Lions and natural selection

[QUOTE]Originally posted by redstang281:
[b] [QUOTE][b]Oh I think this example is evidence of a good design, a program to maintain quality control of an animal.[/QUOTE][/b]
[b] [QUOTE]You think that the cannibalism of the young and weak so a male lion can satisfy his lust is a Godly design? [/b][/QUOTE]Yes, it is a quality control. It helps to ensure the strongest of the species breeds its genes into the gene pool, thus helping the created creature kind to have a greater chance at existing longer.I think this makes an aweful lot more sense than any of these scenario's you fella's are trying so desperatly hard to imagine. [b] [QUOTE] Crave to eat cubs that don't smell like you and you procreate more, so other lions start practicing infant cannibalism.[/b][/QUOTE]So the lion needs to develope the instinct to know the difference between his cubs and other cubs, then he has to develope the instinct to only eat the cubs that don't smell like him. Hmmm... Can you explain that one? [b] [QUOTE] If a sense of taste is bred into an animal, the mystery vanishes quickly. [/b][/QUOTE]Actually, I don't even think they eat them all the time. A lot of times they don't eat the cubs, only kill them. [b] [QUOTE] But how genetics translates into behavior, even in people, is not clear and is the focus of much research. [/b][/QUOTE]Ok, so you don't know.

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Originally posted by redstang281:
Ok, so you don't know.

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Actually,no one "knows" anything about the past that we did not witness. The only thing we have to go on is the evidence left by this past which we see today and the good old (and quite reliable) law of probability thinking(i.e. is it likely or unlikely?). And based on this,we can conclude with an acceptable degree of certainty that lions developed this instinct based on many environemental and inbreed factors and one nearly absolute truth common to most creatures...individual survival instinct. Now,is this proof of intelligent design or evolution through chance? well,your guess is as good as mine or anyone else's...

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Originally posted by joz:
Example:
Generation 1 two lions 2 lioneses.
Lions a and b both breed with lioneses c and d.
lion a eats lion b`s cubs lion b adopts lion a`s cubs.
Generation 2 ten lions ten lioneses.
All 20 are offspring of lion a, if selective infanticide is genetic linked to y chromasome all males exhibit said trait....

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The import part to focus on is "lion a eats lion b`s cubs."Why did lion a eat lion b's cubs and not his own cubs as well?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Barbarian:
[b]It's not hard to figure out, as suggested above. Male lions who happen to have the habit of killing cubs of other males upon taking over a pride, tend to leave more offspring.[/QUOTE]

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So you are saying that male lions just "happen to have the habit" for no other reason than just happening to have it. Proof of a programmed design.

[QUOTE][b]Yes, it is a quality control. It helps to ensure the strongest of the species breeds its genes into the gene pool, thus helping the created creature kind to have a greater chance at existing longer.[/QUOTE][/b]What can I say, other than that you have a pretty strange concept of God. [QUOTE][b]I think this makes an aweful lot more sense than any of these scenario's you fella's are trying so desperatly hard to imagine. [/QUOTE][/b]Actually it's the same thing, only you said God did it, which drags up interesting concerns about your personal view of the nature of God. [QUOTE][b]So the lion needs to develope the instinct to know the difference between his cubs and other cubs[/QUOTE][/b]Scent recognition is endemic in most predatory mammals, including cats. [QUOTE][b]then he has to develope the instinct to only eat the cubs that don't smell like him. Hmmm... Can you explain that one?[/QUOTE][/b]Yes, consider it as a genetically transferred behavioral disorder to eat cubs. It conflicts with his natural instinct to not devour his own cubs. You end up with other cubs being eaten, but not his own.The point is, the emergence of this behavior is not unexplainable.

[b] [QUOTE]Natural Selection is about competitive advantage in reproducing. Killing the young of another helps to ensure the survival of the killer's genes. [/b][/QUOTE]Quality control. Programmed designed.

[QUOTE][b]Quality control.[/QUOTE][/b]Is that what Hitler called it?I cannot accept that it was programmed because it contradicts my image of God. I also don't think that killing cubs benefits the species at large. For a lion to have fathered the cubs, he would have had to have driven off other competitors, that is, be stronger than other lions. Being too old to maintain dominance is not a genetic flaw, and destroying his offspring will not exert any sort of "quality control" over the species. The only microevolutionary advantage to killing cubs is in behavior of the one that does the killing, and the only "superior" genes that it specifically propagates are those genes that lead to the killing. [QUOTE][b]Programmed designed.[/QUOTE][/b]You've made a point that how genetics transcribes to behavior is supposedly a weakness in the evolutionist view of this behavior. Yet your view also requires that DNA transfers behavior because that is the only way this "program" can be transmitted from one generation to the next.

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Originally posted by Quetzal:
since there's so much range competition, any lion who approaches the temporary pride will be attacked (females vs females, males vs males). The pride has a pretty good self-identification. A newly dominant male will not "recognize" the cubs as his, and hence will kill them.

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So you believe the lion has an instinct to kill only cubs he does not recognize. What I want to know is how this instinct developed without the lion going through a stage where he killed every cub? [b] [QUOTE] It's more or less a side benefit that lionesses come in heat shortly afterwards. I think it's interesting that - if they didn't - lions might be extinct (the average estrus period is two years, or roughly the life expectancy of a dominant male, coupled with the fact that lion reproduction is pretty inefficient. What a life!) [/b][/QUOTE]Thank you for saying that. Yes, evidence of a good design.

[QUOTE][b]What I want to know is how this instinct developed without the lion going through a stage where he killed every cub?[/QUOTE][/b]Well that's too bad, because behaviorisms don't fossilize. But we can speculate that male lions have always avoided killing cubs that smell like them, and have always been at least indifferent to cubs that don't. At that point, it is possible to eat cubs selectively.

[b] [QUOTE] As to why the lion does it - it doesn't have a reason. It does it because it seems the natural thing to do (to him). [/b][/QUOTE]Exactly, because he has been preprogrammed by a designer. [b] [QUOTE] Imagine the hypothetical first generation of lions. They don't actually care about cubs, one way or the other. But in one lion, something in his genetic makeup mutates..... But another lion has a slightly different mutation...he thinks it seems natural to kill all cubs he sees except those of lionesses with whom he has recently mated. [/b][/QUOTE]Let me first point out that the lion doesn't think as you say "he thinks it seems natural..."So just poof he gets the mutation to kill all non-related cubs for no reason?This is what you're saying. My computer has windows 2000 on it. It used to have windows 98, but then poof, one day the computer install windows 2000 on it's own. Oh, and no one ever programmed windows 2000. [b] [QUOTE] But don't think the lion does it to bring the female into heat, or to stop her wasting her time on other lions' cubs...he just does it because it seems natural to him. [/b][/QUOTE]Yup, his instinct is programmed into him, he doesn't have to think he just acts according to the instinct program he was giving

[QUOTE][b]So just poof he gets the mutation to kill all non-related cubs for no reason?[/QUOTE][/b]Yeah and because it serves him there are plenty of more lions with the same mutation. [QUOTE][b]This is what you're saying. My computer has windows 2000 on it. It used to have windows 98, but then poof, one day the computer install windows 2000 on it's own. Oh, and no one ever programmed windows 2000.[/QUOTE][/b]Terrible analogy. Your computer would not get 2000 on its own overnight but if it rewrote it's OS, one line at a time, selecting each positive change of code, over the years it would improve and you would eventually be justified in renaming your OS.

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Originally posted by LudvanB:
Actually,no one "knows" anything about the past that we did not witness.

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That's why evolution's not science. [b] [QUOTE] The only thing we have to go on is the evidence left by this past which we see today and the good old (and quite reliable) law of probability thinking(i.e. is it likely or unlikely?). And based on this,we can conclude with an acceptable degree of certainty that lions developed this instinct based on many environemental and inbreed factors and one nearly absolute truth common to most creatures...individual survival instinct. [/b][/QUOTE]I don't think you can explain this example I mentioned without divine intervention. [b] [QUOTE]Now,is this proof of intelligent design or evolution through chance? well,your guess is as good as mine or anyone else's...[/b][/QUOTE]I think it's pretty easy to see when you really think about it.

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Originally posted by redstang281:
I think it's pretty easy to see when you really think about it.

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Well i suppose that its easy for YOU to see a designer behind this since you tackled the issue with prior ABSOLUTELY UNSHAKABLE CONVICTION that there is a designer behind it...hence,without the benefit of an open mind. I dont discount the possibility that you may be right and that at some level there was some design. But neither the evidence at hand nor I agree with you on which level this possible design took place. You seem to be convinced that this design took place 6152 years ago in the garden of Eden during a 6 day period and completely reject all other POV as a matter of course because of your dogmatic belief in the Bible. I,on the other hand,give this particular notion very little credit because there's virtually no evidence to support it but i stop short of saying that its impossible and am content with simply saying its unlikely.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by redstang281:
[b] [QUOTE][b]Yes, it is a quality control. It helps to ensure the strongest of the species breeds its genes into the gene pool, thus helping the created creature kind to have a greater chance at existing longer.[/QUOTE][/b][b] [QUOTE] What can I say, other than that you have a pretty strange concept of God. [/b][/QUOTE]I think you don't understand the Christian concept of why death is in the world. [b] [QUOTE] Scent recognition is endemic in most predatory mammals, including cats. [/b][/QUOTE]I agree. But that alone does not answer the question. I have some questions:1) How did scent recognition become endemic? (it would have to evole)
2) How did lions develope to use this scent recognition to distinguise between their cubs and other cubs?
3) How did lions develope to only other cubs? (why didnt they kill all cubs and go extinct?) [QUOTE][b]then he has to develope the instinct to only eat the cubs that don't smell like him. Hmmm... Can you explain that one?Yes, consider it as a genetically transferred behavioral disorder to eat cubs. It conflicts with his natural instinct to not devour his own cubs. You end up with other cubs being eaten, but not his own. [/QUOTE][/b]How did he get the natural instinct not to kill his own cubs? [b] [QUOTE]The point is, the emergence of this behavior is not unexplainable. [/b][/QUOTE]Ok, still waiting.

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Originally posted by redstang281:
Ok, still waiting.

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Hey, Redstang, I am still waiting for you to address my example of a Biblical contradiction in the "Is the Bible the Word of God?" thread.You claimed that there were no contradictions in the Bible, but I provided a very clear-cut one.It deals with the timing of the death of Christ. The first three gospels have Christ being crucified after passover, yet John clearly, explicitly states that Christ is crucified BEFORE passover.It is on page nine of that thread, message #127.Please respond.

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[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-12-2002]