Apparently we only have a very sketchy understand of the principles of flight.
etc.
Actually, evolution adresses just about everything. There’s not only biological evolution, and biological evolution doesn’t even have to work on genes (primordial lifeforms hadn’t evolved them yet, remember). The only requirements for evolution is that new “things” “appear” regularily, and that some of these new things prevails over the others, and thus become more numerous. Genes only greatly speeds up evolution, as they are able to reproduce themselves, so you don’t have to wait for another fit “thing” to randomly appear.
For instance, say you roll ten dice. The rule is that each die is to be rerolled after so many minutes as it has eyes. There will be an evolutionary trend towards dice showing 6, as they are more “fit”, even though they don’t have any genes. So while evolution needs something to work on, it’s fair to say it adresses the beginning of organic life, at least.
What you say is very interesting to me as a layman. Can I ask: what do you mean when you say that primordial lifeforms did not have genes? I thought that all organic life contained genes in its moelcular structure?
Yes and no. Flight occurs for a very simple reason which was readily apparent to Isaac Newton; that unbalanced forces produce a net change in velocity, and everything we can say about flight stems from there. However, our ability to model flight (and other complex aeroelastic phenomena) is limited to the degree that we can simulate the behavior of an airfoil or lifting body through a compressible fluid medium by a combination of both analytical solution and emperically-derived principles, and physical simulation at scale. Back in the days of yore, calculating power was so limited that it was impossible to make anything like an accurate calculation beyond a very rough, highly linearized approximation, and scientists and engineers utilized wind tunnel testing and other simulation methods to figure out what happens to the airstream around the airfoil under various conditions. With increasingly powerful computing power becoming readily available in the last couple of decades, it has become possible to simulate fluid dynamics with less guestimation and greater degrees of refinement, though it should be noted that we still abstract the airflow as a continuum (albeit an often turbulent and nonlinear one), generally using the Navier-Stokes equations, although Lattice Boltzmann methods use a kind of sampling methodology which actually tracks a hypothetical sample of individual particles via Newtonian mechanics and extrapolates flow behavior from there. Both classes of methods have limitations in how precise and fine an answer they can give.
So, it’s fair to say that we have a limited ability to simulate flow behavior, and sometimes to even predict when phase changes and other thermodynamic effects will cause results that differ dramatically from behavior predicted analytically. However, we have a firm grasp on the underlying principles; we just don’t have the computational ability or emirical comprehension to make highly refined answers, especially at the extrema of aeroelastic fluid behavior. This may seem like semantic hair splitting, but it’s fundamentally different from the difficulty we have coping with gravitational singularities or animal consciousness, where the basic principles aren’t even well developed.
Stranger
All organisms have something that codes their genetic characteristics, but with varying levels of complexity. E.g., RNA-based viruses lack chromosomal structures made of DNA; that’s why they need to use another organism’s cellular nuclei to reproduce. Prions are pure protein – I’m not clear on whether that means they have “genes” or not.
Your example shows no type of evolution. Each die will have the same chance of showing a six on the first roll as it will on the millionth. Evolution has to do with gradual change. Why do you suppose a die would be more likely to come up showing a six? 
It doesn’t. Biological evolution has to do with organisms changes over time. Abiogenesis has nothing to do with this.
The key word is “can.”
The number of phenomena that science has not yet explained are infinite. I mean everything you see around you is a new phenomenon that could in principle require explanation. Can I toss my static-cling socks at a scientist and demand that he explain why they stuck to his sweater in just that configuration? Sorting that sort of thing out is undoubtedly a massively difficult problem if you give it any thought.
You think I’m joking with that example, but scientists have only recently sorted out the mathematics of why small grains sift to the bottom of a pile of sand and larger ones stay at the top. That you didn’t consider this phenomenon as requiring any particular explanation, while you think of cosmological problems as grand mysteries, probably says more about human psychology than anything intrinsically different about the two problems.
So asking for examples of the unexplained isn’t very helpful. The question you really have to ask is, how would you ever determine whether a particular phenomenon is one that science *can not * explain, given an infinite supply of resources?
Try it out. It’s a slow and ineffective version of evolution, but after a while, most dice will show a six, as those who do don’t have to be rerolled for quite some time. It differs from genetical evolution in that however common 6-dice might be, every new roll might result in any number, but 6 will gradually be more common.
Biological evolution, perhaps, but not evolution per se. Read the dice example again, and if you still don’t get it, or even if you do, I recommend that you read The Selfish Gene by the emminent Richard Dawkins. I suppose you could look up some abstracts of the first chapter, he speaks of a “primordial soup” that life as we know it evolved from.
Sorry man, but you never know round here these days. :o
I understand and take your point. it is one made by the philosopher Karl Popper when he was establishing his test of verification. At some stage, however, we all have to accept some common categories of what ‘proof’ is and what ‘should be proved’. In this simple thread, I was not asking for the explanation of everything that was unexplained but only for the explanation of unexplained things that are interesting. What would I include in the category of ‘interesting’? Anything featured in a Discovery Kids Channel documnetary narrated by Leonard Nimoy would do me fine.
Well, I’m a layman, too, so don’t trust me on anything:). But simply put, genes are quite complex. Nothing complex has existed since the beginning of time. The only way they can have come about, is through evolution. Of course, when this happened, they proved a great advantage to further evolution, to such a degree that (I’ve no cite for this) now, there’s few, if any, lifeforms left without genes. So while genes certainly are abundant and might seem almost like a prerequisite of life, they, too, have evolved.
At some point on the spectrum between “life” and “non-life organic molecules” there had to be a self-replicating collection of organic molecules which exhibited the basic properties of life (consumption, waste, self-replication) but lacked a nucleic acid structure that makes up the genes of what we now consider life. They probably started out as autocatalytic strains of nucleotides, which then became more complex and started generating adjunct peptides to perform specific operations but were themselves not self-replication. From thence you get viruses, prokaryotes, eukaryotes with nucleii, multicellular animals, insects, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, and telephone sanitizers, who complete the cycle by trying to kill off all the simple organisms.
You can make the distinction that all “life” has to have genes (or some kind of genetic material), but even that can be a gray area; primordial life didn’t have genes, they were their own genes. Prions are self-replicating only in the sense that they cause other, identically composed but differently structured proteins to fold like them. Since prions aren’t even marginally self-sufficient–they can’t build other proteins and rely upon a host that produces the correct protein already–I’d say that they have an even less substantial claim on being alive than a virus.
Stranger
Thanks, but I think I’ll skip rolling dice all night trying to prove me correct. Why don’t you tell us logically why dice will come up showing six more as it’s rolled more?
Biological evolution, perhaps, but not evolution per se. Read the dice example again, and if you still don’t get it, or even if you do, I recommend that you read The Selfish Gene by the emminent Richard Dawkins. I suppose you could look up some abstracts of the first chapter, he speaks of a “primordial soup” that life as we know it evolved from.
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No, he doesn’t. He speaks of the primordial soup that first life came from. Evolution comes after that.
I don’t believe this for a second. Do you have anything to back this up?
If he does, I’ll be taking a two hour ride to AC to make millions.
Alright.
- You roll ten dice.
- After a minute, you reroll all the ones.
- After another minute, you reroll all the original twos, and any new ones.
- After a third minute, you reroll all the original threes, any twos from 2), and all ones.
The pattern should begin to emerge already. Sixes stay in the pool six times as long as ones, and should thus be at least six times as common. I don’t really think it’s possible to elaborate more, but if you have QBasic, I’ll write you a program to prove me right. (I’m to oldschool for any non-DOS languages).
Sounds like a wager to me.
x-ray vision, if I understand yelimS’s analogy correctly, when you roll a 6 you pause that die for 6 minutes. When you roll a 1 you only pause it for 1 minute, a 2 for 2 minutes, and so on. Thus as you roll the ten dice over time, the ones that are sitting there with a 6 being displayed will be more prevalent on the table.
Damn, beaten to it.
I’ve read The Selfish Gene, but I found Dawkins’s River out of Eden more accessible (and IMO near-irrefutible) about the emergence of genetic evolution.
OK, noted. But with all due respect, then I think you’re just asking what scientific problems are interesting to the layman.
jjimm, I forgot to say no problem just kidding, and now I even have to thank you. I’ll read River myself (actually, I haven’t gotten to any of his other books yet).