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Fundamentalist lies. After all, unless the finch actually changed into a pink elephant before my eyes and started reading from the Book of Armaments thus demonstrating the roots of gun culture, it is only micro-evolution. Which the Almighty designed to cover exactly this kind of deliberate brain-washing of the young and bewildered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gertgregoor
Hah. Evolution=pwned. :tongue:
:elephant:
I guess you were kidding. Tough you post doesn't really add much to the discussion, your signature adds so much more.
Yes, Gert, I was kidding. I imagine my position on evolution is pretty well known by the Backroom by now, to the extent Navaros has done me the honour of mimicking my signature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gertgregoor
I have got a little bored, so I thought I would present the standard arguments of Nav and his band of creationist brothers.
:bow:
*contemplates posting the mandatory "Chick Tracts"* :thinking:
Edit: We Mercans sho is dumb, ain't we? Good thing I got my sis, also wife, also aunt (get a lot of use out of her) to sort it all out for me.
Edit: Forget it, I forgot where I was and who I was dealing with.
huh?
Uh huh?Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
1. I have seen no proof that animals actually have morals and make moral judgements. In any case morals in human society have been shown to be environment orientated and not inherent. Nor are we herd animals, we are pack hunters. In order for animals to develope morals they would require the reasoning ability to make complex abstract value judgements. What they have is species serving instinct. The fact that many of man's morals are counter-productive from a survival point of view is evidence they are more than instinct.
2. If the world is derterministic and we all all on rails then how did we ever progress? Or are you going fo the higher being?
3. Our society is more corrupt, repressed and miserable than it has ever been, when we fight and kill to take what we want we are in our we are in our natural state. We have now moved so far beyond our natural state that we sacrifice our own well-being and that of our species for an everchanging set of values, "morals."
4. Good and evil are value judgements, if something is unable to make these judgements it is neither good nor evil. The river that floods my town is not evil, it is merely a force of nature, as is an animal. Man is one of the few species that demonstates these value judgements and therefore one of the few that can be called good or evil.
As regards evolution, the simple facts of pre-history demonstrate that it operates, look at the dinasaurs, look at the developement of Wales and Dolphins. Look at man. If God had created everything why leave the dinosaurs and the prototype men lying around, he said "it is" so he can just as easily say "it isn't" and there wouldn't be anything left for us to find.
No, its quite the opposite actually. Creationism = nonsense. Evolution makes a hell of a lot more sense than creationism too, its far more logical.Quote:
Originally Posted by x-dANGEr
Take for example that human DNA can be traced right back to primates, and the fact that evolution is far more accepted amongst the scientific community.
Oh wait, such things like this are far too important to be left to the scientists! After all, a glorously false 2000 year old book is far more important with regards to science and logic!
which of humanity's morals are "counter-productive" to survival?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
why shouldn't any observed "progress" simply be the consequnce of the deterministic physical rules?Quote:
2. If the world is derterministic and we all all on rails then how did we ever progress? Or are you going fo the higher being?
how did you determine this? (how do you measure the corruption of society?)Quote:
3. Our society is more corrupt, repressed and miserable than it has ever been, when we fight and kill to take what we want we are in our we are in our natural state. We have now moved so far beyond our natural state that we sacrifice our own well-being and that of our species for an everchanging set of values, "morals."
it is possible that human "morality" is simply a refined type of instinctual behavior, and not tremendously different than the social rules used by sheep, wolves, bees, etc. is it clear that human awareness has enabled humanity to mitigate, for itself, the influence of "animal" instinct in any significant way? (this is related to my first question in this post)Quote:
4. Good and evil are value judgements, if something is unable to make these judgements it is neither good nor evil. The river that floods my town is not evil, it is merely a force of nature, as is an animal. Man is one of the few species that demonstates these value judgements and therefore one of the few that can be called good or evil.
Saving children before grown ups. No toher animal does that except the ants. But that is because those worker ants can't reproduce.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_John
Has to be some force behind evolution, what are the chances that a species developes in a certain way? There are so many specialised creatures, like a lobster that actually shoots his prey with a click of it's claws (awesome isn't it), how could that just happen? A lobster doesn't say to his kids 'now listen carefully, this is important'. Does such a skill become automatically programmed in the genes the minute mr Lobster aquires this technique, passing it on to all his baby lobsters? And why do pigs still taste so good?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Why? Because evolution happens when things needed to be changed, and these changes happen over a very long time. Just because it sounds bizarre, dosent make evolution false, or in no way proves creationism true.
random mutations, when they have advantages, they might get sucessfull and will create a new species. to put it verry simple.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
not always that slow, read the article I posted. Only 30 years or so.Quote:
Why? Because evolution happens when things needed to be changed, and these changes happen over a very long time. Just because it sounds bizarre, dosent make evolution false, or in no way proves creationism true.
If everything that was bizarre would indeed be false then there wouldn't be much left of physics, biology, chemistry,... But also Christianity (and most other faiths).
Morals in order to be fair, need to be deterministic, i.e. a given situation would have a predetermined judgement - otherwise morals would be unfair, and immoral. Therefore it's no surprise that a simple instinct based or even reflex-like network of neurons in a very simple brain can make moral judgements of actions and situations. What requires a more complex brain is abstract reasoning about moral judgement for hypothetical situations that haven't yet occured etc., which is where humans in some way stand out from most other animals, but it's quite likely that there are a few more animals who can plan, do abstract reason etc., for instance a gorilla was observed to use a stick to measure the depth of a river to see if the depth was small enough to allow her children to get past the river safely. It's likely that several monkeys then COULD have the ability to abstractly reason about morals in hypothetical situations. However consider this - if the environment is almost fixed, as it is for most animals except humans who keep changing the way society and civilization looks - then there's no need for a capacity to reason abstractly about morals in hypothetical situations, because environment is fixed and predictable, so that that reasoning can be programmed into the quite simple, deterministic and almost reflex-like neuron networks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Our progress is result of how evolution looks. Our reasoning capacities within the brain are fairly unique, and can indeed be self-destructive and non-benefitial for the species, but evolution DOES tolerate certain amounts of self-destructive behavior - that's how new species arise. When damaging mutations happen, if they are damaging enough there's very small chance that the coming generations will see development towards the same direction as the species it previously was, with the result that new species arise. Species are LOCAL MAXIMA in a problem solution space.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
By the way - the fruit fly experiment would probably work better than it has done previously if the scientists start trying to mutate the fruit flies in a way that makes them less able to survive, rather than trying to strengthen features that might be benefitial. If they do that, the chances should be greater that they would move away from the "fruit fly local maximum" and in the next generations, when left to themselves to mate arbitrarily, would see mutations that actually moved them towards another local maximum than fruit fly, causing the fruit flies to become a new species in a matter of quite few generations. As much as popular science versions of evolution try to emphasize on the development of benefitial features to increase survival, the principle of nature to tolerate a quite fair amount of weakness is just as important for evolution, as it increases genetical variety and enables the creation of new species.
Anyway, this whole thing means that human technological progress isn't that odd even considering that it has had many disadvantageous effects for us.
You are almost echoing my message but with different words:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
- the thing you call natural state is the state of early homo sapiens and early farming civilizations, up to the Medieval era and maybe just past the age of revolutions in Europe and America - indeed a cruel state. I choose to call that state civilization, because it builds up around a simple theme: questioning of instincts. Questioning of instinctive morality, questioning of power structure of the herd, questioning of where to live, questioning of how to spend the time not occupied by survival etc.
The most classical example of this throughout human history - you have power, your reasoning abilities tells you that you can quite easily without anyone stopping you abuse that power and get a lot of short-term enjoyment from it, thus you choose to abuse it. While the instincts give you a sense of vague fear about doing so, instincts and conscience can be suffocated by strong will and persuasion, and many people throughout history have made the mistake of abusing power. An enlightened man would realize why the instincts cause this fear - the man who absues power will be lynched or similar as soon as he loses his power - his survival depends on something as unpredictable and fragile as his own maintenance of the power position. Even the weakest member of the herd has greater chance of survival than such a man, no matter how strong he may be. But an unenlightened man doesn't understand that, he is too wise to see that the instincts lie about the short term, but too stupid to have a proper replacement for them that makes him realize that the instincts tell the truth about the long-term consequences.
- the thing I call natural state is the time before the questioning of instinctive morality and other instincts, something that probably started before the modern species of homo sapiens appeared, possibly when we were at a chimpanzee state or so. But the state before that was in many ways more functional, peaceful and morally stable than any of the civilizations homo sapiens have created - even compared to the best of our modern societies. Mankind still hasn't been able to use reasoning thinking to rebuild the stability and morality of almost completely instinct-driven societies. Instead we're still in a fairly irrational state of very short-sighted thinking, where, as history can confirm, consequences of seemingly insignificant decisions can be wars a 100 years afterwards because our reasoning abilities, unlike instincts, are very limited when it comes to predicting long-term consequences of our actions.
- the thing you call modern state, is almost the same as the concept I call enlightenment. I choose to call it enlightenment, because it's wisdom and not the current time or geographical location that makes European and American societies comparatively peaceful (but both Europe and America are still very primitive and underdeveloped). I also choose to call it enlightenment, because it doesn't make the concept coupled to our modern societies, which still lack a lot of enlightenment, and are still pretty cruel, corrupt and oppressive in many ways. What I'm talking about is a development where rationality and reasoning abilities are able to completely compensate the loss our species had from questioning instincts. The modern state faces many problems for morality: for instance morals change often, morals are usually somewhat arbitrary, many situations are so complex that different sides can't agree on the same moral judgement even when having the same moral axioms (see all existing conflicts and wars in the world), society changes constantly which requires a corresponding change of morals which is usually delayed or refused due to deeply rooted religious or cultural moral values, people lack good insight into society because society is so complex - thus people can't make very good moral judgements other than by norm ethics, which tend to, in civilization (because most norm ethics systems aren't adapted to a changing environment), conflict with consequence ethics. And finally, the greatest problem of them all - assume we have a man with absolute total wisdom. In most of our societies, if he ruthlessly looks at his alternatives and chooses after how benefitial they are, he will in way too many cases come to the conclusion that an immoral decision will be the most benefitital one. As long as that problem exists, the only way to make people follow moral rules is to make sure the truth is denied and hidden. This doesn't work very well in cases where the truth is painfully obvious and known to everyone. A society whose survival is based on denial of truth and irrationality is doomed to failure. That is the classical mistake made since the religious morality of the ancient world - pathetically appealing to people to act in a way that is irrational and hurts them in a society which favors evilness, rather than changing society so that it favors good, and spread enough enlightenment and wisdom that people will understand that acting evil will be of no use for them. While many people follow this irrationality, because they believe it to be true because it's similar to the instinctive morality (and thus feels good), it's enough that only a handful don't, for society to plunge into violence and chaos at regular intervals.
The forms of enlightenment required to compensate for human beings' tendency to question the instinctive moral values are as I see it the following:
a. a society form which doesn't favor immoral behavior and evil actions
b. enough education and enlightenment among the masses that they understand that a is true.
I could write a multi-page essay on this, but I'll try to be as brief as I can:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
I assume we're using consequence ethics here, which IMO is the only sensible form of ethics in theoretical usage, whereas norm/rule ethics are better suited in a practical setting, once theory has made sure that through consequence ethics society has been made so that it benefits people who act good judged by the norm/rule ethics.
So, given consequence ethics, there are two judgements involved in determining whether a state or action is "good" or "evil". The first is about deciding, assuming we knew the full, absolute truth, whether the state or action would be positive or negative for mankind's survival. The second judgement is about determining, with the limited abilities of our senses, what action or state it actually is we are seeing/hearing/sensing/etc. Example: "is murder good or evil?" is the first form of judgement, and "was that I murder I saw?" is the second form of judgement. If you choose a certain person, you can mathematically decide whether a theoretical action or state is good or evil, and it's no longer a matter of what someone thinks (though the complexity of such a problem makes it almost impossible to make the judgement exactly true). I choose the concepts "good" and "evil" refer to whether a certain state or action, given a person (species can also do), is benefitial or not for that person according to such a mathetical calculation of utility. As I see it, the second form of judgement doesn't alter the action or state, just like the choice of word to denote an object doesn't affect the object. Whether the unaware thing that causes destruction can be called evil or not then depends on whether you choose the definition that good and evil refers to an action/state or a judgement of the second type of the action/state. Now when I look at common usages of the words "good" and "evil", I mostly see examples of the first, which is my definition (i.e. that the second form of judgement isn't mixed into the concept), for instance: "and he saw that it was good", refers to a state - so that a river rising too high might be denoted evil even if the river has no conscience, "action x is immoral" denotes and action, and "I think it's evil" refers to a judgement of the second form, but the judgement of the second form is clearly denoted by "I think", so that "evil" refers only to the first form of judgement. I therefore think that that is the most logical definition of "good" and "evil", i.e. whether it's benefitial or not for a given person/species, not whether that person's/species' instincts says it's bad or not. For that, I instead use the expression "x causes pain/happiness for y" or "x think y is good/evil" etc.
Which definition of "good" and "evil" is chosen doesn't matter, as long as the philosophical discussion agrees on which definition is used during that discussion. But if you choose to use good and evil to denote a judgement of the second type, then I'm afraid it becomes necessary to make up two new concepts to refer to states and actions that are negative or positive given a certain person or species, for the sake of clarity.
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:laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
That might be because most animals don't get into a situation where the older individuals are capable of surviving while the children aren't capable of survival if nothing is done, while an action of sacrifice from an older individual would save the child. Bears don't use ferries or get buried below their own houses during earthquakes that often, if you know what I mean... That doesn't mean animals don't care about their offspring - try walking between a female bear and her offspring for instance. Or do the same for almost any mammal... And it's also common for plenty of birds fly around and play injured to draw the attention of predators away from the eggs in their nests. It's simply seldom the case for other animals that there is a form of sacrifice that would work for enabling the offpsring to survive. That humans can often favor the survival of the young seems rational for humans, whether it's instinct or reasoning that has made us come to that conclusion is difficult to tell.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gertgregoor
That's true, but it's often forgotten that just as important as the successful mutations is the fact that mother nature has such a high tolerance for weakness. If it weren't for that, very few new species would develop. That's what can allow a series of nonbenefitial (nonbenefitial in the short term sense) or neutral (again short term) mutations occur, followed by one good (again short term) mutation, and suddenly the species has changed so drastically that if it from that point would start striving towards in the short term increasing it's survivability, it would end up being something else than it was before the series of mutations occured. Mathematically, species are nothing but local maxima in "random local hill-climbing search". If you change drastically enough, you'll be closer to another local maximum, and end up close to it instead of the previous one - a new species has been formed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gertgregoor
Yes there are times that animals could do that, they sometimes try to lure the predator away when they know the predator wouldn't stand a chance to get them (being one of the parents for example). But if it really is a fight between life and death, they'll leave their childs alone. And they better, if they die, their child will die anyway, and if the other parent might still take care of it surving rates for youngsters aren't that big. THerefore most animals won't. Because the grownups have more chance in reproducing themselves another few times then tat their yongsters will. There are exceptions like the ants I taked about. THe workerants can't reproduce anyway. In evolution it's not about the strongest animals but the strongest species, if you get my point.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
Yeah, that's completly true. I just wasn't in the mood to write it out that long. I just went for the really short simple awnser.Quote:
hat's what popular science says today, but I think just as important as the successful mutations is the fact that mother nature has such a high tolerance for weakness. If it weren't for that, very few new species would develop. Therefore a series of hurting or neutral mutations may occur, followed by one good mutation, and suddenly the species has changed so drastically that if it from that point would start striving towards increasing it's survivability, it would end up being something else than it was before the series of mutations occured. Mathematically, species are nothing but local maxima in "random local hill-climbing search". If you change drastically enough, you'll be closer to another local maximum, and strive for it.
You might want to read 'Van nature goed' van Frans de Waal Gertgregoor, it tries to explain altruism as a evolutionary strategy with primates, and it also has loads pictures of sexing bonobo's.
Gert, the sacrificial behavior of parent animals is likely reflective of the individual reproductive strategies of that particular animal. selective pressures should lead to the selection of genes that cause animals to adopt the strategies that are statistically more likely to propagate the genes in question. i would be willing to bet that animals that have fewer offspring and invest a larger amount of energy in raising their offspring probably show more "sacrificial" behavior when protecting that investment. Legio correctly pointed out that this is broadly true of many birds and mammals. we can examine some examples of this and how sacrificial behavior may contribute to overall fitness of ones genes when i have more time. ~:)
Yes it is. Because they invested more but also these young are mor likely to survive and reproduce. Tough usually parents (animals ofcourse) will not sacrifice themselves that quickly. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but most won't. Most organisms don't even look after their reproduction. And only a part of those that do look after them would consider sacrificing themselves or put the life of their youngsters above theirs. But I bet that there are more examples like the ant wich act or sometimes act differently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_John
EDit: Fragony, perhaps I will. When I go the library next time. If they at least have it.
Elephants will even risk their lifes for the offspring their buddies, I think it just has to do with a very low birthrate, making every newborn essential for the continuation of the entire tribe.
Yup. Elephant babies are verry big investments and don't get born that much. And they have a rather big chance of survival. And maybe it might also have to do that elepahnt have verry deep and strng family connections and feelings together with being verry sensitive and intelligent animals.
So? :shrug:Quote:
Only 40% of Americans believe in the Theory of Evolution
=> In Us:
Christianity Pwns Science.
I don't believe in Evolution.
seconded.Quote:
Originally Posted by x-dANGEr
There is a lot more to it than just coming from monkeys!
One monkey didn't just wake up one morning being a person, it is a very slow process. It relies on mutations in the genes which everyone has, yes you are a mutant.
Though usually the mutation is so slight that it doesn't affect people, though it can get passed on to your children who in turn have their slight mutation combined with yours.
Through this very gradual change happens. That is fact.
That is a very quick explanation of what it basically is.
Though what my science teacher said was that you shouldn't mix science with faith. If you start using science to try and explain your faith then you are questioning your faith and subsequently aren't a believer. He also said that Biologists tend to be aethiests and Physicists tend to be religious because
Physicists say that the way the world is has a balance and order to it, Biologists tend to believe that the world is one big mess (He was a biologist).
That's because the First Rule of Biology is:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hepcat
Under the most strictly controlled conditions of temperature, humidity and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
:embarassed:
Why do you need to believe in something (evolution) with evidence supporting it? You only need believe in a faith because there is no evidence for it, that's part of the point isn't it?