanced. No one organisms can therefore be said to be "better' over all than any other. We are more advance than monkeys in terms of intellectual capacity, but monkeys are more advanced at us at climbing through trees. If our environment for us changed so that climbing through tress was more important than intelligence, then we would be considered extremely poorly adapted and monkeys would be considered very well adapted. But if the environment wa changed so that climbing through trees was not a good thing (say we cut them all down), then monkeys would be considered ver poorly adapted. In the past, when the common ancestor of the monkeys and us was alive, the population was spread over a large enough area that it covered different environments. In one part of the environment, climbing through trees was a really good adaptation and their environment didn't change enough for that trait to be considered a bad adaptation and so was conserved through the generations and species to modern monkeys. However, in another part of the range, the population was in an environment that was not good for the adaptation of climbing through trees (say on the savannah where there weren't many trees). Instead other problems existed and the group evolved to meet these issues, and one trait was intelligence. Over time the common ancestor either was absorbed into one or another of these groups and so ceased to exist (although if one of the groups didn't need to change their form much for their adaptations, they could still superficially resemble them) or even evolved into a completely different group. Neither of the new groups are not more advanced than the common ancestor, only that they are better adapted than the common ancestor is the the NEW environments they find themselves in.

The basic process works like this: 1: DNA is a set of molecules that can replicate 2: DNA encode the way an organism develops 3: Various chemicals, atomic and subatomic particle collisions and even mechanical forces can cause changes in the DNA molecule. 4: If the DNA is changed then this will change the way an organism develops (As DNA encodes this information - see point 2) 5: Not all individuals within a species have an identical DNA sequence (there exist variation amongst the individuals within a species). This is due to the fact that DNA can be mutated (see point 3) 6: If a species is spread far enough, then different groups of individuals within that species can exist in different environments and alongside different species than other groups. 7: These environmental pressures create different ways to exploit them, or avoid dangers within them (eg: different food sources or different predators). 8: An animal that is specialised for exploiting a food source or avoiding a predator will usually live longer, be able to compete better for mates and produce more offspring. These will cause the more specialised individuals to represent a bigger portion of the population of a group. 9: Interbreeding between these groups can often reduce the traits of specialisation of the offspring. This will make the offspring of those that interbreed between groups to be less specialised than the offspring of those within the group. 10: These less specialised offspring can not compete as effectively for mates or food and can fall prey to predators more easily. This will mean that these less specialised offspring will be wasted effort for the parents. 11: This wasted effort means that there is an evolutionary advantage not to interbreed between these groups and groups that have enough mutations to make this impossible will produce more offspring that will survive to breed and so will represent a larger portion of the group. 12: As the two groups can not (or will not) interbreed, they are effectively two separate species. 13: Over time the environments they are in will change (or they will move to new ones) and so the traits that make them able to best exploit those environments (or to avoid being exploited by predators themselves) will change. But, because they are no longer able to interbreed with the other group, and the other group are experiencing different environmental changes and challenges, they adaptations of this group will be different form the adaptations of the other group. See points 1, 2, 3 and 4 above. Because DNA direct the development of an organism, any changes to that DNA will cause the organism to develop differently. Changes to DNA can come from many sources; from other chemicals, from impacts with particles that knock the DNA molecule around, from mechanical forces, or other organisms using these causes to directly change the organism's DNA (like with Viruses). Also, with Sexual species (ones that combine parts of their DNA from parents), as they share only part of their DNA and combine them, this too can give variation between parents and offspring. As I showed above, small amount of variation within a species and if that species is spread over a range with different environments in it, then this can lead to small adaptations that first allow the individuals to exploit that part of the environment better, then cause specialisation, then prevent them from breeding together, and then causing them to drift away from each other and the common ancestor. None of this requires any form of intelligence or even purpose. It only requires variation (which has been well established) and that non random selection occurs (non random does not imply intelligence or even purpose. For instance, if we were running away from a hungry Lion, if you were the faster runner because of your genes (eg: longer legs, better cardiovascular system, etc), then I would be eaten by the Lion and you would survive. This process of selection is non random, has no purpose and does not require intelligence to operate or cause it to be. Evolution is an algorithm: think of it as a type of computer program (and it can in fact be created as a computer program and is used in many industries today from medicine to aircraft design). To say that Evolution can not work is to say that computers don't work (as clearly they do because you are using one to read this). So "Evolution" can be mathematically shown to exist (just as 1 + 1 = 2 can be proven to exist). So any book that claims that evolution does not exist is therefore wrong (unless they can prove that 1 + 1 does not = 2 ). If they are claiming that it can't be applied to living organisms, then this is a completely different argument. However, an algorithm does not care what "Hardware" it is implemented on, so long as the processes required by the algorithm exist within that Hardware. Evolution only requires: 1: Replication with variation 2: Non-random selection As living organisms can be show to exhibit these properties, and the mathematics of algorithms say that anything that has these properties will be able to perform the algorithm of evolution, then it can also be shown mathematically that organisms can evolve. This makes any book claiming that Evolution can't occur in living organisms false (unless they also can prove that 1 + 1 does not = 2). To understand the mathematics of how algorithms work you need to understand the mathematics of Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine) and Universal Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine). Universal Turing Machines are the basis of your computer.