Why call him a God?

[Will Due]

1 minute ago, cormac mac airt said:

Evolution is essentially trial and error, no specific purpose intended nor directed. 

cormac

 

Could be just your interpretation. 

 

 

[cormac mac airt]

15 minutes ago, OverSword said:

We don't all have Neanderthal DNA

link

And it also includes the fact that the introgression of Neanderthal, as well as Denisovan, genes into Hss was a bit higher than the percentages given but some of the material has since been deleted by the modern human genome. 

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

3 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Could be just your interpretation. 

Nope, that's what the scientific evidence shows. Nice try though. 

cormac

[Will Due]

1 minute ago, cormac mac airt said:

Nope, that's what the scientific evidence shows. Nice try though. 

cormac

 

Evidence must be interpreted. 

 

 

[cormac mac airt]

Just now, Will Due said:

Evidence must be interpreted. 

And it has been, by more competent people than you. 

cormac

[Will Due]

2 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

And it has been, by more competent people than you. 

cormac

 

I think you need a hug.

 

 

[Guyver]

28 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

Evolution is essentially trial and error, no specific purpose intended nor directed. 

cormac

Greetings.  I’m having trouble navigating the forum right now....for some reason every time I try to quote you I get signed out.  It’s weird....so I was trying to reply to your comments about human populations, and you have mentioned modern scientific understanding.  I wanted to inform you that I have been studying this field of science lately, and I might be able to help bring you up to date.

At this time, everything we thought we knew about human evolution is being rewritten by new discoveries.  Right now, the theory remains unchallenged, but the details and former understandings are being dismissed.

To put it in laymen’s terms for the casual observer, science doesn’t really know much about specifics of human evolution at this time.  FWIW.

[Guyver]

23 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

I think you need a hug.

 

 

Sometimes hugs don’t help.  Just saying.

[+OverSword]

49 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

Evolution is essentially trial and error, no specific purpose intended nor directed. 

cormac

Perhaps.  I was just watching something a few months ago on PBS in which they gave several examples of unrelated species evolving identical stratagies millions of years apart.  In the example I can remember it was a type of fish that swallows prey whole by pulling it down its gullet with a retractable set of inner teeth and digesting the prey whole.  There was a modern example and an unrelated extinct example.

Edited December 6, 2019 by OverSword

[Will Due]

19 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Sometimes hugs don’t help.  Just saying.

 

I know.

My wife is Irish. 

 

 

[Habitat]

57 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

Evolution is essentially trial and error, no specific purpose intended nor directed. 

cormac

We really don't know that it is, but we also don't know that it isn't, and until something emerges to prove that it isn't, the default position is to carry on as if it is all natural.

[psyche101]

1 hour ago, OverSword said:

Not necessarily.  One thing that has been thoroughly demonstrated, imo, is that high intelligence is not a goal of or inevitable outcome of evolution.

Considering all the hominids we completed against I'd have to disagree. This was always going to happen.

[+OverSword]

2 minutes ago, psyche101 said:

Considering all the hominids we completed against I'd have to disagree. This was always going to happen.

So if you disagree then why have't species older than us developed intelligence, such as the shark for example?

[psyche101]

16 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Perhaps.  I was just watching something a few months ago on PBS in which they gave several examples of unrelated species evolving identical stratagies millions of years apart.  In the example I can remember it was a type of fish that swallows prey whole by pulling it down its gullet with a retractable set of inner teeth and digesting the prey whole.  There was a modern example and an unrelated extinct example.

Convergent evolution.

It's why intelligent aliens would most likely be somewhat familiar.

[psyche101]

2 minutes ago, OverSword said:

So if you disagree then why have't species older than us developed intelligence, such as the shark for example?

Bipedalism, breeding practices opposable thumbs, free time, better eating habits (fire) and a changing environment.

As Cormac already pointed out, it wasn't any 'one' thing.

Edited December 6, 2019 by psyche101

[Guyver]

13 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

I know.

My wife is Irish. 

 

 

Lucky man you.

[+Hammerclaw]

2 hours ago, psyche101 said:

Our DNA only differs by a couple of percent from our primate cousins. That shows we are cousins, and how we parted evolutionary ways. The only real difference is the last adaptions that encompass that attention schema theory. We are just the 5th ape.

Yeah. " What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty; in form and moving how express and admirable. In action, how like angel; in apprehension, How like a God! The beauty of the world; the paragon of animals!"

[+Hammerclaw]

1 hour ago, OverSword said:

We don't all have Neanderthal DNA

link

Not yet.

[+Desertrat56]

3 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Not yet.

From what I understand, Neanderthal DNA is common in europeans and people with european ancestors and there aren't any europeans that don't have a segment or two fo Neanderthal DNA.  So it makes sense that not everyone has it.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Desertrat56

[+OverSword]

40 minutes ago, psyche101 said:

Bipedalism, breeding practices opposable thumbs, free time, better eating habits (fire) and a changing environment.

As Cormac already pointed out, it wasn't any 'one' thing.

So why didn't they evolve bipedalism?  No, the end goal of evolution is not high intelligence.  It's survival.

[+OverSword]

15 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Not yet.

I know some people I can't say that around 

[White Crane Feather]

11 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

The term isn't really being misused though, and the only fundamentalism I see is concerning what science supports and what it does not.  The imagination of things we can try to prove isn't really science, it's imagination, it give you something on which to apply science.  You can use science to try and study insects and you can use science to try and study Nessie, but entomology is scientific whereas the existence of Nessie is not.  I think that is a reasonable fundamentalism.

You are discussing observation. That is not doing science. People that have actual done science relating to Nessie (sonar sweeps, motion detection cameras etc.) were essentially hypothesizing — If Nessie exits, then she will be detectable by sonar or motion detectors. This is testable. Every jr high school kid knows that hypothesis are an “if, then” statement in order to make it testable.

In more complicated science especially concerning deep reality, it absolutely needs brilliant imagination and readiness to drop personal bias to even find something that can be tested. String theory came about with two scientists just “whatifing” on a train ride. 

In the context of the current discussion, the fundamentalism I am suggesting is that —nothing exists that has not been proven to exist therefore any suggestions, discussion, or hypothesizing is just useless — Of course that is not the case anymore than using the Bible to prove its own validity is a coherent position. 

The empirical fundamentalist is so entrenched in a belief that fundamental reality must operate in cog like fashion, that no amount of evidence or logic to the contrary can be taken seriously. 

If we start with simple logical observations of known simulations, and then start making some testable hypothesis of what it should logically look like if we are in one, we are starting down a road of real testable science. A person interested in empiricism should be thrilled. 

To reject  the scientific process in the name of science because of bias distastes towards things the seem too sci fi or hint at the hated intelligent design is simply not science at all. 

It takes observation and imagination to find things to test. Without it we would not have advanced this far. When you shut down that imagine because of bias, progress stops. A Fundamentalist approach is never going to help progress. It is the “can’t be” attitude while progress comes from the “It might be let’s we if we can test it attitude.”

[White Crane Feather]

7 hours ago, danydandan said:

That's interesting. But observationally impossible to prove.

Are you sure? Why? How do you know that? Is math not an observation? I can take a set of  numbered blocks and arrange them and easily discover, observationally, that there are a finite amount of permutations. Knowing this, I don’t not have to do all the permutations if I have even a million different blocks. I know that they are finite. 

The standard model is pretty damn robust. I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that ultimately the number of types of subatomic particles is finite. 

Just like the blocks, the permutations will be massive, but they are also finite. 

Now is our existence random or ultimately deterministic. Neither matters. The fact that we are here is a proof positive observation that we can be here. This is without  doubt a greater than zero probability. All we need is enough time and the permutation that is exactly us will come around again. It’s completely inevitable precisely based on observation. You are currently observing that permutation and therefore, you know it must be true. To question it, you have to bring another entity into the equation that would  prevent the permutation from reoccurring at some point.

— FYI, I don’t believe this personally, but that is just a belief. This is the most logical consequence to a deterministic universe, and it is observable. I find it pretty fantastic, and deeply troubling that it may consign those who have had miserable lives to an eternity of undeserved hell, but also motivating to live a good life. It’s one thing to make sure you live a good life if you only have one, it’s entirely another considering that it might be your eternity, but of course it also means we don’t really have a choice. Obviously your eternity is in jeopardy living like that.   As I already mention only in the unlikely events of a creator god or a only one big Bang scenario does this existence not become constant. —

 

Edited December 6, 2019 by White Crane Feather

[+Hammerclaw]

Evolution has no goal--evolution is a crap shoot, it's history full of episodes and catastrophes called "Punctuated Equilibrium". By mere chance a great rock falling from deep heaven killed the dinosaurs leaving lowly mammals to pick up the pieces. Another such calamity could end man's reign in a cosmic twinkle. By the hand of nature alone, we are no more significant than the least of creatures that scurry about. That's the secular truth, no ands, if's or buts about it.

[+Hammerclaw]

2 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

From what I understand, Neanderthal DNA is common in europeans and people with european ancestors and there aren't any europeans that don't have a segment or two fo Neanderthal DNA.  So it makes sense that not everyone has it.

As humans "blend" with one another, it spreads.