Well, My Opinion Of The US Public Just Went Down Again...

[Captain Seafort]

Plus the human brain requires a tremendous amount of oxygen to keep it going. This requires lots of blood, which requires a powerful heart, which requires a high daily calorie intake. Conclusion: the question that should be asked isn't "why aren't there more sapient animals" so much as "how the hell did such an inefficient organism survive long enough for the increased brainpower to start having an effect?"

[Mikey]

Because we descended from omnivores, and the animals that we did hunt weren't zebra-sized... nor did we have to compete with others in our pride to get a share of a kill.

[Sionnach Glic]

Plus the human brain requires a tremendous amount of oxygen to keep it going. This requires lots of blood, which requires a powerful heart, which requires a high daily calorie intake. Conclusion: the question that should be asked isn't "why aren't there more sapient animals" so much as "how the hell did such an inefficient organism survive long enough for the increased brainpower to start having an effect?"

A very valid point. By all logic, sapient species should be a serious minority.

[IanKennedy]

Plus a larger brain pan also causes problems with child birth. It's a traite that would be in serious problems without modern medicine, which animals are unlikely to have. If you doubt this try looking up Episiotomy, but it's not for the squeamish, nor to be taken with meals

[sunnyside]

Geez this is flying. I wish I could respond more specifically to different posts but that would take to long.

Anyway something that is comming up repeatedly is that people mean different things when they say the theory of evolution. Ranging from basic natural selection and mutation to the "lightning strike" that kicked things off to, "there is no god, and if you think so you're wrong and retarded". And within that there are many different levels of detail. 'Things evolved" is basic, however when you start discussing exact mechanisms there are a number of theories and hypotheses regarding evolution.

Now as for the theory itself. There are a number of arguments to poke holes in it. But there are problems with playing the God of the gaps game.

First and foremost is that a basic axiom of science is that there is nothing supernatural, and another is generally that once you have eleminated all other possibilities, all that remains, however improbable, must be true, and a final part is that a decent academian can come up with an explination or proof for pretty much anything if you ask them to. For example studies disproving global warming and that ciggarettes are adictive.

Therefore even if one could completely debunk evolution as it is currently understood, this would in no way prove creationism, nor cause the retraction of the theory of evolution, rather it would simply be accepted that the theory of evolution needs to have more work done, but the basic premis still must be correct, because, given that there is nothing supernatural, there can be nothing supernatural, and therefore life must have evolved in some way. In no time more hypotheses will be advanced and, if not taken down, they will become theories.

As a thought experiment consider for a moment that Trek has it right and that life was seeded on the planet. And perhaps occasionally some of the many aliens out there dropped down and tweaked something. How could such a thing be proved such that it wouldn't be written off short of finding a crashed alien vessel.

No missing link? There are tons of cases of that. Currently it is considered that substantial evolution occurs in "spurts" due to a large environmental change as different forms are often found very close together timewise, without many or any links. That's a large part of why links are such big deals when they are found, and why we've all heard of the Archaeopteryx.


Life showing up already with too much present? The earliest known fossils are fairly complex algae.

Anyway that's more of a game. My general point is still that nobody can know exactly what happened 3.5 billion years ago, and pressing the point wastes a lot of valuable time and creates animosity.

[IanKennedy]

Geez this is flying. I wish I could respond more specifically to different posts but that would take to long.

Anyway something that is comming up repeatedly is that people mean different things when they say the theory of evolution. Ranging from basic natural selection and mutation to the "lightning strike" that kicked things off to, "there is no god, and if you think so you're wrong and retarded". And within that there are many different levels of detail. 'Things evolved" is basic, however when you start discussing exact mechanisms there are a number of theories and hypotheses regarding evolution.

No, the only thing that evolution means is how species develop over time. It has nothing to do with lightning strikes, the existence of god or anything else. It's only religious people who think the world is out to get them that belief that it's anything other than that. Anyone on either the atheist or theist sides who claims it's anything more is at best wrong and at worst a moron.

Now as for the theory itself. There are a number of arguments to poke holes in it. But there are problems with playing the God of the gaps game.

Yes, there are you rapidly run out of gaps, and god starts to look sillier and sillier as time goes on. It's not an argument that I would suggest a theist take, but I know there are those who do.

First and foremost is that a basic axiom of science is that there is nothing supernatural, and another is generally that once you have eleminated all other possibilities, all that remains, however improbable, must be true, and a final part is that a decent academian can come up with an explination or proof for pretty much anything if you ask them to. For example studies disproving global warming and that ciggarettes are adictive.

I think you are confusing science and Sherlock Holmes, they are not the same. Science does not believe in the Sherlock principal (to give it a name). It is happy to acknowledge that there are things that there is no theory to fit, it just says that you shouldn't resort to supernatural explanations in the absence of evidence. As for you idea that any decent scientist can come up with a proof for anything, it is perhaps true to a small degree, however, and it's a big however, you need peer review and reproducibility to get things taken seriously. One scientist or study does not a theory make.

Therefore even if one could completely debunk evolution as it is currently understood, this would in no way prove creationism, nor cause the retraction of the theory of evolution, rather it would simply be accepted that the theory of evolution needs to have more work done, but the basic premis still must be correct, because, given that there is nothing supernatural, there can be nothing supernatural, and therefore life must have evolved in some way. In no time more hypotheses will be advanced and, if not taken down, they will become theories.

Only if they have predications that can eventually be tested and shown to agree or disagree. You cannot have a scientific theory that simply says this is how it is. You have to provide a reason it is that way and some testable outcome of it working that way.

As a thought experiment consider for a moment that Trek has it right and that life was seeded on the planet. And perhaps occasionally some of the many aliens out there dropped down and tweaked something. How could such a thing be proved such that it wouldn't be written off short of finding a crashed alien vessel.

No missing link? There are tons of cases of that. Currently it is considered that substantial evolution occurs in "spurts" due to a large environmental change as different forms are often found very close together timewise, without many or any links. That's a large part of why links are such big deals when they are found, and why we've all heard of the Archaeopteryx.

No, you are out of touch with the recent finds (over the last 10 years) lots of the gaps have been filled. There is little room left for spurts.

Life showing up already with too much present? The earliest known fossils are fairly complex algae.

Anyway that's more of a game. My general point is still that nobody can know exactly what happened 3.5 billion years ago, and pressing the point wastes a lot of valuable time and creates animosity.

No you can't, that is true, however, you can be scientific about things. You can look at the evidence and only go with theories that actually fit with that evidence.

[Mikey]

While I take the theist point of view, and Ian obviously takes the atheist one, I am forced to repeat for emphasis something he mentioned (more than once, I believe.) The core of what this argument has become is more or less academic - the theory of evolution does not attempt to describe or delineate the genesis of life. There really shouldn't be any conflict between theistic creationism or evolution... unless one adopts fundamental Creationism (capital "C") and believes that G-d placed everything here 6000 years ago exactly as it is today, and dinosaur fossils were planted as a hoax by heathen Darwinists.

[Sionnach Glic]

and believes that G-d placed everything here 6000 years ago exactly as it is today, and dinosaur fossils were planted as a hoax by heathen Darwinists.

Is that what they're saying now? Fucking hell.

[Nickswitz]

and believes that G-d placed everything here 6000 years ago exactly as it is today, and dinosaur fossils were planted as a hoax by heathen Darwinists.

Is that what they're saying now? f***ing hell.

Wow, that's just a stupid idea... I mean, I understand if you said that they all died and because of it the fossils were there, but saying he planted them... God is now officially a conspiracy theory... He is out to get darwinists... Wait... WTF, that doesn't even make sense

I'm confused now

[Tyyr]

and believes that G-d placed everything here 6000 years ago exactly as it is today, and dinosaur fossils were planted as a hoax by heathen Darwinists.

Is that what they're saying now? f***ing hell.

I honestly have difficulty believing that you'll find that many people who actually think that. It gets press because of how extreme a position it is but you're not going to find a lot of adherents.

[Lazar]

I honestly have difficulty believing that you'll find that many people who actually think that. It gets press because of how extreme a position it is but you're not going to find a lot of adherents.

Well over 40% of Americans believe that humans were created in the past 10,000 years; if you believe that then I would imagine you're a young Earth creationist, and if you are, then you're gonna have some creative explanation for the fossil evidence. It's a hoax, God put it there to test our faith, we coexisted with dinosaurs, Neanderthals were just people with rickets, etc. (Another interesting issue for them is astronomy: for anything more than 6-10,000 light years away, God would have had to create a light image of something that never happened.)

[Nickswitz]

I honestly have difficulty believing that you'll find that many people who actually think that. It gets press because of how extreme a position it is but you're not going to find a lot of adherents.

Well over 40% of Americans believe that humans were created in the past 10,000 years; if you believe that then I would imagine you're a young Earth creationist, and if you are, then you're gonna have some creative explanation for the fossil evidence. It's a hoax, God put it there to test our faith, we coexisted with dinosaurs, Neanderthals were just people with rickets, etc. (Another interesting issue for them is astronomy: for anything more than ~6,000 light years away, God would have had to create a light image of something that never happened.)

I personally believe that they were, but that the earth may have been around billions of years before that, and that we may have coexisted with dinosaurs, and that some of the dating they have done may be wrong... I don't have complete faith in science, but I know they aren't morons, well, for the most part.

Psst... What's a young earth creationist?

[Lazar]

Psst... What's a young earth creationist?

Someone who believes that the Earth/universe was created recently, in the past 6-10 thousand years or so. It's basically a literal reading of the Old Testament, where you take the ages of the old patriarchs and calculate the date of Creation from that. (You should ask Mikey, but I think that's the basis of the Hebrew calendar which currently has us in the 6th millennium.) An Old Earth creationist would believe that God created the universe billions of years ago, and this blends into the view known as theistic evolution - which is (roughly) the mainstream view of religious people who accept the body of paleontology and evolutionary theory, like the Catholic church. (When you see public opinion polling, they're the large group in the middle.)

And what's amazing is that there are some very religious Hindus who have the opposite problem - based on the chronology of Vedic ages, they think that the universe is tens or hundreds of billions of years older than it is according to science.

[Nickswitz]

Ok, I figured it was something like that, see, I think that we, humans, were created recently, 10,000 yrs or something close to that... But that the earth is a few Billion years old... But that's just me, well, Jehovah's Witnesses as a general group believe this.

[Lazar]

Ok, I figured it was something like that, see, I think that we, humans, were created recently, 10,000 yrs or something close to that... But that the earth is a few Billion years old... But that's just me, well, Jehovah's Witnesses as a general group believe this.

But then you would have the interesting problem of accepting mainstream paleontology and geology, except when it came to hominid remains. You could take the position (which I've seen that some people hold) that God imbued humans with souls at a specific point after we had evolved to our modern form; but you would still have a problem, because humans have existed in their current form for about the last 100,000 years, and Adam and Eve as the sole ancestors of humanity would be out.