Several people wrote in with news about a possible new genus of pre-humans, based on fossils found in Kenya. Check out the less-technical articles at
CNN or
MSNBC, or the hardcore paper in
Nature (which has some very nice pictures of the actual fossils).
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. We have direct evidence of microevolution which can be extrapolated to macroevolution.
You are right that there is no direct experimental evidence of macroevolution, but fossils and now complete DNA maps of many creatures match perfectly with the theory of evolution, including natural selection, drift and all other factors.
This is so cool, the Leakey's have done it yet again, it's not unthinkable that there could have been several species of hominids in Africa, there are several sub-species of whales, and elephants so why not humans? Even the Neanderthals are thought to be from a different sub-species. This is not surprising, but it is very fascinating. What I find cool is that if any one of the subspecies of hominids dominated over our ancestors we could of turned out very different. Who knows what we would look like, or how we would act. It just goes to show that evolution, like life is just one crazy roll if the dice. Maybe if things had gone another way I might be able to spell worth a damn. And maybe, just maybe certain people would have evolved enough to point that they could just except that evolution is very real. If anyone's interested Richard Leaky wrote a really good book called "the sixth extinction" it's really good, also you might want to check out Stephen J. Gould, he was on the Simpson's once, it was the angel skeleton episode. He's a very brilliant man, with allot of really good points on evolution. With books like "Dinosaur in a haystack" and "Full House" (no Olsen twins)
This is my first post to /. [ha ha] I've been a reader for a long time now, but feel the need to add my own opinion to this discussion:
I don't see why everyone must be so extremist about evolution and all that it encompasses. I am a Christian, i fully believe the Bible to be the word of God, but i do not see how this evidence conflicts with the Bible in any way. I personally feel that evolution fits in with God's plan -- the impression from the Bible is of a logical God, therefore he is quite capable of creating us in any way he pleases. We are logical beings; God has created us in a logical way so that we can bring glory to him in exploring this.
Many people here seem to think that Christians only hold the view that the earth is about 6000 years old, personally i believe that God created the earth and went through the process which we have discovered through science. I see no problems with this being in contradiction with the Bible's account.
Anyway, rant over. Maybe if there were less extremist twats like the supposed Christian posting the comment earlier and people posting in heated response, we'd get some really good ideas flowing. Basically the point i'm trying to get across is that not all Christians are your average, Bible-belt southern states people.
Hello, I'm the person he was replying to. Right off the same site he linked to:
"Complex traits must evolve through viable intermediates. For many traits, it initially seems unlikely that intermediates would be viable. What good is half a wing? Half a wing may be no good for flying, but it may be useful in other ways. Feathers are thought to have evolved as insulation (ever worn a down jacket?) and/or as a way to trap insects. Later, proto-birds may have learned to glide when leaping from tree to tree. Eventually, the feathers that originally served as insulation now became co-opted for use in flight. A trait's current utility is not always indicative of its past utility. It can evolve for one purpose, and be used later for another. A trait evolved for its current utility is an adaptation; one that evolved for another utility is an exaptation. An example of an exaptation is a penguin's wing. Penguins evolved from flying ancestors; now they are flightless and use their wings for swimming"
I would like to give you specific examples from the fossil record, but as a student studying to become a computer scientist I am not sufficiently familiar with any. Google would probably come up with 20k+ hits, many relevant.
"the brains are the size of chimpanzees"
Wow, someone with a brain the size of chimpanzees would need a fucking big head.
Oh? You meant " the brains are the size of chimpanzees' "
Silly me.
That's exactly right. It doesn't take a genius because real Scientists admit it and know it and thrive off of it. In fact, that's part of Science itself: some things can be "known" to a reasonable degree of certainty based upon experimentation and observation -- if these results are checked and verified -- then we can assume they are truths. Nevermind that it's possible that they are not truths because some Gigantic Sentient Cheese Wedge is just fooling us into thinking they're truths, as far as we can see and as far as we can tell and as much as need be certain, these things we can see time and again and they stand-up to attempts to invalidate them (which come from within the scientific community, mind you; Scientists are not sheeple -- what the Reverend says is not taken for truth). Anything outside of that is outside the realm of Science. So Scientists don't need to address religion -- they really shouldn't -- that's all Meta-Science, beyond what we can confirm and test on a repeatable, independently verifiable level. So we forget it. We acknowledge that it's possible, but don't have anything to contribute to that field, so we stick to what we can "know." Whether or not you choose to invalidate mounds of experimental evidence and observations because of your belief in said Gigantic Sentient Cheese Wedge is a life decision you have made. I wish you the best in that. But when you need to know how far a projectile is going to go when you launch it with a certain velocity and angle, or when your arteries get more clogged than Dick Cheney's at a Casper's Hot Dog stand... don't forget that these things come from Science, and you can't really trust Science...
Well, it is, after all, called EVOLUTION.
This is actually an argument I've heard from a few christian friends when queried about things like carbon dating, dinosaurs, etc etc, invariably followed by "but I don't know everything". Asking who does will result in pointers to youth group leaders, pastors, the bible, etc.
:) When someone gives me a hardcore question (ie: apparently carbon dating "just doesn't work" (to which I say why the hell are they using it if it doesn't work?)) I will quite easily say "uhmm., I donno, ask some scientist who does" :)
Not that it's a bad argument. I argue evolutionary theory and I know nothing about it
Actually, the "bad engineering" that abounds in nature makes any diety that might claim responsibility seem really quite incompetent. Natural selection doesn't require that something be good, just "good enough".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You have far too much confidence in your own significance (and that of your species).
Evolution is no less insulting to those that actually have driven the progress of man to consider that they are the same species as the vast majority of homo sapiens.
There is less difference between the common man and the common canine than there is between the common man and the uncommon man.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Since when does the common adult human (not in denial) not enjoy whatever copulation they can manage to get?
Since when does the common juvenile human not tend to (enjoy) climb trees and human simulations thereof?
The banana bit just reminds me of a scene from the movie "Hawaii" where a bunch of fundies headed for the islands via ship just can't stomach the thought of eating the provisions available (bananas).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Failing to take Genesis in the most literal manner does NOT consitute "worshipping religion". Your insistence on pigeonholing both Xianity AND science both are a common failing of fundementalists of various religions.
The only reason you exist, and your parents lived long enough to have you is the fact that today's scientist understands the universe well enough to keep you and your ancestors fed, alive and in the lap of luxury (compared to a 16th century commoner).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Quite so.
This wanker probably doesn't keep kosher.
Probably thinks the sabbath is on Sunday too...
Like Paul, he'll gladly ignore those parts of the Torah that are "inconvenient". Meanwhile he whines about nothing more that he does himself. In short, he's a hipocrite.
This is common for the Xian that thinks their perspective is any more intresting or valid than the (literally) 100's of others.
Pharise-wannabe.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
OTOH, they're a great excuse to vent frustrations from adolescence.
Some of us actually had parents like that. Get baptized into a nice conservative schism and then a few years later the 'rents go off the deep end and essentially fall victim to a cult (although most might not recognize it as such).
There's nothing like a "check your brain at the door" variant of Xianity to drive you from organized religion altogether.
I still wouldn't mind peppering their hymnals with O'Hare pamphlets...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I tell you who has good nature pictures: National Geographic! Now THAT was educational...
-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Well, there are basically two camps in the Christian world, and a third, loosely wedged inbetween.
There are the "bible believers", who insist that the Bible is 100% accurate and true - word for word, the Perfect result of God's Will. In that case one cannot believe otherwise, that the Earth is around 6000 years old, and you need to fabricate some kind of delusional architecture to rationalize this and scientific evidence. There's the passage that states that Pi is 3. That's enough for me. I can prove that's wrong on a sheet of paper right in front of me. One can also look at the various widely divergent groups that have splintered off from Catholicism; all claiming to be "bible-believing"; all disagreeing on many major points.
Then there are the "fallibists", who believe that the Bible is flawed, either by error or translation and reproduction, or purposefully, for nefarious purposes.
fallibists have to believe that some part of the Bible is true, but who is to decide what parts? The reader? The Holy Spirit? it's a big mess.
Wedged inbetween are the ones who try to rationalize it by saying that parts of scripture should not be interpreted literally, and that the story of creation talks about days, but days to God are really millions of years. There is even a little bit of Biblical scholarship I believe, that backs this up (language of the period was a bit sketchy when it came to talking about numbers, especially magnitudes). But at some point, these folks have to admit that they are fallibists, because you must accept that the words, as written, do not adequately communicate the message, because everyone who reads it, gets a different meaning. That runs counter to the whole purpose of language, and you'd think that a Perfect Being with Omnipotent Will would be able to ensure that things went smoothly in the translation and dissemination, in order to prevent a corruption of His message.
So, if we accept that the Bible is flawed (whether one believes or not), we can throw out this childish concept that Darwinism and Science are evil lies spread by Satan.
The theological problem this creates though, is that Christians have no solid basis for rituals, or laws. And therefore, all religious authority is basically folly.
I've read the Bible, and some of the quotes from that Jesus guy seem to agree on THAT point.
Whichever school of thought on Biblical authenticity is correct, you still cannot escape the fact that even "strict" interpretations vary and differ widely. So accepting fallibism doesn't really threaten anything. When the Bible becomes more important than the God, you should re-think your relationship with said God.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Riddle me this, Batman (I'm not trolling here):
How did flight arise?
Did flightless creatures slowly develop functionless stubs on their backs, and generation after generation, these functionless stubs got bigger and bigger, even though they may not have offered any advantage, even though they may have offered severe survival disadvantage? Then at some point, they developed to where they were functional?
Or did the first flying lizard hatch from non-flying lizard parents' eggs, with fully developed wings, and behaviors to effectively utilize those wings, with at least enough usefullness to improve it's survival?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I was raised Lutheran,
:(
Then I read the Bible.
Then I became a heretic.
I now attend non-denominational services, and I keep my head down and my mouth shut.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
This person appears to be, but I'd like to point out that there are people out there that believe in the Bible, and in Christ, that also believe in evolution and science. We're even open and affirming to gay & lesbian people, recognizing that its not a 'choice', etc.
There's nothing that can be said to change Hubbard (the original poster)'s mind, but wanted to let people know that his is not the only view of Christians.
--Zipwow
A liberal Christian. Not an endangered species, just hiding.
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Didn't they say near the end of the show that they haven't found any evidence of any neanderthal genes in modern humans? "Not one" I believe they said. That just might make it tough to prove through "solid scientific research". But best of luck. :)
Oh yes, the Leakey family...no, they certainly don't have an agenda do they.
Let's look at this quote:
"It revolutionizes the way we look at human ancestry,"
Oh bullshit, you still have the same view of human evolution, you just now have more monkey bones to play with and the beat over the heads of those that disagree.
"We have found a very flat-faced 3.6 million-year-old hominid which represents something quite different to what we know to have existed at that time."
Here is where i have the most difficulty. "...what we KNOW to have existed..." Excuse me?! when did you die and come back with all this knowledge? Scientists BELIEVE their theory of evolution to be the unmitigated truth, no question in their minds. This is hubris, it closes their minds to any evidence that does not agree with their beliefs.
I laughed the whole way thru the article. (no i am not a bible believer either).
jeffus
Did flightless creatures slowly develop functionless stubs on their backs, and generation after generation, these functionless stubs got bigger and bigger, even though they may not have offered any advantage, even though they may have offered severe survival disadvantage? Then at some point, they developed to where they were functional?
Are you sure you aren't trolling?
OK, assuming you're not trolling: the "functionless stubs" are ARMS. Take a good look at the next chicken you eat - notice the shoulder blades and fingers, things that probably wouldn't be there if the wings evolved late in the game from nonfunctional lumps of muscle on the animal's back.
This will probably sound ridiculous, but consider for a moment that feathers are useful even if the animal can't fly. (Flightless birds still find them useful.) Now consider for a moment the small theropod dinosaurs one found running around in the early Jurassic - Coelophysis, Compsognatus, and kin. Two-legged stance, long tails, fast runners. Predatory creatures with long fingers for clutching prey. Hollow bones for reduced weight = more efficient use of energy when chasing prey at high speed.
Now let's assume that a feather is basically a modified scale. A mutation causes one of these creatures to have "skeletal" scales - ones that are not solid like lizard scales, but are split into the fibers that make up the scale. Tada - a fluffy scale. This animal is able to survive the winter more easily because its fluffy scales allow it to conserve body heat - and it passes these genes on to the next generation. A few more mutations down the road give the fluffy scales the interlocking barbs and stiffening central quill, and we have feathers.
Useful even though the animal doesn't fly.
Now remember what our creature looks like. It stands on two legs, head upright, with hands outstretched in a "gonna grab you" position. Cover it with feathers instead of scales and let it proceed to run - long feathers on the arms become an advantage because the creature can use them in hunting! One outward "swoosh" of its arms and a small prey item would be literally sucked in. Or it could use the arm feathers to make it easier to turn at high speeds.
It would have been a sheer happy accident that the creature one day went up a tree chasing food, fell off a branch, and discovered it could glide to the ground. A few generations of this breeds creatures with much stronger arm muscles - and powered flight is born.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Umm...unless I'm misunderstanding something, this "evidence" just muddied up the water. It didn't provide any sort of concrete evidence for evolution.
:-)
All it did was make the bookkeeping a bit trickier. It provided no concrete evidence for OR against evolution - and although I'm sure the creationists will use this as evidence that scientists are making it up as they go along, it actually demonstrates something cool about science: it adapts to new facts. Find a skull that may rewrite all the textbooks and the scientists bust out the champagne. Find a lost chapter of Luke that says Jesus had a wife and kids and it'll probably be quietly buried.
Here's a new thought...maybe it was a human face. I hate it when people dismiss the obvious because it doesn't make sense in their limited view of the world.
Oh yeah, it's a human face all right - stuck between two of the HUGEST cheekbones you've ever seen.
Look. These people digging in the African dust are not just schmucks off the street who dig up ordinary skulls and give them exotic names just to amuse themselves. These are people who are experienced anatomists - you can smash up a human skull into little pieces, hand them HALF the pieces in a bag, and they'll reassemble it for you and tell you what's missing. Hand them one of those pieces and they'll tell you which part of the skull it came from - even the seemingly uniformly round back part has telltale bumps and curvatures that a skilled paleontologist can recognize. They can tell what race a human skull is by the skull alone. They can tell a single broken fragment of a human skull from a single broken fragment of a gorilla skull. And yes, they've learned a thing or two since Piltdown. These are people who spend their lives doing this shit, they have offices full of skulls and probably a few spares in the truck when on expedition in Tanzania. If they say "it's not human but it looks human" you'd better have some damn good anatomical evidence at your disposal before you dispute them.
The analogy is that a paleontologist can identify a 1987 Nissan Stanza from a single back fender panel, and most of the people who dispute their results can't tell a Nissan from a Ford.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Because it's as good as we have.
No, because it DOES work. There are situations where it doesn't work, and scientists know what those situations are and can avoid them and use other means. Creationists love to tell you how wrong carbon dating is - what they don't tell you is how scientists already KNOW the weaknesses of the technique and don't use it where they know they'll get incorrect results.
It's also not the only way to determine age. There are other radiologic dating methods used for different ages - using different elements - and if a sample falls in the overlap between two techniques, it provides an excellent cross-reference. You can count annual phenomena - sediment layers, tree rings (and compare seasonal difference between trees that died at various times and build a complete timeline of trees), etc. You can even use fossils - strange as that seems - since some fossils are known to appear only in a certain strata, if you find those fossils in a layer you can say with reasonable certainty that the layer is of similar age to layers containing that same fossil elsewhere in the world. And elsewhere in the world that layer may sit in the middle of a 300-ft-high column of unbroken strata - the top of which can be radio-dated to 175 million years, the bottom of which can be radio-dated to 330 million years, which leaves you a pretty good way to visually estimate the age of your layer. Corroborate it with enough other layers worldwide, and enough other dating techniques, and you can pin down the age of that layer and any fossils you find in it rather neatly.
Evolution is a faith based belief too. At least Christians acknowledge the fact that they worship a belief grounded in faith.
Evolution is an observation-based belief too. It came about because people looked at a chart of animals and noticed a treelike structure, and considered that the "family tree" used in bookkeeping might actually be a reflection that animals really ARE related to each other - evolution existed as a concept before On the Origin of Species, all Darwin did was propose a mechanism.
Christianity is based on a BOOK, written by humans claiming to have gotten it from God. That book conflicts with observable reality in many places - go catch a grasshopper and counts its legs and you've just proven the Bible wrong. Accompany astronauts into space and notice there is no firmament from which stars hang and you've just proven it wrong again. (Wouldn't Mir's reentry cause another Great Flood as it bursts through the firmament and releases the waters?)
So given the choice between a science that is based on observable reality and physical evidence, and a book known to be at odds with observable reality and physical evidence, we're apparently supposed to side with... the book.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
There is no such thing as "evolution" supported in science. Natural Selection is what Darwin wrote about and what modern science supports. The term evolution denotes that a certain species is generally "better" than all the species that preceded it on the planet while Natural Selection merely states that the morphology and behavior best suited to a particular environment will out-compete less well tuned varies of plants or animals.
Yes! To Obi-Wan you listen!
Not sure who said it, but there's a great line I read: "it's not survival of the fittest, it's survival of the fit." If you have a mutation that lets you find a place to live, eat, and breed, you'll pass on that mutation. If you end up competing against the nonmutated versions of yourself, either they'll die off, or you'll die off, or they'll move away, or you'll move away, or you'll specialize on different kinds of food and it won't matter. That's why humans and monkeys both still exist - we came out of the trees because the monkeys were eating all our damn bananas, so we decided to go look for food elsewhere.
It's always amusing when creationists point out when one or another human ancestor is still around (like the coelacanth) and that this somehow disproves evolution. Well, I suppose it does, if disproof of evolution is the assumption to begin with, ANYTHING will support it. All it really demonstrates is that there's no reason the ancestor needs to go away - if it finds a niche where it doesn't compete with its descendants, great! The coelacanth basically found a spot to hide in Madagascar and another in Indonesia, where it managed to maintain a small breeding population for a few million years. Nothing about this disproves ANY of the mechanics of evolution - in fact it supports it, because it demonstrates the importance of adaptation to one's environment. The coelacanth has the potential to go on land, but neither does it use this potential, nor has it lost it (well, not much of it anyway). It works just fine as a fish.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Yes, they very well could be the hugest cheekbones I've ever seen. Of course, I was born in this lifetime, so I can only compare it to what I know. Perhaps, if I was born in that lifetime, it would seem fairly normal to me. Big cheekbones don't make a human more or less of a human.
If they fit a pattern, between a nonhuman with huge cheekbones and a human with relatively small ones, then yes they do.
And the point I was trying to make, and failed, is that there is a LOT more difference between this thing and us than just cheekbones. The whole shape and structure of the head is different. Muscle attachment points are different. These are not trivial differences. These ARE the kinds of morphological differences that can reasonably be used to say "this skull is human" or "this skull isn't".
It's very impressive that they can differentiate between human and gorilla skulls, and I'm sure they're trying their best to identify what is presented them, but it's been my experience that it's rare (at best) to find people who can put aside their preconceived notions of how the world is to in order to determine how things really are.
The analogy is that they can identify a vehicle they've never seen before from a time period that's never been documented, give it a name, and then call every other thing that looks similar and appears to be from the same time period by the same name...except, whatever you do, don't call it a vehicle, because everyone knows that they didn't have vehicles back then. It is, however, surprisingly "vehicle-like".
Preconceived notions, I suppose, are all we have. But science is a celebration of the art of throwing out preconceived notions - you don't win Nobel prizes for preconceived notions, you get lauded if you shift paradigms and render whole wings of the library obsolete. It's EXPECTED that science keeps updating our understanding of things, since the closest we can get to knowing things for sure is running out of ways to disprove them. Indeed in science it's considered a good thing if you come back from the lab or field knowing less than you did when you left, because some huge discovery has forced you to tear the back 324 pages out of the definitive book on the subject. This is what scientists live for!
If this thing were "truly human" like you suggest, some three million years too soon, it'd be Nobel material. Thing is, scientists tend to want to not embarass themselves in front of the Nobel committee - if they don't think there's a reasonable chance this thing is truly human, they're not gonna say "it's human three million years too soon". If closer examination indicates that it IS what you say, a modern human three million years too early, yer durn tootin they'll follow it up - to be able to rewrite the family tree, of course with actual evidence to back it up, is probably the secret dream of every paleontologist. It's what drives the science. After all, if our recent family tree is just a preconceived notion, these people wouldn't be digging for new fossils anyway - they'd already "know" what they'd find!
Keep the remark in context. It's remarkably humanlike - not more humanlike than Homo habilus or H. erectus, but more humanlike than Australopithecus afarensus. It does not rearrange the chronology, it merely suggests a different ancestor at one point along the timeline. It says "here, I may be a better fit in place of A. afarensus. Try me and see if I fit." It is NOT out of line with the evolutionary "curve" (my term, 'cause I can't think of a better one) that leads through H. habilis, erectus, sapiens. If it were, the headline would be VERY different.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
A great flood is mentioned among many many different societies. Even aboriginal culture made reference to an incredible, ancient flood.
Point - the Flood was supposed to have killed everyone who wasn't on the boat. So HOW could any other culture have had a legend about it? They'd all have to be descendents of Noah and would probably remember THAT as their creation myth.
The Chinese have a written history going back 8000 years and for some reason they don't remember spending time on the Ark.
As to the 'remarkable' fact that great floods are mentioned among many different societies - um, yes, it does so happen that floods, big ones and small ones, are a common occurrence.
You should really read and attempt to interpret the Bible for yourself. I'll pray for you.
I've already attempted to interpret the Bible for myself. Started at the beginning, noticed two DIFFERENT and contradictory accounts of the creation, noticed that Moses has to keep reminding us how humble he is, noticed God making people worship a golden snake (I guess it matters WHICH false idols), noticed that the whole book of Leviticus is basically the work of an obsessive-compulsive handwasher who hates EVERYONE, noticed that the book of Job is an account of a CONSPIRACY between God and Satan... got bummed out by this, skipped forward, read the story of the woman who was raped and murdered and cut into pieces and mailed to twelve nations (and you want KIDS to read this filth? if this was depicted in a movie you'd picket it!), read some of the "prophecies" that sound like they got hold of some bad acid, read the four Gospels and noticed that four men who supposedly walked with Jesus can't agree on his life story, noticed that Jesus, a man who preached humility, can't seem to decide whether he's the son of God or not (hinting at alterations in the text), noticed (had it pointed out to me) that if Jesus was a rabbi, he MUST have had a wife.
Noticed that despite the book's good parts - and there are some sublime things in there, yes - I did not hear the voice of God in it. I heard the voice of a bunch of angry men trying to justify their actions. I heard events being distorted through generations of oral tradition into "miracles". I heard the politics and traditions of 2000 and 4000 years ago, put into book form with "GOD says we shall do these things" at the front.
I did all this WHILE I was a Christian. I read the Bible and found reasons to get out. Maybe the Scientologists have the right idea - keep the holy texts under lock and key, lest someone actually READ them and notice they don't say what everyone thinks they say.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Frankly, I have no problems beliving in Intelligent Design. I see spooky shit like Quantum Mechanics, and can see God in the details. I have no problems beliving that some higher power went and made the universe and set things in motion. If you ran up to me, panting, out of breath, and proclaimed that a "A Higher Power set everything into motion billions of years ago!" I would say "Who the fuck are you?" and then "Well, that makes sense to me."
:-/
I'm forced to agree. Check out fractals sometime if you want to read God's handwriting.
Which is why I think it's funny: I can go outside and look at trees, birds, fish and so on that are the work of nature - ostensibly the work of God. Yet if I try to learn something about God by studying these things, things that if God exists, MUST be His/Her doing, the Christians will call me a pagan, or worse, a scientist. Instead I'm supposed to take the word of a book written by men CLAIMING to have an inside track with God. A book that gets observable facts wrong, as we've mentioned. A book that, despite being divinely inspired, seems to demonstrate NO knowledge of the world that wasn't known when it was written - it's full of references to the sky as a hollow sphere, an Earth with corners (and a mountain from which you can see it all), superstitious non-medical causes for diseases, etc.
And if the best answer someone can come up with is "Well, God put that there to decieve us/give us a false sense of history", or "Well, God put the whole inbreeding causes problems thing into us AFTER the Great Flood" then you should immediately disqualify yourself from the Rational Thought Olympics.
God must have put the inbreeding-causes-problems thing there well after Noah's family dispersed. In the early days it seems God had an incest fetish.
Anyway, if evidence for evolution really IS put there by God to test us, I'm happy to fail. What use could God possibly have for us that requires us to believe the ridiculous? Do you really wanna work for a God who lies? (I thought the godlike being who tells lies lived in the OTHER place.)
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Something looks nice, therefor there must be a god?
Fractals don't merely look nice - the Mandelbrot set is a complex-plane graph of a surprisingly simple function (it's been a couple years, someone help me remember what it was) that demonstrates insane amounts of complexity that clearly don't come from the numbers you feed it. The images get boring after awhile, like so many tie-dye shirts, it's the understanding of what's going on behind it, all the infinite (yes, infinite) detail found in such a simple equation, THAT'S what makes the images so impressive to me.
I mean, you'd look at the Mandelbrot set formula and with a decent knowledge of geometry, you'd expect a complex plane graph to be a circle, or at most, a cardioid. Some reasonably simple shape. Never would you expect to find the weird shape that appears onscreen - and you certainly wouldn't expect to find miniatures of that shape (each with unique patterns of streamers trailing off them) hidden all around it with smaller versions of the shape around them. I guess the closest analogy would be picking up a conch shell at the beach and listening to it, expecting to hear the echo of the waves, and instead hearing Philip Glass' "Music in Contrary Motion" in its entirety, with no music source in sight.
We can explain where living things came from. But so far as I know, no one has tackled the question of where mathematics came from. It simply seems to "be there" - and while it might not be obvious to everyone, it's obvious to me that math is the OS on which the universe runs. The universe is fixated with numbers - speed and gravitational constants, numeric patterns found in nature (spheres, fractals etc), and of course, the inherent mathness of objects - two rocks next to two rocks is always four rocks. If you were in charge of building universes, you could make one in which the speed of light is changed, and it wouldn't really affect the workings all that much - it'd work like our universe but with properties of matter adjusted up or down. Now, change the value of pi, and the universe suddenly CAN'T work like ours - a sphere would no longer be a sphere, the shape of the universe would have to be twisted to allow the circumference of a planet to be the new pi times its diameter. Or maybe such a universe can't have circles at all - points equidistant from a single point could NEVER lie in a single plane. What would a planet orbit look like? What would an electron shell look like? Could molecular reactions even take place in such a universe?
Where I'm going with this is, mathematics weren't born with the Big Bang. (Note that I don't mean the human understanding of mathematics - I mean the properties that our mathematics attempts to study. 2+2 was 4 long before humans learned to count - we just weren't there to give it a name.) Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but from where I sit, there's something about math - or whatever you can call this "OS on which the universe runs" that seems to have an awful lot in common with the math found in textbooks - that hints at an intelligence. Maybe math IS God (or as much of such a being as will fit in our universe). Maybe there's some great cosmic mechanism by which intelligent life from a completely nonmathematical (and self-spawned and matterless) universe created our universe entirely out of math as an experiment. Or by accident, as a result of their first experiments in creating math - maybe they don't know we're here! Maybe it really IS possible for our mathematical universe to arise from nothing - and either we ended up with this set of math rules by chance, or there's only one set of rules that works (but even THAT hints at a higher order). But you'll notice that Hawking, Einstein and others whose theories of the universe's origins depend on mathematics, don't have much of an answer as to where the underpinnings of mathematics came from.
I find there is hope and beauty in math, and I did lousy in the subject in school. If math IS somehow a representation of God, though, it's fine by me - mathematics, at least to my eyes, hints at an intelligent pre-Big Bang creator that cared enough about his/her/its work to leave all that complexity just laying around, yet seems to have left absolutely zero messages for us in there. No Hebrew characters that spell out the Ten Commandments. No Godly alphabet staring out at us from a Newton's root-solving method graph. No Scientology tracts hidden in the digits of pi (well, not unless some numerologist decides to "find" one there - see last week's discovery of a number that "contains" the DeCSS code - with enough digits to choose from, one can "find" whatever one wants to find in pi). Absolutely NO policy statements anywhere to be found in math. In short, nothing in common with any religion's picture of God that I've yet found.
(The bit about our having been created by intelligence from a nonmathematical universe is messing with my head now. I think I may have hit on something...)
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Do you understand the Mandelbrot set? I mean really understand how it works and how to compute it? And how it was conceived? I don't mean to be rude, but I really doubt you do.
Well I THOUGHT I understood it - I just couldn't remember the details offhand because my copy of Fractal Geometry of Nature is under a stack of stuff.
But then I took calculus, and I learned how it really worked, and where it really came from, and I found out it was nothing. Just a number people put in their equations to make the math easier, (a lot easier). Similarly, PI, is just the arc-length integration of the equation of a circle, nothing spectacularly magical.
Aside from the fact that pi is universal. I'm getting at a deeper question here - why is it universal? Why does our universe work in such a way that pi is 3.14159268etc and not 3.00000? The number is inherent to the way circles and spheres work, both in geometry's idealized space AND in the real world where you can apply it to planets and wheels. It's the mechanism by which circles work that's the deeper magic, and I'm just using pi to illustrate it.
I have no idea why you would expect to see a circle, or some other kind of sinusoidal image.
Limit iterations to 2 and you DO get a circle. And the central shape of the complete set is a circle and a cardioid. Anyway, I read up on it and figured, if I were a mathematician messing around with escape times of repeated squares on the complex plane (and without a computer to help me get full 2D maps), I might expect some weird shapes, but there's NOTHING in the math that indicates either the shape of the Mandelbrot "thing", or the fact that the shape repeats infinitely far down, or all the swirls, tendrils, and so forth around the boundaries.
Put it like this. The algorithm says to loop through z^2+C until C exceeds a threshold. It does NOT say to draw a circle-cardioid with an array of smaller circles around the edge, then repeat that shape but deform it nonlinearly and twist the "spine" on one end into all sorts of tendril shapes, repeat until done.
You can do a Mandelbrot rendering in 10 lines of BASIC. It's not raytracing - it's more akin to discovering new digits of pi. z^2+c doesn't DRAW the Mandelbrot set - it reveals it.
Well, the numbers are already complex right? Actually, 'the numbers you feed it' are every single complex number. Why wouldn't you expect infinite complexity from infinite numbers.
Is this a pun? If so, blame me for using the word complex in its other sense.
Complex numbers are numbers with both a real and an imaginary (sqrt(-1)) part. And the point I was making was, exactly what Gaston Julia was thinking when he first started messing around with escape calculations (but in 1890 didn't have a way to do millions of calculations to see what was really going on) that one would expect something "geometric" out of it, a circle, cardioid, cloverleaf, or something of that nature.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
For some reason, I remeber watching something on T.V. awhile back that said "Lucy" was a fraud. Is this true or is it more "Bible thumping"?
(This is not supposed to be flamebait)
--fatboy
your ignorance is astounding:
(the dingo dog? remember that?)
there are plenty of dingoes in australia.
The only proof against evolution which I can think of right now, though, is the platypus.
please, tell us all how this animal is proof against evolution?
the fact that drug-resistant bacteria evolve so quickly should be proof to anyone looking for evidence of evolution.
If we really are descended from monkeys, how come we don't all enjoy swinging from trees, eating bananas and mindless copulation with the closest memeber of either sex
You just named three of my favorite activities!
5. It also assumes a closed system, i.e. no C-12 or C-14 has entered the system by another means, and none has escaped.
Mod drox's reply WAY up please.
Yes, I was indeed being sarcastic. Secondly, I am mistaken about the dingo, I intended to refer to the Australian wolf (or is it Tazmanian? I'm not sure) which was hunted out of existance by sheep ranchers when Australia was relatively uninhabited.
-Leo
Well, ed, this isn't really proof of evolution. God might haev created all of these species, but they died out due to human ignorance and we killed them a long time ago (the dingo dog? remember that?).
It's not really proof for or against evolution, but if evolution is accepted (which it widely is, of course, due to real evidence like inheritance from DNA etc.) then this can be used as evidence of our ancestry. But not really proof of evolution. A different science has that evidence.
The only proof against evolution which I can think of right now, though, is the platypus.
-Leo
What does the Bible have to do with reason? Isn't that the book that states (paraphrase) that pi == 3 ?
The idea that Man and all his wonderful gifts, for art, literature and science is descended from some kind of faeces-flinging monkey is an insult.
Why? I'm descended from some rather unsavory folk somewhere down the line, and I suspect you are too. I've grown from an incontinent babbling infant into the charming adult that I now am, and I suspect you have too (except for maybe the charming part!) We can rise above our origins. Or does your Bible condemn that too?
Not only to Christians, but also to Jews, Muslims, Bhuddists, Hindus, Scientologists and many other religions that do not subscribe to the orthodox view of science.
The orthodox view of science? Sorry, religion does not subscribe to ANY view of science. Science by its very nature is based upon observation. When new observations come to light, theories are be revised to reflect them. Religion (well all of the ones I'm familiar with) is based on eternal capital-T Truths. No amount of observation can disprove them or cause them to be revised. If something is observed that seems to contradict the Eternal Truths, then the observations are rejected.
This having been said, most religions (even most forms of Christianity) don't seem to have a problem with the theory of evolution. They recognize it as a valid SCIENTIFIC principle. Which has nothing to do with valid RELIGIOUS principles. Observations - the best ones we have to date - indicate that life on Earth evolved from earlier forms. These observations say nothing about Eternal Truths. Nothing science says about human origins can contradict religion, and nothing religion says about human origins can contradict science. They're two very different things.
The creationists seem to have confused science with Truth. In that way they have elevated science far beyond its humble position, and they want to place their Eternal Truths on the same lofty pedestal. But they are in for a disappointment. There is no pedestal. Scientific theories are revised all the time. Sometimes they're discarded altogether. No scientific theory occupies a pedestal as lofty as the one religion already has.
The Biblical account of creation has endured for thousands of years. It has important moral messages that still resonate today. So do the creation stories of myriad other religions. They still have value even if observations indicate they didn't happen exactly as described. They're not science and they never will be. But so what?
For me, I'll stick by science for things like the history of life on earth, the positions of the planets WRT to the sun, etc. It just seems to work better for me.
I suspect that this is going to be better science than the folks who look for extra-terrestrial mingling of alien DNA with the human species.
Oh no... if this doesn't prove that I have no life nothing will. I've actually heard of the StarChild Project! Those skull pictures are way cool, but it's not an alien (or alien hybrid) skull. No sinuses, minimal area for jaw muscles to attach, foramen magnum in the middle instead of at the back...alien for sure, right? Wrong! That's because the part that would have have been positioned forward of the foramen magnum, that would have contained the sinuses and the jaw-muscle attachments is missing. Most of the face, from the eyes on down, is broken off. That's also why the eye sockets are so shallow - they're partly missing too.
It's a skull of a hydrocephalic child (hence the large thin cranium), probably cradleboarded.
Oh well.
How did this completely content free post get moderated up?
Who said we were DECENDED from monkeys?
Genetic analysis says we have common ANCESTRY. You may as well throw out your belief in modern medicine, because there is absolutely NO doubt that we share a significant amount of genetic material.
And I'd REALLY like to see a palm-reader (or the Pope even) build a plane that flies. Which plane would you rather board, one powered by the Pope's faith it won't plummet to the earth, or some hair brained scientist's "unfounded" faith in the "religion" of aerodynamics?
You forgot:
5) were not decended from monkeys were like smarter and stuff and we dont fling shit at eachto ther and like have sex all the time how can you believe in this evelotion stuff its dont make sense its an insult im way smarter than a monky or an ape.
Those are my FAVORITE posts.
AH FUCK. Moderate me (and my parent) down... I've been trolled.
Nice one dude.
1. Scientists generally are not well-trained as writers.
2. They want everyone reading the article to notice how smart they are.
I think that the end result is that we have to read through the impenetrable fog of writings like this.
---------------------------
"The people. Could you patent the sun?"
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
If we really are descended from monkeys, how come we don't all enjoy swinging from trees, eating bananas and mindless copulation with the closest memeber of either sex?
I'm confused by the term "memeber". Perhaps you think that copulation and banana-eating are memes rather than activities people actually engage in?
Personally I do not "believe" in evolution and articles like these do not help.
.. evolution believes in you!
That's okay
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Here is a good intro to the pliocene, with photographs(!)
It was 5.4 - 2.4 million years ago, and is the cooling period before the ice ages.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/pli.html
Here's a question: What if this skull was that of an animal that was way out there on the bell curve of its own species? With just one skull, one can't readily determine true qualatative or quantative comparisons of one species to another, can he?
AH FUCK. Moderate me (and my parent) down... I've been trolled.
You could start by clicking "No Score +1 Bonus"
hmm I found it funny! Got mod'd down for some
reason.
> Yeah, He hath created him in His own image,
> little did early scholars realise that the magic
> man was a baboon eats nuts in Africa.
When will the scientists just learn to look in rural south carolina (I live near Beaufort) for these proto-humans? Plenty of them still exist, and their societies even function relatively well, despite the mobius strip of a family tree. Specifically, look for areas with a -ville suffix on the name, and then dirve about a mile out of the town center. Check Cliff Yablonski for more insight into these societies. -- 4r3 j00 l33t liek JeffK?
The Voices cannot decide on whose base belongs to whom.
I can't speak for the rest of you but I highly enjoy all of the above. Especially the mindless copulation. Oooh yeah.
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
"Luuuucy.. You got some 'splainin' to do...."
Nope the skull has a flatter face than the Australopithecus. 'Platy' comes from Greek and is a prefix for flat or broad (same root as plate, incidentaly). Kenyanthropus is a refference to Kenya, where the skull was found.
If youf find Danikens interesting, then you want have much trouble stomaching the Aquatic Ape Theory. Although discredited by most mainstream anthropologist, if correct, it can answer many of the questions as to why how and where we 'poppep up'. see: Aquatic Ape Info
Um, technically that would be spelled wookiee(tm).
--
See also the article at Discovery Channel News.
I told you we weren't descended from monkeys! We're really descended from kenyanthropi platyops! Sucks for your "evolution", don't it?!
This is a self-referential sig
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Actually, c-14 is useful for dates as recent as a century ago. It is only useful to about 40,000 years ago, since most c-14 has decayed into c-12 by that time. Very precise measuring techniques can push that back a bit, but I don't think as far as 80,000 years ago.
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Have a nice day.
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For more on potassuim-argon dating, here is a brittanica.com link
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716 ,62600+1+61049,00.html
Also, nobody ever said anything about "characteristics of human and chimpanzee". To the extent that we are all hominids, of course it shares traits with the apes and with humans. It's not some sort of missing link, though...
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Actually, dating based on the radioactive decay of isotopes is horribly flawed.
It assumes a *lot* about the composition of the Earth today being the same as it was millions of years ago. No-one can ever prove [or disprove] this assumption, so the reliability of carbon dating is based on how much you trust the infallibility of science.
Personally, I don't trust it at all.
Dumbass.
Claim your namespace.
Radiocarbon dating assumes only three things:
1: that the rate of radioactive decay of the carbon-14 isotope has remained constant.
2: that the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio in the atmosphere was the same 'back then' as it is now (or was before we started setting off nuclear weapons blasts...),
3: that the carbon in the sampe being dated was derived exclusively from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
and, 4: that c-14 and c-12 are absorbed into plant tissues (and subsequently into animal tissues) at the same rate. That is, that plant A does not absorb proportionately more c-14 than does plant B, and so on up the food chain.
The first assumption is a pretty safe one, since to doubt that would be to call into question very fundamental physical principals. I think the halflife of c-14 is about 5580 years, but that's just off the top of my head.
The second assumption is obviously false, since cycles in the sun's radiation output affect the amount of carbon 14 produced in the upper atmosphere. For the recent past (4-5000 years) this has been corrected for by testing the c-14/c-12 ratio in precisely-dated (annual) tree rings in very old trees. So this is not a problem for recent times, and the difference even as much as 20000 years ago is probably not more than 1000 years or so. Again, not too much of a problem.
The third and fourth assumptions are also problems, but the problems are understood and are being explored as we speak. Every year the correction methods for c-14 dating get more sophisticated. The important thing to remember, though, is that we are down to pretty fine points now. Any error introduced by failures of assumptions three and four would be in the range of a few centuries, max. Significant, but not enough to invalidate conclusions about the antiquity of human cultures, say.
Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to point out tha while it is true that radiometric dating methods do make certain assumptions about conditions in the past, the limitation which these impose on the accuracy of the technique are well-understood and are taken into consideration by archaeologists and paleontologists.
I also want to say that, like any scientific tool, radiometric dating is imperfect. But it is a hell of a lot better than simply guessing, or throwing up our hands. Do we want to study the past systematically and rigorously? If so, we must use these tools. If not, then, heck, the Bible was good enough for my grand-pappy.
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So . . . we're descended from Sea Monkies? I always kinda suspected that.
(It had to be said.)
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
;-)
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
Because that's where the fossils are, and because it's the Leakey family members who're looking for them there?
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
Websters definition of evolution in the biological sense:
4 a : the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : PHYLOGENY b : a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations
This one is from chick.com, a fabulous land of open-mindedness and free thinking.
(Of course I am being very facetious. This is a site full of those Christian tracts they hand out to random people on the street.)
And here's the best one, one on evolution!
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
hehe i guess since you're an AC, you won't get to see this, but for the record, how does it work that you can call me closed-minded based on only a few sentences that i write, but it is somehow wrong for me to call one group of christians the same thing after reading everything on their entire website??? and as for
They don't effect you, leave them alone...
.....they do affect me because these chick people are always handing out their pamphlet shit and pushing it in my face.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Sigh. Anyone can claim to be an archiologist and talk about how accurate carbon dating is. Just like anyone can claim to be a nuclear engineer and explain why it isn't. Carbon dating, from the reports I've read is only accurate at more than 5,000 years and less than 80,000. They say this because at about 80,000 years, quite a few organisms are just plain out of C-14. The reason they say over 5,000 is that it's been shown to be way off at less than that. Read the story of when a family dug up their cat and sent it to the lab to be carbon dated? 14,000 year old cat ancestor they were told. How about when they carbon dated a living organism and found it to be 3,000 years old. So they solved this by saying carbon dating is for over 5,000 years only. Thus making it physically impossible to prove or disprove, just like evolution itself. Believe evolution if you want, just remember it's a theory. An evolving one at that.
Photographs that she had taken earlier had already been confiscated, but the images she drew into the sand were no less than horrifying: Half "man", half "penguin".
The woman continued. "They kept mentioning something about 'open sores', so maybe it the fossils looked as if they had been damaged. I don't know. It's just so frightening, and disgusting. We might have evolved from this!"
This find may go far to confirm the suspicious genetic and mental ties between the human and ice-dwelling penguin species. Linus Torvalds, creator of the popular "Linux", penguin-based computer operating system, is reported to have been in the area only moments ago.
Neither Torvalds nor Archeologists at the site could be reached for comment.
Shocking.
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
I disagree, level-headed discussion has no place on /., usenet, or anyplace else in our society. Surely such 'discussion' will cause the downfall of our ranting, hysterical anarchy of a society, resulting in a polite, thoughtful one, which I am sure no one wants.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
I think that evolution is true, and I don't consider it an insult. Just because something was ignorant or ignoble once doesn't mean that it always is. Why, there was a time when all of us couldn't understand a single word of English or German or Japanese or which ever language you prefer, but clearly we have come to be better than that. It is the same way with the species in general -- it has greatly improved, but it did have humble beginnings. I would hardly consider your averge slashdotter to be no better than a two-year-old simply because he was once. (And in that sense has was personally -- no one's ever personally been a monkey.)
My Bible has a lot of thing in it that don't make sense, either. If Jesus' lineage can be traced from Adam in one page, how can there be compeling evidence from both carbon dating and geology that the Earth is much more than five thousand years old? My own estimates show that the dimensions of Noah's Ark in no way could have allowed for the welfare of two of every species. The stance taken on homosexuality in the sense that those afflicted with it necessairly go to Hell doesn't seem correct or fair, either. Those are three that come to mind off of the top of my head -- if I were to consult my Bible I could probably go on for pages about mistranslations and other logical inconsistancies.
However, I must confess that I do know a lot of people that do seem to act like monkeys!
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
It's very impressive that they can differentiate between human and gorilla skulls, and I'm sure they're trying their best to identify what is presented them, but it's been my experience that it's rare (at best) to find people who can put aside their preconceived notions of how the world is to in order to determine how things really are.
The analogy is that they can identify a vehicle they've never seen before from a time period that's never been documented, give it a name, and then call every other thing that looks similar and appears to be from the same time period by the same name...except, whatever you do, don't call it a vehicle, because everyone knows that they didn't have vehicles back then. It is, however, surprisingly "vehicle-like".
Yes, the true mark of a real religion is visible in the answer to the question:
`are there mentally ill people wandering around the streets of london, babbling to complete strangers about it?`.
If there arent any, then its not a proper religion. Sure, John Travolta et al are pretty stupid (and ugly, and they can`t act), but i`m not sure i`d go so far as to suggest they are mentally ill!
Is it an argument in favor of multiple inheritance or what? :)
there are still loopholes in *human* evolution. Note that human evolution is obviouslly more advanced than any other species and thus has more historical steps on the ladder so to speak. Go read some of Danikens work for an interesting take on what could explain this. It also attempts to fill the hole for what these type of finds dig...why this specific species, where did each one pop up and why did they die. It seems most every species can easily have those questions answered, cept us ;)
I am not a scientist but this is what I gathered from the article:
Fact: They found some fossil remains with layers of volcanic and other residue.
Speculation: It's age. The dating process cannot be verified since we do not know what conditions were like 50,000 or 1,000,000 years ago.
Speculation: It's classification. We know that deformities exist and can be caused by various factors (genetic, environment, etc). So saying it has characteristics of human and chimpanzee is just speculation.
Personally I do not "believe" in evolution and articles like these do not help. A lot ot people say there is a lot of evidence, but I find that they are often have a few facts and alot of speculation that they try to pass off as fact.
Does anyone know why a lot of these pre-humans been found in Kenya and by members the Leakey family?
What, me worry?
Researcher Meave Leakey of the National Museums of Kenya said the chances are "50-50" this species could have been an early ancestor of human beings at that time, instead of Lucy's species.
So this is either a direct ancestor of humans OR...It's NOT! Great quote...There sure is nothing like providing some concrete evidence...
Keep in mind that the Leakeys and Don Johanson (the paleoanthropologist who found Lucy) have fought bitterly for years over the pre-human family tree. Not sure if the fight's still being carried on, but if it is the Leakeys would probably love to find something that knocks Lucy off the earliest human spot.
--
No one said anything about carbon dating, you idiot. These samples are millions of years old, and carbon dating dosn't go back anywhere near that far.
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It looks like I attached my comment to the wrong thread. Sorry, I actualy agreed with you. :P
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Note that human evolution is obviouslly more advanced than any other species and thus has more historical steps on the ladder so to speak.
Why would you say that? humans may be more intelegent then other animals, but not more 'avanced' then other mamals in anyway.
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I'm forced to agree. Check out fractals sometime if you want to read God's handwriting.
What?
Something looks nice, therefor there must be a god?
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Do you understand the Mandelbrot set? I mean really understand how it works and how to compute it? And how it was conceived? I don't mean to be rude, but I really doubt you do.
.8; now z = .8 .8^2+ .8 = .64 + .8 = 1.44 .8 = 2.87
e always seemed like an amazing number, when I was taking math in high school. I mean, here was this number that that shows up everywhere, in all these equations in the world I wondered about it, and heard that it had something to do with calculus. And I always thought that it would be some mystery, like pi or something.
But then I took calculus, and I learned how it really worked, and where it really came from, and I found out it was nothing. Just a number people put in their equations to make the math easier, (a lot easier). Similarly, PI, is just the arc-length integration of the equation of a circle, nothing spectacularly magical.
Yes, the Mandelbrot set equation is pretty simple, z=z^2 + C where C is a complex constant. But, what you have to realize is how this equation is actually evaluated. It's not a simple y = f(x) function. C is a constant, and z is both a dependant and independent variable. So, how do you do it?
Well, the fact is, it's a recursive function, starting out with z=0, and increasing with each loop, so, for, say, 0.8, you would do
z = 0+0.8 =
z =
z = 2.07 +
Now, once z gets past 2, it's all over, and C is not part of the Mandelbrot set. Some numbers will never get past 2. Not to complicated at all is it?
Ok, now that we know what Z is, what's C? Well, if you're trying to graph the Mandelbrot set, then C is the pixel you're currently calculating. If it's in the set, draw it black, otherwise color the pixel based on how many times you had to loop to get past two.
I have no idea why you would expect to see a circle, or some other kind of sinusoidal image.
I have no idea why the image is self-similar. But I suppose that if I knew something about fractal theory, I would probably understand. And it would seem simple and unmagical to me.
that demonstrates insane amounts of complexity that clearly don't come from the numbers you feed it.
Well, the numbers are already complex right? Actually, 'the numbers you feed it' are every single complex number. Why wouldn't you expect infinite complexity from infinite numbers.
Anyway, while it's interesting, I could probably come up with some formulas that produced 'beautiful' images if I worked at it for a while, but that wouldn't prove that I created the universe or anything, or that anyone else did.
Of course, when you get right down to it, saying that the universe came about through random chance, isn't any more feasible then that it came about through a 'great intelligence' I'd be more apt to say that concepts such as random chance and intelligence had no meaning before the universe was formed, and all we can really prove is that we're thinking to hard.
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You don't seem to understand probability. Even if she had said the chances are 99-1 this species could have been an early ancestor of human beings, then it still either is or isn't... it just so happens it is much more likely that it is rather than isn't (given 99-1). 50-50 doesn't mean "either-or"... it means "both are equally likely".
Isn't this what I just said? I said that there's a 50% chance that it's true, and a 50% chance that it's a lie. I'm not grasping your logic here if it's in any way different than what I just said.
---- nohup: appending output to `/nev/dull'
Researcher Meave Leakey of the National Museums of Kenya said the chances are "50-50" this species could have been an early ancestor of human beings at that time, instead of Lucy's species.
So this is either a direct ancestor of humans OR...It's NOT! Great quote...There sure is nothing like providing some concrete evidence...
---- nohup: appending output to `/nev/dull'
I have an idea that is patent-pending to make a load of cash. Here's the plan...
After watching the Discovery Channel's "Neanderthal" this week it occurred to me that it should be a simple matter to declare myself a "Neanderthal-American". Then, using solid scientific research, I will file a lawsuit demanding reparations from all living descendents of the Cromagnon barbarians who had the temerity to oust my Neanderthal anscestors from the majority gene pool.
I will ask for actual and punitive damages of, oh, say one cent (USD) from every living sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H person on the face of the earth. That should be enough to let me carry on in fine Neanderthal tradition. Anyone interested in joining me in a class-action suit? Please reply below.
No wise-cracking remarks about this idea, please. It's "patent pending", not "patently stupid"!
Carousel is a lie!
For those wanting something in between the hardcore Nature article and the mostly fluff CNN and MSNBC articles, here's a layman's version prepared by Nature itself. Check out Nature Science Update.
Maybe you should read This
//m
Thats it- Dibs on the patent!
air and light and time and space
I just talked to an anthropologist friend of mine who said that it isn't uncommon for people to 'discover' new genuses or species just to get press and more funding. "the "intellectual father" of these people discovered the following hominids: Austropithicus Africanas Austropithicus Aferensi Paranthrapus Robustus Paranthrapus Boisi these have now been collapsed into the following hoinids: Austropithicus Africanas and Austropithicus Robustus" so it could turn out to be something big...but it's probably no-big-deal.
"If you're not having fun right now, you're wasting your time."
Generally I try to be very objective. I understand that two people can look at an incedent and obtain two completely different accounts based on the facts of the situation. Does that discount either of the account. Does it necessarily mean that either account is correct or incorrect?
outwit scientists (or anyone else that is not apart of their cult)
Come on, get a clue... someone is just trying to explain what they believe. To be honest this is really disturbing. What your saying is that just because someone thinks differently than you, and doesn't hold to the same philosophy as you than they are inferior. What next are you going to load them all into a big furnace?
I know that /. is generally a place where people can voice their opinion, but this is just disturbing.
If we really are descended from monkeys, how come we don't all enjoy swinging from trees, eating bananas and mindless copulation with the closest memeber of either sex ?
Ever been to Greenwich Village, NYC?
--[rimshot]--
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"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Yeh it was a good troll, although the troll author is fairly clueless about the religions not his own.
For example, it is only the "mass market" version of Buddhism that talks about worshipping gods. The original versions get fairly sophisticated, talking about the sense of self as the equivalent of what we would call an "optical illusion". This compares nicely with some schools of modern nuerology and some aspects of AI research into emergant behaviors, etc.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Some trolls are the under the bridge types, that are only interested in goats.
Others are more interested in hoarding their shiny objects and collect their favorite gadgets, and try to prove how their collection is better. This relates to the article in New Scientist some months back about guys flaunting cell phones in bars as a display to attract women.
You also get the trolls whose main purpose is to smash (Hulk SMASH!), break and destroy. Depending on the topic, gets into a repeating cycle, since to only way to break the cycle is to take an honest look at the thing involved. Some destructive trolls have too much invested in this. Tradition has it that there are Microsoft trolls who seek to destroy Linux. And Linux Trolls too.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
(Actually, I do not take them all that seriously, although such sites are an interesting read from time to time.)
With that much time for evolution, I doubt that there were only one or two varieties of humaniods. I imagine that there were many. and some just didn't make it.
Good to keep things in perspective, because good science is getting scarce in the public eye.
The Nature article was good, but over the head of someone not a specialist. The Nature Science Update posted above is a better read for those who do not want a headache trying to decipher the highly technical original
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Not 4 legged birds, 4 legged insects:
Leviticus 11:20-23 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you...Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
Oh, and verse 6 says that rabbits chew the cud, which is also wrong. :)
Um, you don't use carbon dating for more than a few tens of thousands of years. The half life of carbon-14 is too short. For longer time frames you use other isotopes of other elements.
wait wait wait - what about Xenu and the Body Thetans(TM)? You a re obviously wrong...
This guy is either:
Trolling
A scientologist himself trying to lend 'credibility' to their Cult by naturally including it into a list of other established religions - it is a very subtle way of convincing someone to assume your pre-tenses.
Scientology is a cult - Murdering, Libelous, Litiagious(sic), Profiteering Whoring filthy pile of shit.
Most other religions are only some of these things - $cientology is a cult apart...
Would you care to explain this barbarians to businessman transition in terms of molecular biology ? 2000 years (Jesus to today) isn't a lot of time, (in the convential evolutionary timescale) for sophisicated "evolution" like this to occur :)))
Platyops = flat face
sulli
RTFJ.
I'd point out that the idea that human evolution is "higher" or "more complex" than that of any other species is ridiculous, but anyone who's reading Eric Von Daniken and taking it seriously doesn't need any more trouble than she's inflicting on herself.
I just want to say a few things to the people who participated to the thread belonging to this parent.
Bravo. I have not seen such a level headed set of responses to a parent post in a long time. The parent post both states their disbelief in carbon dating and evolution, and several slashdotters calmly, sanely, and nicely replied with a couple of excellent fact-filled informative posts.
Congradulations.
My hat goes out to you.
Well sure ya'll do- Gosh just look at the evidence
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Starsucks
Closer inspection, however, shows Kenyanthropus to have a mixture of advanced and primitive features. For example, its small ear canal is more like that of chimpanzees and the very primitive members of the human lineage that lived in East Africa just over 4 million years ago
..But then it evolved, gaining great interest in musical forms of all kinds.. perfecting the sounds, its ear canal growing through the millenia.. Till the dawn of the 21st century- when it discovered MP3's, sending its evolutionary train spiraling sidways over a cliff. Uh.. That 32kbps NSYNC track sounds *fine* to me..
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Starsucks
Because it's as good as we have. People still use Macs you know.
Evolution is a faith based belief too. At least Christians acknowledge the fact that they worship a belief grounded in faith.
At odds with observable reality? Where?
A great flood is mentioned among many many different societies. Even aboriginal culture made reference to an incredible, ancient flood.
Count the legs of a grasshopper...what are you talking about?
You should really read and attempt to interpret the Bible for yourself. I'll pray for you.
Levitical law detailed many, many things. It provided a means for a nomadic group of people to live in the desert and remain healthy. It also provided a means for a people to also show their true faith in God through obeying his laws.
Yes, without question, Orthodox Jews follow the Bible to a far more degree than Christian churches. Of course, they don't follow the New Testament, which is the most important part of the Christian church. Christian churches say that the New Testament law "overrides" Levitical law, but that doesn't discount it as having no modern application.
Did you ever think of why there were such strict laws concerning milk and meat? I am pretty sure that cooking methods weren't too good back then and I am almost certain they weren't homogenizing milk. By making cloth of one fabric, you maintain the consistency and strength of the fabric. With something like Levitical law, it is CRITICAL to consider the circumstances under which the laws were applied.
PI being 3? 4 Legged birds? What are you talking about? I'd love to give you an explanation for the scripture that references this but I honestly don't remember reading any like this.
Archaeologists found evidence of a great flood a few years ago when it was estimated that the Mediterranean Sea broke a natural damn and flooded into the Sea to the East of Mesopotamia. Could this be evidence of the great flood that covered all of the earth? What exactly is "all of the earth"?
And yes, I honestly want you to interpret the Bible for yourself.
As far as inbreeding goes, genetic scientists confirmed that all human beings came from a pair around a quarter million years ago (using modern estimations of previous human life expectancy) in sub-Saharan Africa. The ill effects of in-breeding go away after several generations of in-breeding, which is why Dogs and Cats can do it without any problem.
Have you ever been to a court trial? Everyone sees things in different ways...and in many ways they are all correct observations.
You keep complaining over what CHRISTIANS are doing. Don't judge a philosophy based on its abuses.
Noone will every become a Christian (I'm Baptist if you want to get on the denomination level by the way) due to logical reasoning, nor should they. It is very specific in saying it's all about faith. It's not called the theory of Christianity...it's called the Christian faith.
I have no idea whether evolution took place. I don't see any reason that evolution on some level and creationism can't come together at some point. If that was the way it was done...it would have been sheer genius...right? I personally think there is plenty of room in Genesis 1 to accomodate evolution and you should read it again to see for yourself.
Christianity receives alot of fire because Christian beliefs have morphed, somewhat, with scientific findings that seem to conflict with Biblical text. What most intelligent Christians do is they take what they have (the big picture presented in the Bible) and accomodate other things as they come along within that big picture. That is the same exact things evolutionists have done. They have assumed what the big picture looks like and when any new data comes along, the parts of the picture are rearranged to look as close as possible to that big picture.
Both schools of thought are faith based, as a result. We each are entitled to our own beliefs, but in atheistic or agnostic beliefs...I will just remain a Bible thumping creation pusher and when you die, you'll still have your "dignity" (boy will it be important then). In my beliefs...the consequences are much worse. I just pray that you don't have to suffer those consequences.
I'll try to find an article about the whole genetic tracing thing...in the meantime I have a Java assignment due at 5 and it's not done!
Do you mind if I email it to you?
Which is more likely...that every faith is right or that every faith is wrong? Just because Christianity doesn't adhere to pluralism, much like most eastern philosophy does not make it any less viable. In fact, it's exclusivity makes it much more logical that it would be more correct than any pluralistic religion.
Punishment should fith the crime?...I assume you mean that it doesn't make sense that good people of other faiths or no faiths at all don't go to heaven according to Christian beliefs. The whole idea of the Christian faith is that faith in Jesus as God is required to receive forgiveness for sin. The Bible makes it very clear that sin is sin and it is not weighted in God's eyes. The concept of murder being real real real bad, robbery being real real bad, and adultery being real bad, etc., is a human creation. Each and every one of us are sinners (not on some degree or level...but absolutely), and to receive forgiveness for your sin you must receive Christ's salvation. Therefore, if we are all guilty on the same level then none of us deserves to NOT be punished.
evolution?? Haven't any of you ever heard of cross breading=]
I tried to read the hard core stuff. But I wasn't hard core enough :(
If we really are descended from monkeys, how come we don't all enjoy swinging from trees, eating bananas and mindless copulation with the closest memeber of either sex ?
What are you talking about, I enjoy all of the above! You should try these things sometime.
Now piss off, or I'll throw faeces at you.
Not normally one to feed the trolls but what the heck :)
Anyway, Man is the most pathetic, sick, twisted, vile creature to ever walk this earth, our actions (from fun everyday rape, murder, torture, child molestation to not so everyday hiroshima, jewish holocaust etc) prove that beyond a doubt. We ourselves are the surest proof that there is no God: *not one* of the Gods, as they are described in any of our religions, could have produced anything so vile. I for one would not want to claim "credit" (responsibility) for having created Man if I had been Man's creator. I would deny everything :)
It is unlikely I will win the lottery. Is it possible? Of course.
It is unreasonable to reject the possibility that anything with a non-zero probability of happening will happen. Take a statistics course. Learn the difference between "unlikely" and "impossible".
"The facts speak for themselves. These 'scientists' are no better (and in some cases worse than) the palm-readers at a fairground or the astronomers 'predicting the future' by the position of the planets."
Astronomer - n. Someone who studies the makeup and position of objects in the universe beyond the atmosphere of earth.
Astrologer - n. Someone who studies heavenly bodies with a view on predicting their influence on human affairs.
Good thing you're being a nutless SOB AC! It's all you zealot whores disavowing all sciences for the sake of religious sanctity above all else that make this world the bordello of evil it currently is. Put your religion and prejudices aside and look at the facts for once! You especially shouldn't base your hatred on your religion, either! I doubt it states somewhere in the Bible that you are supposed to feel a certain way about something. Everyone keeps pushing that "Science killed God" thing when in reality, it's the fanatics that take things out of context that turn people away from God. That is precisely why I chose atheism over a denimination. I was fed up with followers pushing it upon others and pointing fingers at outsiders over such trifle things as interpretation and opinions. Religious beliefs are fine to have so long as having them does not infringe upon the rights of others or bring about persecution or abuse towards another. I don't care if I'm flamed or made a troll! I'm sick of this! I had to speak my mind! It's bad enough having people approach you and tell you how you are condemned to hell. It's another to find this BS in an open forum of discussion on an intelligent conversation! End of sermon.
The one on my Mother's side, from way back. They must have gotten his picture on a good day.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
these sub-genus features;
1)Frist Prosters
2)Let's "have a beowolf cluster of these"
3)The now extinct "natalie portman/hot grits" sub-type.
4)The newly discovered variants "OTIII/Xenu" and "All your base belong to us".
While we are not sure if their skulls are really flat, it's clear that the brains are the size of chimpanzees. Scientists say that these creatures are a different genus from that of Lucy, not just beccause of the different shape of their skulls, but because girls wouldn't be caught dead posting to slashdot. Hopefully with this new knowledge we will now be able to understand the relationship between modern humans and these animals.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Which makes his reference to astronomers absolutely hilarious to me. But you're right, the poster doesn't seem to have much of a clue wrt other religions, and even the breadth of opinion within each religion. Even on mainstream Christianity, I personally know people varying from a die hard Jehovah's Witness collegue who wont countenance the notion that Genesis might be a simplification to a friend brought up as a Roman Catholic who, while still keeping his faith in God, believes science simply uncovers what God has created. The vicar who spoke at my school every week once said much the same thing, seeing no conflict between scientific method and discovery and his faith.
(And, from what I remember, he was considered a local conservative, being very vocal and public in his opposition to women priests.)
I can't say if there's a God or not. I can't say I see any reason to believe in one. But I can say that whatever created the world, we live in it, and we have to work within it taking it at face value. If a supreme being actually created it five minutes ago, manufacturing all of our memories and half of this thread ;), it still doesn't change things like having to assume that an object will fall at 9.8m/s2, that water freezes at 0 degrees celcius, and that generations, be it at species or meme level, will be based upon those that survive the environments they exist within.
It's just a shame that trolls seem find the Slashdot environment so habitable... ;)
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Trolled or had your leg pulled? I thought the scientologists reference and the "astronomers predicting the future" made the author's intent fairly obvious... :)
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
By the way, i am also a Christian, but i am not a Biologist either...
I do not think Hubbard ways of argument would win people.
From what i know, there are three ways to treat science/religion: They are conflicting each other. So all true scientist should not believe in religion(Christianity,Muslim...) And all religous people could not be real scientists. B
By the way, i am also a Christian, but i am not a Biologist...
I do not think Hubbard ways of argument would win people.
From what i know, there are three ways to treat science/religion:
1. They are conflicting with each other. So all true scientists should not believe in religion (Christianity,Muslim,Natives...) And all religous people could not be real scientists.
BTW, there are real religous scientists.
2. Similiar to 1, one tries to ... explain science using religion or religion using science. This is Hubbard's stand. It simply doesn't work. It's called, roughly,God between leaks. This is a superstitous view, i.e. eventually God would be squeased out and forgotten.
3. They deal with different issues.So you should evaluate science claims using scientific method, and evaluate religous claims using ways that you deal with daily lives.
Again, there are real religous scientists.
Most importantly, don't pretend to be know-all (for both scientists and religous people and everyone in between.) If you want to discuss science/religion, fine, but do that after you are knowlegable in the things you are evaluating.
Since i am not a biologist by trade, i would shut up now...
Ricky
I am also a Christian...
Interesting. Yeh, no one understand everything. If in doubt, i agree, ask scientists (or specialists....)
Folks, a warning may be in order here. This post contains the usual creationist lies. For your protection I recommend visiting http://www.talkorigins.org after reading this post. I'll attempt to deal briefly with some of the more horrendous errors. >There are 24 differences between Biblical and >secular accounts of creation: There's a lot of differences between the Enuma Elish and "secular creation" as well. The Enuma Elish is a lot older than Genesis as well. > 1. Bible: God is the Creator of all >things (Genesis 1). > Evolution: Natural chance processes >can account for the existence of all things. Why can't God work through evolution? Additionally, chance is only one of the mechanisms at work through evolution. Two sentences into your post and you've already shown you know the square root of f**k all about evolution. > 2. Bible: World created in six days (Genesis 1) > Evolution: World evolved over the aeons. Nothing to do with Evolution. Try Geology. Evolution: a change in the allele frequency of a population over time. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with geology, astronomy, cosmology, you-name-it-ology. > 3. Bible: Creation is completed (Genesis 2:3) > Evolution: Creative processes continuing. > 4. Bible: Oceans before land (Genesis 1:2) > Evolution: Land before oceans. Nowt to do with Evolution. Try geology. > 5. Bible: Atmosphere between two hydrospheres (Genesis 1:7) > Evolution: Contiguous atmosphere and hydrosphere. Nothing to do with evolution. Try geology and meteorology instead. > 6. Bible: First life on land (Genesis 1:11) > Evolution: Life began in the oceans. > 7. Bible: First life was land plants (Genesis 1:11) > Evolution: Marine organisms evolved first. > 8. Bible: Earth before sun and stars (Genesis 1:14-19) > Evolution: Sun and stars before earth. Nowt to do with Evolution. Try Astronomy instead. > 9. Bible: Fruit trees before fishes (Genesis 1:11,20,21) > Evolution: All fishes before fruit trees. > 10. Bible: All stars made on the fourth day (Genesis 1:16) > Evolution: Stars evolved at various times. Nowt to do with evolution. Try Astronomy and Cosmology. > 11. Bible: Birds and fishes created on the fifth day (Genesis 1:20,21) > Evolution: Fishes evolved over hundreds of millions of years before birds appeared. > 12. Bible: Birds before insects (Genesis 1:20-31; Leviticus 11) > Evolution: Insects before birds. > 13. Bible: Whales before reptiles (Genesis 1:20-31) > Evolution: Reptiles before whales. > 14. Bible: Birds before reptiles (Genesis 1:20-31) > Evolution: Reptiles before birds. > 15. Bible: Man before rain (Genesis 2:5) > Evolution: Rain before man. > 16. Bible: Man before woman (Genesis 2:21-22) > Evolution: Woman before man (by genetics). > 17. Bible: Light before the sun (Genesis 1:3-19) > Evolution: Sun before any light (on earth). Nowt to do with evolution. Try astronomy. > 18. Bible: Plants before the sun (Genesis 1:11-19) > Evolution: Sun before any plants. > 19. Bible: Abundance and variety of marine life appeared all at once (Genesis 1:20-21) > Evolution: Marine life gradually developed from a primitive organic blob. > 20. Bible: Man's body created from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7) > Evolution: Man evolved from monkeys. Lie. Man and monkeys both evoloved from a common ancestor. > 21. Bible: Man exercised dominion over all organisms (Genesis 1:28) > Evolution: Most organisms extinct before man evolved. > 22. Bible: Man originally a vegetarian (Genesis 1:29) > Evolution: Man originally a meat-eater. This is funny. Where does it say man was originally a vegetarian? > 23. Bible: Fixed and distinct kinds (Genesis 1:11,12,21,24,25; 1 Corinthians 15:38-39) > Evolution: Life forms in a continual state of flux. Can you define these "kinds?" If so, it'll be a first. > 24. Bible: Man's sin is the cause of death (Romans 5:12) > Evolution: Struggle and death existent log before the evolution of man. > Christians who say that Special Creation is compatible with Evolution are betraying the Bible. They are teaching false doctrine. Double-speak and compromise have crept into some churches. They say: "Evolution is true. Of course, the Bible is still true. The Quo'ran and the Book of Mormon are good, as well." Belief in everything is belief in nothing. This is New Age post-modernism, where you can invent your own reality and religion to go along with it. It's like fast-food philosophy. "Would you like a religion to go with that viewpoint?" "Yeah, I'll take a super-size ______ with a Jesus on the side." Funny how the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutherians, the Church of England, for example, accept evolution eh? > I don't see why a Christian would be tempted to believe in such an obvious falsehood as Evolution. (Hmmm On second thought, I do know why: ignorance.) There is abundant counter-evidence in nearly every field of science - geology, astronomy, physics, mathematics, biology, etc. The most fundamental laws of nature defy Evolutionist theories. It does nothing of the sort. You sir, are a typical creationist liar. Creationists keep making this statement BUT HAVE SINGULARILY FAILED *EVER* TO COME UP WITH *ONE* EXAMPLE OF THIS SUPPOSED EVIDENCE AGAINST EVOLUTION. You're not going to be any different. Please review www.talkorigins.org. >In fact, science confirms the words of the Bible on every count. Liar. Tell me, are bats birds, as the Bible says? >I'll put some details on my website when I have time. I'm sure you will. But it will be same tired old creationist lies which has been rebutted time and time again. Doesn't one of the commandments not tell you not to bear false witness? I suggest you should stock up on asbestos underpants, as your entire post breaks this commandment. Hope you enjoy hell, like the rest of your creationist buddies. > (I know this sounds like a cop-out, but it's almost 2AM. Sorry. > Maybe there's something here.) > Why are we Bible-belt southern states people "extremist"? Because you sir, are a liar and a deciever. You're no Christian. Your god is the Bible. Best Regards, Dave
However, you ask...
Do we want to study the past systematically and rigorously? If so, we must use these tools. If not, then, heck, the Bible was good enough for my grand-pappy.
The answer, of course, is "No." We don't want to study the past rigourously. We want to keep grand-pappy's Bible around as the baseline model for all science. If we were to study the past, we might find that it doesn't meet our preconcived notions, and we wouldn't be able to push our own personal agendas with any authority. We want ignorance, as it makes our job easier. Truth is dangerous, and we want no part of it.
Fat Hog, who majored in history.
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You sure got a purty mouth...
"If you'd ever actually met a scientologist, you'd realize that this is unrealistic. No scientologist is that clever. No, I am not just saying this. They seriously aren't that clever. The auditing saps it right out of them - the ability to recognize subtelty is one of the first things to go."
You're being supressive. Now I'll have to audit you for using higher tech. When was the last time you felt not clever? Are you in a state of clear? I will have to use TONE-40 if you do not comply.
Oh hell, this Scientologist bullshit is fun in an innate evil manner.
Remember, if you meet a Scientologist, break one of their bones. Let them "audit" that away. How stupid can a human get? These Scientologists are most certainly a very gullible sub-section of the human race. If we allow them to beat the thinking members of our species by use of lawsuits, threats, blackmail, harassment, and phony legal defenses we are worse then the feeble-minded slaves of the Scientology scam. How sad are we to allow this? More cowardly than a moron-attack force? Very sad.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
can anyone say flamebait!
"Shut up brain or ill stab you with a Q-tip" Homer Simpson
Noneltheless God (who I would think being omniscient as well as omnipotent is in a position to judge) has seen fit to try and discourage homosexuality. Perhaps God knows something we mere humans do not ? Had that thought ever occured to you ? That there is a divine being out there who cares about your mortal soul and shudders at the thought of you engaging in some hot 'man-on-man' loving followed by a lenght watersports and fisting session down at your local gay disco ?
You could argue that God is a killjoy. You could argue that he is is discriminatory. However, you cannot argue with the word of God as written in the Holy Bible, since BY DEFINITION it is true.
A sadist, maybe.
"However, you cannot argue with the word of God as written in the Holy Bible, since BY DEFINITION it is true."
Wow this Bible really sounds like a good fiction/fantasy book (do they have it at bn.com?). Where can I
contact the author again?
Who was it again, god? Where does he live? Does he have a phone number? Does he have a website?
At least I can see the fossils of the pre human creature.(I would have to go to Kenya of course)
*ahem* homids do still, to paraphrase "swing on trees, eat bananas and copulate wildly with (either gender)"... just look out your paisley window, you'll see.. oh wait, maybe you won't *shrugs* :)
Just another Unorthodox Pagan, bringing light to the dark ages
Just Another Pagan Shedding Light in this Dark Age~ JAPLDA
.sig under construction
I love it when Bible Thumpers try and outwit scientists (or anyone else that is not apart of their cult) ...
Would it make you happy if we told you that you are evidence that not ALL of us have evolved?
I hate bible totin' cultists like you. Definately the small minded homosapien that has yet to evolve or open his fucking eyes! You sunday morning morons continue to bash science based upon your ideas that our facts continue to change. But if you tried using your sub-highschool education you'd realize that today's society is still learning and investigating further into the past - and continuing to learn as we investigate further. How is this difficult to understand?
I think it makes more sense to believe in something by determining on your own ... Not just to stand by some book that someone else determines that you should read and believe. Tell me - how is that any different from a cult?!?!
"God and the Bible" are a crutch for small minded people that can't handle the truth.
And if you can't handle that ... Then i've proven my point.
If there is a god - I am it.
Moderators- this is not off-topic, it is a highly amusing critique of Xianity, or didn't you bother to read it?
Graspee
I think it's amazing that Slashdot is as amusing and as readable as it is considering hardly any posts are removed ever. Just think how bad it could be!
OK, so everyone ended talking religion versus science, but at least we were talking about *something*, not just being a random collection of obscenitites!
If you don't like racist stuff/goatsex etc. then browse at +1. No big deal. I personally browse at -1 flat because a) It's more fun than working b) The best bits are hidden in the shit.
Graspee
"The idea that Man and all his wonderful gifts, for art, literature and science is descended from
some kind of faeces-flinging monkey is an insult."
Like it or not, it's true.
"Not only to Christians, but also to Jews, Muslims, Bhuddists, Hindus, Scientologists and many other religions that do not subscribe to the orthodox view of science." Most of them use text books that have been copied, passed, translated, memorized, and mutated over several hundred generations. Up until the Gutenberg Bible, none of these had a chance of carrying on without mutation, "The evolution of the bible" Which one are you going to trust?
"The facts speak for themselves. These 'scientists' are no better (and in some cases worse than) the palm-readers at a fairground or the astronomers 'predicting the future' by the position of the planets." They call them preachers for a reason, they speak on Faith without facts.
You stupid bastard, you don't have no arms left. It's just a flesh wound.
You have to believe that god exists in order to believe that the holy bible is correct which states that god exists(and Vice Versa).
St. Aquinas thidr way in his "Five Ways":
P1. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be.
P2. It is impossible for these always to exist for that which can not be at some time is not.
P3. If everything can not-be, then at one time there was nothing in existence
P4. Nothing comes from nothing
C. There must be a necessary being, "This all men speak of as God"
This basically your arguement on your whole definition of evolution. Unfortunately, this is also assuming that God is of first existence and an Atheist wouldn't even understand the argument because they would have to believe in God's existence to be able to believe in the word of God.
You stupid bastard, you don't have no arms left. It's just a flesh wound.
If we really are descended from monkeys, how come we don't all enjoy swinging from trees, eating bananas and mindless copulation with the closest memeber of either sex ?
Speak for your own damn self!
Seriously, though, I love the parent comment, I really do, because it should either be Score 4, Funny, or Score -1, Retarded.
Certainly, this is an important fossil find, but I was somewhat amused to see that the Leakeys were quick to raise the issue that this might replace Lucy as the direct ancestor to homo sapiens.
Richard Leakey has been arguing this with Donald Johanssen (I hope I've spelled that correctly) almost since the moment Johanssen's group discovered Lucy and the First Family fossils. It seems that any discovery of Leakey's points to a new origin for modern humans.
I genuinely respect the Richard Leakey and his brilliant family; they've generated amazing finds. But it seems very premature to be issuing statements (even 50-50 probability ones)about one find displacing another as a human ancestor.
Of course, such claims will make the National Geographic special on Public TV that much more impressive.
---Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there.---
Adam and Eve are ignored for the same reason that the Giant Tortoise that laid the egg that became the Universe is ignored.... they are a myth.
As for the absence of a fossil record... huh? The sheer numbers of fossils uncovered in the last few centuries is staggering. I think what you're really trying to say is "that there are no transitional forms"... that is handily refuted at Transitional Fossils FAQ
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Our ancestors were skinless bone-creatures of a dirty brown hue.
What could have brought about these hideous circumstances? How did these mysterious skeleton-beasts evolve into modern humans, with organs, skin and functional genitalia?
My friends, this proves the one and only valid theory on the origin of mankind:
1 In the beginning, Gygax created the source book for the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was without OCCs, and void; and the game world was empty.
3 And Gygax saw that the earth was void, and this displeased him.
4 Then said Gygax, let us make RCCs in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the orcs of the field and the dryads of the sea, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
5 Then did Gygax choose a spell, and he did then cast upon the earth an Animate Dead spell, to raise up man from the dust of the earth. And though Gygax rolled a 20 on his casting, his animate dead spell created a man who was bony and ugly and fearsome to his sight. This Gygax did regret...
Wonder what they'll name this one. Sgt. Pepper?
I believe he's refering to Leviticus, where it refers to insects having four legs, bats being birds, as well as there being four legged birds (seen any lately?), and all sorts of crazy crap (PI being 3, and so on.)
BTW, Leviticus also says it's bad to plant gardens, wear blended fabrics, and eat meat and milk together. It also allows for parents to sell their children into slavery, or stone people for working on the Sabbath. Honestly, the way I see it, the ultra orthadox Jews follow the Bible far more literally than any Fundamentalist Christian *I'VE* ever met.
>A great flood is mentioned among many many >different societies. Even aboriginal culture >made reference to an incredible, ancient flood.
Yes, but there's no evidence to support one Great Big WorldWide Flood that happened at precisely the same time. It's a well-known fact that at the end of the Ice Age, (10K years ago) glacial dams would routinely break, releasing megatons of fresh water into the ocean, raising the sea level a few feet. It's also known that the Asia Minor plains were very suceptible to flooding around that time. It's probably the first collective memories of these floods that made their way into the Gilgemesh epics, and then later into stories like the Bible.
However, according to Biblical "Scientists" the Great Flood was happening at the same time that the Egyptian Empire was at it's zenith. People apparently forgot to tell them there was a cataclysm scheduled, because it just plumb missed them, and the Egyptians don't make any records of any Great Flood happening at that time. And these are people who had to deal with river floods almost every year.
Maybe Ra and Yahweh cut a deal? Plus, I really have trouble with the whole Noah thing. It's really difficult (read: impossible in most cases) to repopulate entire species from only one mated pair. I know all hampsters in pet shops apparently come from one female found in Siberia in 1911, but it's the higher animals that really suffer from inbreeding. Just ask people trying to breed Pandas how difficult this all is.
>You should really read and attempt to interpret >the Bible for yourself. I'll pray for you.
Uh..I have. I've decided to reject it as a literal document written by God. Did you REALLY want me to interpret the Bible for myself, or was that just said in the hopes I'd think like you?
Frankly, I have no problems beliving in Intelligent Design. I see spooky shit like Quantum Mechanics, and can see God in the details. I have no problems beliving that some higher power went and made the universe and set things in motion. If you ran up to me, panting, out of breath, and proclaimed that a "A Higher Power set everything into motion billions of years ago!" I would say "Who the fuck are you?" and then "Well, that makes sense to me."
What I DO have problems beliving is that Christianity has all the answers on Creation. I'd have a much easier time giving Creation "Scientists" their due if any of them weren't rabidly Christian. I've yet to meet a Creation "Scientist" that was of another religion. (Hint, I mean JUDEO-Christian/Western Monotheistic, so don't go quoting Jewish and Moslem Creation "Scientists" to me.) Funny that.
And if the best answer someone can come up with is "Well, God put that there to decieve us/give us a false sense of history", or "Well, God put the whole inbreeding causes problems thing into us AFTER the Great Flood" then you should immediately disqualify yourself from the Rational Thought Olympics.
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
>The Bible DOESN'T have all the "answers" concerning creation. The book of Genesis details God's revelation of himself to man. He covers the extreme and intense process of creation in one chapter. You showed your true colors when you revealed that you wouldn't listen to any "scientist" who wasn't Christian. It's one thing to interpret things for yourself, but why such the animosity towards Christianity? >
Gasp! Quiet when you say such things *heh* Well, my apologies. I have "issues" with Fundamentalist Christians, and others who think the Bible is infallible and unquestionable. I have problems with Fundamentalism in general, but I despise Fundamentalist Monotheism, for surely it is one of the most insideous and destructive memes mankind has ever been plagued with. You seem to be willing to let people think for themselves, but I have to wonder if you are willing to let people interperate the Bible and then reject it for themselves, and accept and be happy with the reasoning.
And what I said was that I had trouble taking Creation "Scientists" seriously because few to none were not Christian. Like it's not enough to accept Intelligent Design, it HAS to be JUST like the Bible said. That's not Science, that's Blind Faith, and I hate Fundamentalists who try to sabotage and abuse Science. I've seen a lot of their so called "evidence" and it is some of the most specious, illogical bullshit it's ever been my misfortune to read.
>Yes, without question, Orthodox Jews follow the Bible to a far more degree than Christian churches. Of course, they don't follow the New Testament, which is the most important part of the Christian church. Christian churches say that the New Testament law "overrides" Levitical law, but that doesn't discount it as having no modern >application.
Uhhhhhm...didn't the Big J himself say "I come not to replace the Old Law, but to Fufil it"? Since Jesus was a nice Jewish boy, and said this, doesn't it mean that it sounds like he still wanted people to keep kosher? Or did everyone reject it because Paul did? It sounds like most so called Christians are actually Paulites. Frankly, I'm still convinced Saul of Tarsus never converted, and just found a really clever way to fuck up a rather troublesome cult of Judaism.
>Did you ever think of why there were such strict laws concerning milk and meat? I am pretty sure that cooking methods weren't too good back then and I am almost certain they weren't homogenizing milk. By making cloth of one fabric, you maintain the consistency and strength of the fabric. With something like Levitical law, it is CRITICAL to consider the circumstances under which the laws >were applied.
Gee, thanks for the news flash. Yes, I know all about the practical reasons that Levitacus and Numbers were laid down. Don't eat pigs or you get tricanosis. The laws about men sleeping with men was to keep them away from temple prostitues, since they needed all the breeding material they could get. The line about "It is abomination" was added by King James. (Ie It was never in the original texts.) A lot of it also had to do with maintaining ethnic and cultural purity at a time when the Jews were surrounded by hostile, foriegn people. Believe me when I say I've heard this crap a whole bunch of times.
My point, however, is that if these were the laws that Jesus followed, and they were mostly for survival, as well as Faith, why the hell would Jesus have invalidated them when you STILL didn't homogenize milk, and could still easily get parasites from pork? I just dont buy Jesus coming in and chucking out the Tanach. I think most Bible-Thumping Christians just chuck out the parts they find inconvenient and keep the parts that support whatever arrogant viewpoint they espouse. Like how back in the days of Slavery, Southerners used the scene between Noah and his Son to justify slavery (The one where Noah gets drunk and naked, his son taunts him, and Noah says that the cast out sons descendants will be slaves to the children of the other two sons.)
As for what I said in Levitacus...I'll repeat the reply that was already put in by another poster:
Leviticus 11:20-23 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you...Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
I would think that "All fowls that creep, going on all four" would refer to four-legged birds. It says all flying and creeping things with four feet. So name me a flying, creeping thing with four feet?
>Archaeologists found evidence of a great flood a few years ago when it was estimated that the Mediterranean Sea broke a natural damn and flooded into the Sea to the East of Mesopotamia. Could this be evidence of the great flood that covered all of the earth? What exactly is "all of >the earth"?
Apparently it's the flood plains around the Mediterranian, up to but not including Egypt. In the grand scheme of things, this is a large, but relatively localized event. Like I said, there is no proof that there was one, great, WORLDWIDE flood...a time where the entire world was flooded at the same time. The Creation "Scientists" can fake as many computer models as they like.
>As far as inbreeding goes, genetic scientists confirmed that all human beings came from a pair around a quarter million years ago (using modern estimations of previous human life expectancy) in sub-Saharan Africa. The ill effects of in-breeding go away after several generations of in-breeding, which is why Dogs and Cats can do it >without any problem.
Mmmmmmm....noooo. I'm not going to buy that without some solid academic proof. Humans are NOT dogs and cats. Dogs and Cats have FAR FAR greater genetic plasticity in their chromosomes than humans. I refuse to believe that the entire human species arose from just one pair. Although....it might explain what goes on in some places down south *heh*
So, I think I'm going to kick it out with a little Old Skewl MC Hawking and close with:
"Fuck the Damn Creationists
They're all a bunch of bitches
Everytime I think of them
My trigger finger itches"
(Sorry..it's crude, but I just love that song.)
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
Oooookay. This is probably troll bait anyhow....but once again, this is highly specious reasoning. You are taking items recounted in a Faith based work and present them as hard fact. Do I even need to bother explaining how wrong this is? I think we've managed to demonstrate that you can't take the Bible literally without getting into that sort of mindset that keeps people in Scientology, even after OT III.
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
>That's how it maintains is timelessness and how it can apply to each human being who has accepted it's teachings. Frankly, it's absolute genius > >from start to finish.
Does that include the hard core pornography in the Song of Solomon? (Read all of it again if you don't believe me) Or Gods rather bipolar behavior during the 40 Years Exile in the desert? Or PI being equal to 3? (I Kings 7:23, as it describes Solomons altar.) Don't believe me? Look it all up again. I suggest you try reading the Skeptics Anotated Bible sometime. I would be very hard pressed to call the Bible "absolute genius" from start to finish. It is critically flawed in many places, but at least you're willing to admit that the Bible was INTENDED to be read and interperated as a metephorical document. A LOT of people would nail you to the wall for that.
The Bible, at it's basest moral core, doesn't really say anything new that other groups don't already say. Stripped of it's "religion-specific" aspects, the Ten Commandments are no different from most other religions. It's just that Christianity is relatively unique in its "My Way, or the Long, Painful Highway Of Eternal Damnation, so nyah nyah nyah!" approach. I just have real problems with the whole "One Truth Faith" thing. I think it's petty and childish to think that God is so unenlightened, he can't figure out that the punishment should fit the crime. Sorry, I don't care what you think, but even Hitler himself doesn't deserve to burn in Hell _forever_. There has to be justice sooner or later, even if that justice is just Death.
Wow...really went off on a tangent there...sorry.
>I personally think there is plenty of room in Genesis 1 to accomodate evolution and you should >read it again to see for yourself.
Ooookay. Just read it again. Gen 1:1 to 2:3 seems to contradict each other. Did Man come before the animals? Or did the animals come first. According to Genesis, both! It's hard to draw metephorical inferences from that.
>That is the same exact things evolutionists have done. They have assumed what the big picture looks like and when any new data comes along, the parts of the picture are rearranged to look as >close as possible to that big picture.
Well no..not exactly. What you fail to realize is the difference between Science and Faith. Creation "Science" takes facts, and attempts to twist and distort them to fit an Immutible Big Picture That Cannot Ever Change. Science finds new things, and if the new things are strong enough, the Big Picture O' Science can and has in the past been completely and utterly changed.
For instance, take whats happened in the last few hundred years. People used to believe that the World was flat, that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that all the planets and moons were perfectly smoothe, that diseaes were caused by demons, and that Classical Physics could describe all physical phenomena in the world, etc etc. Compare the Scientific "Big Picture O' The World" back in 1700 with the "Big Picture" today, and you'll find two VERY VERY different things. Biblical Creation hasn't changed at all during that time. And there is the big difference. Science thrives on doubt and change. Religion abhors these things. Someone on this forum said it best: You don't win a Nobel Prize for reinforcing the status quo.
>Both schools of thought are faith based, as a >result.
Well, to a certain extent, perhaps, except that the folks who espouse Literal Biblical Creation can't really put a good argument together to save their lives. They resorted to faking computer models, disortion of many scientific facts, and propeganda. (Have you read some of those Chick Tracts? Jack T. seriously needs to deal with some projection issues.) Creation "Scientists" will _always_ be slaves to their Bible. A GOOD Scientist wont be a slave to the status quo. Even *I* will admit, however, that some scientists get zealous to the point where it becomes like a religion for them as well. These people usually go the way of the dinosar, sooner or later. Even Albert Einstein had problems beliving in Quantum Mechanics.
So frankly, no...I think in this case, Biblical Creationism and Evolution are like oil and water. Now...as I said before...Intelligent Design...THAT I can believe. God as the Ultimate Scientist....makes sense to me. God as a freaky Bipolor guy who gets off on making perfectly good and decent people suffer FOREVER...I just could never ever have that kind of faith, and if that condemns me to Hell, then I guess thats my Karma. So much for the illusion of Free Will.
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
Somehow this find miraculously does both of the above. Scientists do not generally accept that Australopithecus afarensis is directly ancestral to humans, which both the mainstream newspapers claimed (as much as Donald Johanson might disagree). However, A. afarensis is a well-documented species with many different fossils. Most likely, both these new specimens and the earlier specimens that some call A. anamensis are different phenotypes of A. afarensis.
Species generally exhibit a great deal of variation between groups that are separated geographically, culturally, or by other means. There would have to be much more evidence presented to indicate that this find is a new species, let alone a new genus. It is a gracile australopithecine in East Africa, which suggests that unless there are massive morphological differences, it should be classified as A. afarensis.
If they're worshipping the Prince of Lies it sure would explain a lot, wouldn't it?
--
spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
They are calling the new species "kenyanthropus platyops". Why? Does the skull show signs of having a duck bill?
--
324006
I agree that this could be an ancestor of humans, but it would not be a new ancestor. In fact it would most definately be a fairly old ancestor. In fact it is so old that there are none left, only us humans. The only thing new about it is that scientists have recently discovered that it existed.
Buzz Off
Got anymore jewels, how about biblical origins of the Asians or Indians ? Geeeeez, what an butt-head. "Take the sheet off your head boy, it's a brand-new day."
The dogmatic and religious flock will point out that it is not beyond the scope of god (the unknown and unseen benevolent ruler of all we survey .. ) to have 'planted' the skull of what seems to be a common ancestor - to test our faith no less! Lets move past 3.5 million years ago and put the pieces together regarding the cro-magnon/neantretal link and integration (look in the mirror hybrid). Currently, the best explanation to the 'missing link' is not considered in the mainstream media - mostly out of politically correct ideology and a hatred of any heterodoxical arguments which present alternative arguments and theories. So I state again, who gives a fuck about 3.5 million years ago? It looks like a gorillas fucking head to me!
insert 'cute' saying here
While the addendum to your argument boasts of a logical and sentient being, your religious undertones are somewhat of a destractor from the real issue, e.g. you have no use for the idea that you share DNA with wally the pee drinking monkey. (you saw that .avi or .mpg right? anybody???)
I hear people drink their pee too.
sure about the 'connection' once they have successfully secured funding for their "where'd the monkey tail go" research study. guard!! guard!! where'd my socks go?!!?!!?
-Insert flame here- You are sitting there, refreshing your browser just waiting for somebody to say something negative to prove your point that this board has gone to shit in a handbasket. I am sure that open debate is(no matter how deviant or politically incorrect), regardless of its topical derivatives, a welcome sight for many who find both a hightened sense of ego (hey, at least theres someone stupider than me out there) as well as comedic and informative reviews of topics to be just the ticket after a long days work. shut your yap hole.
Sigh. Evolution is a scientific fact, supported by mountains of evidence. Here's another fact : antievolutionists are generally ignorant of this evidence. For an excellent overview of evolutionary concepts, complete with referenced answers to all the usual, endlessly recycled creationist 'refutations'/outright misrepresentations (including their nonsense about radiocarbon dating) , visit the Talk.origins website: http://talkorigins.org
All dressed up, no where to go...