Edtharan

If I remember correctly a quite a few years ago they found one of these intermediate forms that was still alive (the spieces that is not the individual ). It is called the Coelacanth. Recently another transitional form animals was found with bony fins that resembled the bone structure of a tetrapod (four legged land animal).

This is not correct. Organisms evolve to produce more offspring that can produce successful offspring. Being eaten or not being eaten does not come into it except indirectly. Evolution is not directed either as you imply. Given a limited pool of resources, if something is able to gather more resources from other that gater resources then the best gather will have the most resources. This is the core of evolution. Organisms are compeating for resources (food). Take, for example, several groups of lions. Each group is compeating with the other groups for resouces (prey). There is a limited number of prey in the environment so lions that can catch the most prey will be more healthy (not starving) and will produce more offspirng. May be their genetic advantage is that they have slightly longer legs that allow them to run just that bit faster. This long leggedness is a genetic trait and will be passed down to the next generation. Other prides of lions nearby that don't have this long leggedness will find that they don't produce as many offspring and will usually go hungry. As the number of offspring in the first pride (Call it the "Alpha" pride and the shorter legged prides the "Beta" pride), increases they will find that they have to range further to catch prey as they have been eating too many in the imidiate area to maintain their larger pride. Some of these will eventually go off and form their own prides. These "Colony" prides will put more preasure on the Beta prides and they will find that the can no longer maintain their population and will eventually become extinct. Alpha pride may interbreed with the Beta pride, but this may produce inferior (to Alpha pride) individual that can't compete with the full Alpha pride mambers, and so their genetic line will eventualy vanish. Now, with all the other prides gone (or on the very edge of the Alpha pride and it's colonies), the Mambers of the Alpha prides are killing off all the prey to suport their members. Now the Alpha Pride Colonies and the original Alpha Pride are in competition. As the prey is killed it will reduce their numbers and Alpha Pride will begin to starve. As the members of Alpha pride and it's colonies are forced into starvation and die, more prey will survive and the Prides can build up. However if Alpha pride were too successful they may wipe out all prey within their territory and then they will not have the strength to move to new territories. This will amke a too successful Aplph pride become extinct. If any of the less successful hunter of the Beta pride are still around at the edge of the Alpha territory then as the prey spiecies recovers they will be able to once again move back into their old territory, and scince they are not as successful as the Alphas then they will not produce too amny offspring so that they wipe out all their available prey. What I have shown here is that a slight mutation that could give lions more successful hunting ability (ie evolve to eat more) can actually lead to them being unfit and therefore become unsuccessfull as a group. The group that was less successful at first ends up being the group that was most successful in the long run. This kind of evolution has been seen in fossil records found in areas with limited resources and usually with introduced organisms, like on an island. So in the short term (several generations) your thinking might seem to be what happens, but in the longer term (a few thousand years at least), this is not the case. Linguistic analisys indicates that the first testement had many authors. Not only that, it has been translated in parts by many differnt people and through many different languages. How sure are you that what you are familiar with was the same as what was written? Have you tried to follow instructions that was translated from another language? The bible has been through many more translations (and even edits and rewrites), I think the curent estimate of the number of translations is around 5 differnet languages (at least). Yes they can. In another thread I gave an example of a bicycle turning into a house through small changes and each change gave a useful object. I also have given examples of how a fish could turn into an amphibian and then into a reptile. These changes are were able to produce an organism that would have an advantage. If fact one of the transitional forms (or one that fit that place in my descrition) that I described ended up being discovered a few weeks laters (it was a fish with lungs and fins that resembeled a transitional phase to legs). Simple small changes like a swimbladder being able to transfer oxygen more efficiently, or the bones in a fin changeing slightly to make it more efficent at puching the fish along the bottom of a shallow pool to eventually becomeing an amphbian can be shown in the fossil record and what we know of genetics says that this can occure. One spiecies of organism can change to such an extent that it must be reclassified into a new spiecies. You won't get a cat changing into a dog and if you try to argue that it is an argument from absurdity (I am not saying that you have or will, but it is a common argument that gets put when this subject is discussed). You will get a cat changing into a new kind of cat and then into something that is no longer a cat. It will be a new spiecies altogether, but it will have cat decendant and to some degree it will resemble a cat (just as we resemble an ape and apes resemble us - that is we had a common ancestor). Yes it can. Observation, Hypothisis, Experimentation, Prediction, Disproof can all be applied to evolution. We have observed the fossil record. We have made hypothisis (Darwins "Origin of Species"). We have perfonrmed experminets with fruit flies, bacteria and plants. There have bee predictions as to what fissil evidence we will find. These predictions have bee tests for disproff, so far they are turning out to be accruate. Some times thet theory needs to be revised in the light of new evidence and observation, but that is all part the scientific method. The scientific method can be applied to evolution and evolution has yet to be disproved (even the theory of gravity to still subject to this disaproval requierment - this is what Enstien did to Newton). What is the evidence that it isn't. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence. And you make the assumption that God did it. Now lets look for evidence to suport our positions. The evidence must be emperical. I will use the fossil record. No they are not. Few scientists (read none) think that Newton's Theory of gravity is correct (Enstien proved him wrong, but Newton is very close to being right - just like Enstien is). We have modified Pure Darwinian Evolution due to new evidence (DNA was one of them). The modern Theory of Evolution has been changed to fit the new evidence and it is not strictly Darwinian Evolution. Therefore, few scientists are actually Darwinian Evolutionists. Logic, Mathematics,, Reality check. These are the framework for the reliability of the scientifc method. The Scientific method works by trying to disprove (the reality check) any claims made. No matter how "accepted" a theory is it is always subject to this disproval criteria (peopole are still trying toshow that gravity is wrong - and there is evidence but then that evidence needs to be verified as well). Logic and Mathematics, well usually a scientific theory must be subject to logic (and therfore mathematical) analysis and critesism. The whole of the scientific method is geared towards checking and rechecking, and that is what makes the scientific mehtod so reliable. But it does have one assumption built into it, that the universe follows cause and effect (and as far as we have been able to determine, it does).

From what I know of first testement times, there was no physical image of God, God was seenas a force or spirit without physical form. Thus the line "made in Gods Image" can not be taken as a literal statement (or we would have no physical form). The origin of the Image of God as a big bearded man in the clouds came about because of attempts to render the concept of God artistically. IIRC it was once considdered blasphemous to even attempt to depict the image of God.

Actually there are two parts to this. We can and have observed mutation, natural selection and other processes. The attempt to explain these observations and make predictions that can be tested is called the Theory of Evolution. Do not confuse the observed facts with the attempt to explain what is happeneing. The facts are that we can observe the slow changes that occures in a spiecies and even (given enough time) a spiecies gradual change (behavioural or physiological changes) that stops it from reproducing with others of a similar and once identical kind (this is called speciation). We group all these observations toghter and attempt to make predictions about what would happen in different circumstances (eg: what if a large animal was placed on an island and allowed to breed for many many many generations or what would happen if you slowly destroyed an organisms habitat). This is the theory of evolution. The theory is not 100% correct, but it is the best we have at giving us predictions and answers to the "What if?" questions. The bible gives us no answers to these "What if?" questions.

You are getting the Facts of Evolution which is the evidence and the experiments that you can do, and the Theory of Evolution which is the explaination of what the observed facts mean. We can see in a lab the facts of evolution taking place. We can sequance genes from different generations and can chart their changes, we can examin and catalogue the changes in the phenotypes and gemo types of organisma. We can study an organism and make assesments on how fit it is in its environment, we can track the number of ofspring and also the number of offspring that these produce. These give us the facts of evolution which are: 1) Genes contained in the DNA molecule are the direct the growth of an organism and a change in the genes will create a coresponding change in the organism (genes are not the only source of this change but the bigest by far). 2) DNA replication is imperfect so this causes mutaitons. Also the way certain organisms can influence their DNA (fertilization, etc) is another source of variation of the genetic material. 3) Some organisms survive better than others of its speicies. 4) This survival can be because of the organisms phenotype. 5) Organisms that survive can produce more and healthier offspring. ALso organisms that survive but struggle to survive will still produce offspring, but they are usually less healthy and less of them. 6) Over time, mutations can build up and change the expression of a gene so that it has a new function/behaviour. There are others, but that is enough. The Theory of Evolution tries to make predictions based on this evidence. One of the predictions is that if enough changes occure over a long enough period of time then the final organism will be distinctly different from the original (or other organisms that might have experenced different mutations). The theory deals in what the evidence means, the facts are the collections of evidence for and against the theory. They are not the same, in the same way a list of measurements of you is not you.

It was once believe that the eye projected rays out and when those rays hit an object it allowed us to see. We now know that this is wrong. Light that is emitted from a source (the sun, a light bulb, etc) travels out from the source. Individually these are called photons. If one of these photons reaches out eye tiny receptors in the eye, call rods and cones, have chemicals that react when a photon of light (if the case of the cones certain frequencies of light) hits one of these chemicals it triggers a nearby neuron to fire sending a signal into the brain via the optic nerve. So the reason that we can't see light moveing away from us is that, if the light is moveing away from us it will not hit these light sensitive chemicals in the eye. The reason we can see someone moveing away from us is that the light reflects of them (or is emitted by them if the are holding a torch) and then heads in our direction and it then eventually hits one of the receptors in the eye allowing us to detect that photon. Now the light is moving at a rate of around 300,000 kilometres a second, it does not move instanly. So if we look out at the night sky and see the moon. The light reflected off of it (the light originally comes from the sun) takes about 1 second to reach the earth (after being reflected from the moon). The light from the sun takes about 8 minutes to reach us. The light from the neares star (besides our sun) takes aporximately 4 years to reach us.

Even if evolution is "Just a theory", it is a theory that fits the evidence (fossils, genetics, chemistry, physics, biology, etc, etc). It is the evidence that exists that disproves creationism, regardless of weather or not the "Theory of Evolution" is correct or not. If the ToE did not exist (ie Darwin didn't go on his island holiday ) and we just have the evidence that we have today, creationism would still be shown to be incorrect. Evolution is the best explaination of the available evidence that we have. Sure others might come along or evolution might be refigned, but creationism as it now stands, if it is subject to a reality check, does not work at all. Well if the reality of the evidence says otherwise then one must discard what is shown to be wrong. This is how science works. Also it is not just the concept of humans evolving from apes that contradicts Genisis, just look up at the stars and you will see objects that are millions (even billlions) of years old. If the bible is to be taken as fact then it must be taken litteraly, the evidence that you can see for yourself proves that the bible can not be take litteraly and so therefore the bible can not be taken as fact, only as an analogy. If the bible can only be used as an analogy then any contradiction between it and the theory of evolution is not a problem. The simple solution is to just make a reality check ato see which is correct. Doing this give us the theory of evolution as the correct one as it make prediction, give explaination and most importantly, it fits the evidence.

Here is a web sight (pun intended) about how your eyes work. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html The rods in your eyes are what allow you to see in the dim light. They are much more sensitive than the cones are, but only detect brightness, not colour.

If this is true then anywhere they institute a death penalty for a crime then that crime would no longer exist. This does not occure, so this is not a deterent. A criminal will comit the crime because they don't think they will get caught (or it is a remote posability that they will get caught). So punishment will deter some criminals, but just increasing the severity of a crime beyond a certain point will not have any more effect. In Australia we do not have the death penalty and we do not have a huge number of murders (iirc: it is even less than those states in America that have the death penalty). unfortunatly, the jury is not perfect and does make incorect convictions. Ask your self this: How many inocent people must die to punish the guilty? So, does the death penalty have the effect it is intended to have? Probably not, and the cost that it incures in the wrongfull excecutions of inocents that have been wrongly convicted is too high a price to pay for the little effect that it has.

As an amature magician my self I can see the excelent job this guy did from the reactions of Meh. The sense of wonderment and the skill that this illusionist worked his craft is the magic. Now for your enjoyment and wonderment I will perform a feat of telekinetic manipulation over the very aether of the internet. All you need is a single pack of cards. First take one entire suit out of the deck (you can have other people do this at the same time, they just use one of the other suits). Now woth this suit pick a number between 1 and 5 (If you have other people they pick their own number), and discard that many cards form your packet. Then with the remaining cards, shuffle them. Look at the botom card of your packet and remember it. Now for this to work I will need to telepathicaly link to your mind through Aether resonance. To do this we will need to think the same thought. As I am demonstrating telekinetic power, we will use the phrase "Telekinetic Power" to link our minds. I want you to spell out the words "Telekinetic Power" (T-e-l-e-k-i-n-e-t-i-c-P-o-w-e-r) and as you do so move the card on top of your packet to the botom of the packet. For the final part you will need to do the "Australian" deal, also know as the "Down Under" deal. To do this you first take the top card and place it down on the table. You then take the next card and place it on the bottom of your packet (this is the under part). The you repeat this until you are left with 1 card. If we have been able to establish a telekinetic link then the card you are left with will be the card that you looked at at the start. Repeat this as many times as you like and even try a different number of cards that yuo discard. As the pile of cards is different each time this is a demonstration of internet telekinesis.

Our eyes use chemicals in the rods and cones in the retina to detect light. These work by breaking up when light of a particular wavelength hit is (red, gree, and blue). The chamicals are actually very similar to one an other and some people have some that respond roughly equally to 2 different wavelengtha, these people are called colour blind. Now as these chemicals have to break up when the light hits them (and stimulating the nerve cells), this means that the chemical gets used up, but the eye makes more of it. So if you look at an object that has a lot of contrast (say a white shape on a dark page or dark computer screen), then the light sensitive chemicals that are used to detect the ligt get used up wher the white object is. When you shift your gaze to something else (say a white coloured wall) the light from the wall activtes the chemicals all over the eye, but where you had the white object before you have used up a lot of the chemicals there and so the activity there is lower than elsewhere in your feild of vision. You see this as a darker patch. Now we have 3 colour receptors in the eye and if one of those colours gets used up by the others don't, then if we look at a white area we will see the unused receptors giving a strong output and the receptor of the colour that we were looking at will give us a weak output. So if we were looking at a blue object, then we will see a Red/Green (which is yellow) after image. If you were looking at a yellow object then the after image would be blue. If, for some reason your eyes are not replenishing these chemicals fast enough, then you will get these after images more often. But still, go see a doctor if you are at all concerned about this.

I think that any argumant (one way or the other) will not sway a fundimentalist (religious or athiest). However, fundimentilists are not the only people that hold these views. Many people accept one view or the other simply because they have been taught that. They might be willing to listen to reson and these sort of discussions can have some influence. Fundimentilists are a small minority (but they do shout loudly). The more educated people become and the more they are encouraged to be questioning of what they are told these fundimentalists will have less power (is this what they are realy afraid of?). It is the non fundimentalist people that can be reached, and that is why I involve my self in these discussions and encourage others to enter them too (regardless of their beliefs), so long as they enter with an open mind and are willing to have a rational discussion. I have seen a good demonstration/argument for this. Immagin a pair of birds. If they produce a pair of chicks every year for 3 years, that would give them 6 young over their life time. If each of the young birds then produces 6 young per pair (so the second generation would produce 18 youg - 3 pais producing 6 each) and then these 18 produce 54 young, and so on. If this were to go on for just a few years you would get a massive amount of birds. If all of them survive and reproduce, where are all these birds? A breeding pair needs to produce just 2 breeding adults in their entier life time to maintain the population (usually this works out as a bit more in reality but in an idealized demonstration it is close enough). This is the important bit. A lot of non evolutionist I have talked to think that survival of the fittest is all about the predator/prey survival. Their argument is that why hasn't the rabit evolved to always avoid the fox? The answer is simple. If they did evolve to always escape from predators then they will be able to breed and breed untill there is no food left for them. The population will crash. A group of rabits that did not evolve a trait that would leve them free from predators would have a more stable population and would survive in greater numbers than their Super Bunny(tm ) cousins. This would lead to the non Super Bunny genetics as the most dominant in the population. Remember in the evolution game, you don't need to be the fastest, just not the slowest.

Into the background radiation (not just microwave radiation). The bullet will be absorbing radiation from all around it in space (ther is the microwave radiation, light and heat from the sun, light and heat from other stars, etc). But all this other energy would be less than the bullet at 200DegC, so the bullet would be radiating more energy than it recieved. The bullet will loose this heat energy as radiation and cool down. Eventuall this will drop it to a temerature where the energy radiated from the bullet is equal to the radiation of the energy that is hitting it (from the rest of the universe), at this point it wont loose any more energy as all the energy it looses will be replaced. It is now at an equilbrium. This is also why you can't reduce an object to 0DegK, because there will alwase be radiation (your cooling device will also radiate a small amount of heat) that will add to the energy that your object has.

It is actually the electrical repulsion between atoms that stops us from moving through an object. As the atoms in say you hand and the atoms in the desk repell eachother then it stops your hand from moving throught it. Also as the atoms in the desk are attracted to each other the force that you put on the desk will travel throughout the desk (thump it with your hand and you will see this - and hear it too as the energy that is moving through the atoms of the desk give some of that energy to the atoms of the air causeing sound). With air and other non solids, the atoms (and molecules) of the substance are less tightly bound to each other (not attractive or repulsive), sometimes they might be attected to each other, but the energy that each atom or molecule has is enough to overcome this attraction (this is what happens when ice melts - you give the water molecules enough energy to overcome their attraction to each other enough to move around). Once this attraction has been broken then as you push on the atoms they will be able to move around and also move past one another (so you don't have to end up moving the entire object). This still take energy to do and we call it viscosity (air resistance if you are talking about air). Because atome and molecules can have either attraction or repulsion to eachother, it is posable to immerse an object in water and it not get wet, simply by applying a coat of molecuels (or atoms) that repell the molecue of water (these are called hydrophobic materials -as they repell water). Also because water is attracted to its self (other water atoms) it can be made to not wet a substance if the attraction of the water molecules to the molecules on the surface is less than the attraction of the water to its self.

Saturn is another planet that bulges at its equator. It is spinning faster than earth. This produces quite a noticeable bulge.

In 65 million years there will probably be no evidence that humans were intelegent, there will be no remains of cities or any other trappings of a thriving civilization. There might not even be any fossils of humans. This is what time will do. There might have been a privitive civilization of Dinosaurs, but we will never know. Hominid civilization has existed fro less than 1 million years, Human civilization for less than 100,000 years. If in the vast 165 million years (IIRC) that the dinosaurs existed there rose and fell a 100,000 year Dino civilization, we will most likely never know. Even if this DIno civilization wiped them selves out with a massive nuclear war, we would most likely never know about that either.

An experiment I would like to do is to hook up some form of range finder (sonar or something else) that has an operation range of a few dozen metres and connect it to a system that interperates it and then uses touch (like various places on your arm) to indicate the distance that it is reading. This then could be mounted on your head (or arm) and you use this to determine the distances to various objects (walls and such). A user could use this to build up a picture of a room to help navigate around it (an aid for visualy impaired people). This type of system relise heavily on feedback between the divice (say where it is pointing) and what the person feels. In other experiments like this the user would make no progress with it unless this feedbackloop existed.

Actually if we use DNA from modern humans or animals, we can see how far apart they are (according to genetic drift). If Noah took 2 of every animal then we should be able to trace their lineage back to these 2 individuals. If time scale for differnet spiecies is very differnet to other spiecies then how can this be reconsiled with the Flood? And if God didn't (or doesn't exist)?

And knowing about genetic drift and such we should be able to put a date on Noah's Flood. This could also give a confomeation to Noah's Flood as all these bottlenecks would have occured at the same time. Therefore if we end up with vastly different dates of these bottlenecks (or that they are non existant), then we have faily solid evidence that there was no flood.

From what I understand of this (ie I'm no expert). The reason that you can't use these phenomina to send a message is that you have no control over the result of the check. Say for instance you were using entangled photons that would alwase have polarities at 90 degrees to each other. If you detect the polarity of photon A at one point, and at point B detect the other photon , then they will always have differnet polarities. But you can not control at point A what the polarity at point B will be. All you can tell is that it will be different to what you (at point A) detect it as.

Hmm if it was ethanol rather than methanol then I would have thought that the Australian space program was more advanced than I thought.

But if you understood all the posts that were made about this you would see that this is wrong. Looseing base paires does not equate to loosing infomation or complexity. Genes can influence other genes, and all sorts of other interelatedness can happen. This menas that a gene that becomes redundent because some other gene took over the role or the need for it was removed would not be a loss of complexity even though there was a loss of base pairs. Infact the complexity of the organism can go up. Mammals have (on average IIRC) less genes than reptiles, even though we are more complex. Reptile genes need to have more "conditions" in them to account for varing teperatures (some proteins will only work in certain teperature ranges and other will work out side them), mammals have more stability in their operating temperature and so do not need all this extra genes to handle this, and so it was lost/deleted (DNA is biologically expensive to maintain). Yet to have this stable temperature we need more complex metabolisms to maintain it (and the stability also allows for more complex organs like large brains). So looseing DNA does not equate to being a less complex organism. The mammal genome could, even though it is smaller (less DNA base pairs) than reptile DNA, could be seen as more complex as it has maore interelatedness of its components.

The Nature vs Nurture debate tends to simplify the whole process. I think it is the combination of some "Nature" adn some "Nurture" aspects. For one, we are social animals. This has evolved in us and is hardwired into us (social people usualy live longer ). These social traits will make us seek status (as part of the social structure you need to have a place in it). But if we look too much like the "heard" that will reduce our status towards the perceived average (both of your self and that of the group as a whole). If you percieve yourself as below this average then you will feel better if yuo follow this average. However if you percieve your self to be above this average then it is in your interest to strike out in a different way (trend seting). Human society is more complex than a simple mono culture. It has many cultures, and these cultures have many sub-cultures (and many of them intermingal and overlap). This means that there will be many "averages" to choose from. This is where Nurture plays a big role. Nurture will give us an affinity to particular cultures and sub-cultures. We will then take these cultures and sub-cultures averages as a judge of our own position (this also explains the existance of cultures and sub-cultures as a large enough group that might see its self above or below the average might start to see its self as seperate from the mainstream). Also as we can have this affinity to multiple cultures and sub-cultures this will also complicate matters and provide cross "pollination" of them. As each generation seeks to sperate them selve from the crowd (ie that of their parents generation) they will strike out in new directions and fasions. In modern (western) society we tend to favour the indivdual and their achievements (in other societies and cultures they may favour the family, clan, religion, etc) and so this will give us more fasions as each individual becomes a potential seed for a new sub-culture (creating a new sub-culture automatically put you at the top). This has lead to a massive explosion of new sub-cultures with which we can identify our selves with. No it becomes interesting as more peopl become to associate with the new sub-culture. As more peopl become a part of it, they generate an average and therefore a chain of "rank". This means that there will be some members of below average and the desire to rise in rank, and maybe start their own sub-culture off the previous sub-culture, and so on. As you can see this will lead to an ever changeing set of cultures (long term stable fasions), sub-cultures (a collection of particular fasions) and fasions (short term changes to a culture or sub-culture that makes an individual rise or fall rank with the culture or sub-culture). The smaller the unit that is recognised by the culture, the more seeds their are for these changeing fasions to form around. This is why there are more fasions in todays societies and that these fasions change as fast as they do.

It is known that through childhood that our brains make many many conections, Many more than needed. During adolecence, the brain starts to prune these connections and we loose a lot of them ( so this is not just down to drinking too much ). Once we reach adulthood (actually around 25 years old), our brains find it difficult to make new connections (but it still can). This explains why it is more difficult to learn a language after a certain age (12 IIRC), because our brains have switched from making new connections to removeing them, or we have our adult brains. This also can explain why the labotomy did not effect the children as much, because they were able to grow new connections rapidly and the brain could "re-wire" its self to compensate, but the adults have stoped this re-wireing and so were not able to compensate. So, if we were going to implant a chip (or other cybernetics) into the brain then we would first need to be able to "switch on" this connecting period of the brain (at least in the region where the chip is implanted), or have them installed soon after birth (the latest would probably be around 5 or 6, but 2 or 3 might be the best age). There have been experiments along this line, I have heard of several. One was the use of a camera that directly stimulated the optic nerve of the patient. This was able to restor some sight to the person. Another was for people that once had sight but for some reson no longer has it. In this experiment they had a paddle shaped electrode that was placed on the tounge (they have used other places like the back, arms and forehead). The electrode had many small points that could stimulate the tounge with a small electric zap. This device was also hooked up to a camera and the patient put the electrode onto their tounge. The camers (and computer) would interperate the image from the camera and convert that into zaps on the electrode. After about 20 mins of this the patient stoped feeling the zaps as pain sensation and began to "see". The patent was able to "see" well enough to be able to catch a ball rolled across the ground to him. This effect was not limited to blind people. Sighted people that used this (and blindfolded themselves) was soon able to use this device. It seems that the brain can change its connections and re-direct infomation so as to use it in a coherent way.

Ok. What if the organism evolved to suit an environment better. This is what you call forward. What if there was a change in the environment that gave an advantage, not to the new trait, but to the old trait, would then forwards, mean backwards? Or are oth forwards? This is where the analogy of "better suited mean forward" breaks down. The environment changes (inpart due to the existance of the organism in question) and what was once considdered "forwards" could now be considdered unfit. The use of the word "Forwards", promotes the illusion of "directed evolution". DE does not exist. It is an incorect assumption made about evolution, and is what you are also doing.