Neat! Perhaps there even is a wheeled beetles out there?

As the great prophet Sagan (pbuh) said, we are molecular machinery.

VSauce did a good video about the lack of wheels in nature www.youtube.com/w...EOKAG0zw

I'd postulate from there by saying it'd only come about in a colony/hivemind sort of species.

Yeah the molecular space is full of rotating stuff. ATP synthase http://www.youtub...dO4nNaKY for example. Weird to think we digest food, in essence, by splitting of the hydrogens and stuffing them in sack until it is full to bursting, then generate energy by driving molecular water wheels. To a 14th century European it must've seemed quite natural.

But are there any macroscopic wheels? All i can think of are those rollie pollie garden bugs

If you want to be super technical, the dung beetle represents a wheel for the purposes of a wheel to use minimum contact and rotational momentum to reduce friction and resistance to motion.

Oh! And tumbleweeds - who combine a nearly spherical shape and windeborne transportation.

I dunno about wheels but we already know about http://livingwith...oint/... Just another evidence of Big blind watchmaker.


Is this an extension of the old "God is love and love is blind therefore God is blind?" I'm confused.

"'The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design' is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins."

Wouldn't you just love to see a time lapse movie of that thing evolving. It looks to me like it reveals something else despite the fact that I "know" better. :-)

That SEM photo just blew my mind!

oh yea of little faith, dont doubt evolution because something 'looks' designed. We all know that a partial gear is more beneficial to the evolving nymph than no gear. keep the faith.

I guess all I can add to the wheel talk is this:
http://en.wikiped..._systems

Neat! Not unexpected, just predictably rare.

As for macroscopic rolling animals: http://en.wikiped..._animals

BTW, creationists trolling science are hilarious. And they make deconverts from religion too, see Dawkins's Convert's Corner.

In this case intermediates is the basic evolutionary prediction (descent by modification), and "half an eye" or something similar creationist idea doesn't work after Darwin explicitly showed how intermediates appears. Have been repeated for major organs (legs, wings, et cetera) as well as for important molecular mechanisms (hereditary mechanism, cell division, pores, flagella/archella, et cetera).

Here, a partial gear still works as partly synchronized legs at jumping, so as for eyes, legs, wings it is easy, except for dummies, to see that intermediates have fitness advantages and therefore are fixated by evolution. It is the molecular mechanisms that needs genomic and/or biochemical elucidation, they aren't always obvious.

oh yea of little faith, dont doubt evolution because something 'looks' designed. We all know that a partial gear is more beneficial to the evolving nymph than no gear. keep the faith.


No, no, remember, Dawkins' theory is that the gear did something else while it was in transition, so for example, he might claim it was once a propeller for when it was in the water, before it became attached to the legs, or maybe he'd claim it was once a helicopter propeller instead. Maybe it was a fan to keep the insect cool during the day time.

This is the same fool who also believes the universe came from absolute nothingness, but wait, it came from a particular type of conditional nothingness, but wait, that's a contradiction, and he knows it, but you know, gotta stick with the faith, er, faithlessness.

Anyway, the Watchmaker made a set of gears in nature in order to keep time for this insect's body functions.

Incredible, isn't it?

Well, now that we know God did it, one thing I admit the scientists are good at is stealing God's designs after the fact, so I imagine they will be interested in the genetic basis of this system for use in synthetic biology or organic nanotechnology.

Lol. God did it. lol.

Lol?

Oh, yes - the idea that God did it is, in fact, laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

The idea that it would hide its handywork not in its allegedly pentultimate pet project, man; but rather only in the nymph stage of an inconsequential insect and at a level that requires scanning electron microscopy to see...

Funny thing is, if it was truly a goddiddit moment, it would violate the primacy of Christianity being primarily a revealed faith-based institution. If it is emperically demonstrable, it becomes quantifiable, and then you have apostasy meters at all the airports and it all goes to hell from there.

By the way, all it would take to start this transition is a single tooth- whichever started first would kick the other into almost synch. So it still is not proof of a magical judgemental voyeur in the sky who likes child sacrifice.

I have to add, just like the physics cranks, you don't "win" if you show a flaw with current theory. It isn't a pageant with your runner-up showing up to claim the prize.

Your theory has to have something that explains everything current theories do, is quantifiable and demonstrable as current theories are, and provides the same predictions as current theory.

Science is not a debate where one side or the other wins. There are no sides. If your model provides more explanation, demonstrably and in a testable fashion... see, that's where creationism and all of its evolved ilk fall flat. It is not testable if you claim invisible, undetectable, acting-without-pattern willed forces are at work that can't be pinned down to a mechanism of action. They can be removed from an equation and make no difference, ergo, as far as theory goes they can be ignored with no consequence. They provide no explanation at all.

This is the same fool who also believes the universe came from absolute nothingness

The theory goes back so far as the singularity. At this point all matter is compacted into a single point and both time and space have no meaning. Our theories break down at this origin and since time is a property of our universe, there is no before the singularity. So there is no 'absolute nothingness'.
, but wait, it came from a particular type of conditional nothingness,

There is no nothingness, and there is no special condition. Everything that is probable is and everything that isn't isn't.

but wait, that's a contradiction, and he knows it, but you know, gotta stick with the faith, er, faithlessness.

What's the difference between god and a contradiction? Well a contradiction exists.

Funny thing is, if it was truly a goddiddit moment, it would violate the primacy of Christianity being primarily a revealed faith-based institution. If it is emperically demonstrable, it becomes quantifiable, and then you have apostasy meters at all the airports and it all goes to hell from there.


No, that's the lie people like Dawkins want you to believe about the Bible.

If you try READING the Bible, you'll find places like in the Proverbs, and two places in the New Testament which deal with naturalism, and proof.

The word "Faith" does not mean what you have been brainwashed to think it means.

Finding something microscopic, which is not previously known, is in fact a revelation. You seem to think God was/is somehow required to share all knowledge with all humanity ahead of time, and he obviously isn't. The universe is designed in such a way that when people are ready for something, it naturally comes about most of the time. Not always though.

"The word "Faith" does not mean what you have been brainwashed to think it means."

I particularly like Tom Robbins definition, "Faith is believing something you know isn't true."

The universe is designed in such a way that when people are ready for something, it naturally comes about most of the time. Not always though.


Except in the few outlier cases where it doesn't have to happen exactly as it didn't.

Useless. Completely useless. Even if true, completely useless.

That's the point: faith-based "science" does nothing. There is nothing to discover, but what we hope will be revealed? Why do research? Why question anything? At most it looks ex post facto for codes in the English botched translation of the Greek transcriptions of the Hebrew or Aramaic recording of oral traditions influenced by heavily Mesopotamian context.

Lurker, I have read the Bible, dozens of times. It's accuracy in terms of a physical, chemical, geological and biological case point is, absolutely hilarious.

You find nothingness becoming something basic absurd. But you find nothingness becoming an all powerful being with infinite knowledge wisdom and power completely fine and okay.

Righto.

How can God also be omnipotent and omniscient at the same time? That's a contradiction in itself. Everyone knows a vehicle with a nearly broken gearbox can still work, just badly, but hey, a vehicle with a nearly broken gearbox can go faster than something without a nearly broken gearbox.

In biology you don't need something to fit perfectly for it to be advantagous. In fact most biological systems, even highly specialised ones, are far from perfect, and man can usually use them as ideas and progress onwards with designed technology.

2 people voted 1/5 for my comment. my god the human race is screwed lol

My god jesus was a mechaniic not a carpenter!
This is the same fool who also believes the universe came from absolute nothingness, but wait, it came from a particular type of conditional nothingness, but wait, that's a contradiction, and he knows it, but you know, gotta stick with the faith, er, faithlessness
Leave it to an idiot godder to decide god did it before we really know.

Consider Lrrkrr, that these were 2 intersecting plates which originally interacted by friction. And then consider that subsequent generations worked better when bumps developed on the plates and were thus selected for.

This is only a wild guess but it is much better than your gutless and brainless leap of faith.

Don't worry about the votes, triplehelix, those are just Otto's latest sock-puppets. They follow everyone that Otto disagrees with.

Don't worry about the votes, triplehelix, those are just Otto's latest sock-puppets. They follow everyone that Otto disagrees with.
Hey there termite. This is not true And per my profile page it is obvious who the liar is yes?
http://phys.org/p...tto1923/

nowhere (Sep 15, 2013),

"This is the same fool who also believes the universe came from absolute nothingness"

"The theory goes back so far as the singularity. At this point all matter is compacted into a single point and both time and space have no meaning. Our theories break down at this origin and since time is a property of our universe, there is no before the singularity. So there is no 'absolute nothingness'."

So if there was a singularity and time and space didn't exist, what caused the eruption of a time/space dependent universe from that singularity? Something was created at that moment- or you're going to tell me that the probability for this universe existed in that singularity, but then you've got to deal with who created the probability? Probability in those terms (and philosophically) is a thing too. From whence hath it come?

Also, if no html is allowed here, how does one blockquote? Thanks!

So if there was a singularity and time and space didn't exist, what caused the eruption of a time/space dependent universe from that singularity?

Answering that would require a theory of how singularities work.

Something was created at that moment

Nothing was created, the total energy for the system was and still is zero.

- or you're going to tell me that the probability for this universe existed in that singularity

Probably.

, but then you've got to deal with who created the probability?

No you don't for two reasons. First is, assuming there exists a creater who made probability is less likely than only assuming there is probability. Second is that it may be there is no probability. All things that can exist do and all that can't don't.

Also, if no html is allowed here, how does one blockquote? Thanks!

[ q ] [ /q ] seems to work for me.

1. Man invented gears
2. Insect found to have 1/8th of a gear (i.e. an interlock not even a real gear)
3. Therefore God exists!

Useless. And dangerous because:

4. I am a man of God
5. God is a despot
5. Therefore I must rule.

Even if God existed and was everything you hoped, I would still not be attracted to your dim and utterly dull quest for dominion.

But oh the things we would ask the bearded man about!

The conversation doesn't need to turn to god for an answer to something as amazing as this is. We humans are surrounded by amazing things everyday. Our stereo vision is just one example. Our RGB vision system is another. Each part of our bodies has some logical function, so why shouldn't logic extend into the insect world, and the microscopic design of a gear mechanism? I find it an amazing freak of nature. Not God.

I think being an engineer puts me in an awkward position. With all the consideration and investigation that's been given to it by many really exceptional people, I can't even entertain the thought that the modern theory of evolution is fundamentally wrong. At the same time I believe that this thing was designed and cannot shake that belief because it comes from somewhere really deep. Go figure. :-)