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Human Origins Theory Tested By Recent Findings
annamadrigal writes "The BBC news is reporting on findings presented in Nature which suggest that Homo Erectus and H. Habilis were in fact sister species which co-existed. This challenges the view that the upright humans evolved from the tool users."
This has been brought up ("challenged") before and some believe it, some don't. What's so different this time around?
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I know the truth.
It doesn't "challenge" that view at all. Evolution is mutation plus competition, you need the competition part. Of course they co-existed, as must have all consecutive evolution stages in every being's evolution.
After glancing over the TFA it appears that it is shown that the two species simply existed together and one eventually out-competed the other. What isn't definitively shown as not being the case is that the Evolutionary chain didn't also occur with a net result of both species existing at once. An overlap could be caused because both species in different areas (even locals) were well suited for the environment. I guess I could just want to be argumentative after a long day of meetings with the subspecies PHB which is probably more akin to the chimpanzee than anything vaguely human ... in fact I'm sure of that last statement, PHBs are NOT human.
Everything has to be black and white -- nothing can be grey in science. The truth is that science is all grey and we want to see in black and white.
Information is not Knowledge.
If erectus was very sexually dimorphic [sex size diff] it may have had multiple mates at a time. This differs from the more monogamous nature of modern humans, indicating that Homo erectus was not as human-like as once thought.
Polygomy is and was fairly common in humans.
Table-ized A.I.
It talks about "their own distinct ecological niches". Given that we are omnivores, how different could their "ecological niche" have been and still support something that was almost human?
... that's dumb.
Humans and other primates have shared the same areas ever since there were humans. Yet we have only recently started wiping out other primates. And it isn't because we are competing with them for the food sources. We wipe out their environment, food sources and all.
So there thing about "Eventually, one would have out-competed the other." doesn't sound right. "Eventually", maybe. But to say that any conclusions can be derived simply because it had not happened in X years
Haven't you heard? It all happened in the last 5000 years!
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"Early Sisters Had No Use For Tools"
First, the article makes it clear that the two hominids didn't compete. They operated in different environments and ate different food. Even when primates do operate in similar realms, they can coexist for millions of years - as humans have with chimps and gorillas. The relatively peaceful coexistence of humans and Neanderthals is also well documented. They simply ignored each other. It is also suspected - but unproven - in the case of Homo Florensis. Besides which, even when replacement occurs, it's going to occur slowly. Populations grow exponentially, but only over a vast timeframe. It isn't overnight. The multiple migration theory also suggests that multiple hominid types co-existed, or there wouldn't be distinct populations migrating. (In fact, the mere existence of the theory shows some paleontologists have always believed in multiple co-existing branches.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
my coworkers provide plenty of evidence to debunk evolution
That's from the guy who was offering the idea that later species still "could have" come from the earlier(and co-existent) species. Apparently the principle of the Razor made him admit that it was more likely that one didn't evolve from either, but rather that they both evolved from some common ancestral species. Please don't make me explain why the latter assumes less causes.
Science isn't about belief. It's about weighing the evidence. Now the evidence is very strong in one direction.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
What is with the obsession with tools? Plenty of animals use tools. Humans aren't unique in that respect.
There is a saying amongst psychologists that at some point, each must come up with a reason why humans are fundamentally different from the other animals, only for someone to eventually prove them wrong.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Next, both species walked very much erect. The primary difference between them is the skull and brain.
The BBC got it right. there's no reason the submitter, or Slashdot, should not have gotten it right, too.
As to the science, the wisest words in TFA come from Professor Spoor (snicker):
Of course, that assumes the new skull really is H. erectus, which is dubious. Maybe it was an H. erectus ancestor, small like H. habilis but with an H. erectus-like brain.
Why yes, I do have a degree in physical anthropology. Thank you for asking.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
So perhaps their eras crossed, so what? So some time in the past some human branch spawned off and 'evolved', while meanwhile the original branch kept going for a while... That fact wouldn't change anything as far as evolution and human origins goes.
...why monkeys aren't extinct. If it's survival of the fittest and we are clearly superior to monkeys, why are they still here? They should have died-out a long time ago!
The game.
from the creationism museum that they lived with Velociraptors.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
I know you're joking, but let me reply seriously anyway.
In my theory of evolution, it's not so much that "the fittest survive," but that "those that fit survive." There's a feedback loop that occurs in the environment. Those that benefit themselves, others, and the environment as a whole tend to survive and evolve more readily than those that form an adversarial relationship to others and the environment.
Monkeys still exist because there have been - and remain - plenty of habitats that are beneficial to them, and they're very adaptable to new environments. Long after Humans have engineered all remaining environments into complete unsuitability, monkeys will likely still remain, because they manage to survive on just the detritus of our habitats. And being smaller, their energy needs are far less.
In the present case of "tool users" versus "upright walkers" other posts have been spot-on. They had little effect on one another and each adapted well to their given environment. And as the lined article points out just fine, tool use and upright walking were not mutually exclusive developments. It's hardly a big stretch for any being of a certain level of sentience to see the parallel between the hands at the ends of their arms and the tools in their hands. From the point of view of any being of reasonable sentience, they are both automatically objectified into things-to-be-used.
It has long been understood that evolution tends towards less specialization and more generalization as environments rapidly change and become more diverse and challenging, and as species range further. The necessity of mental abstraction and self-alienation will become more evident as we delve into our more recent evolution. (And from this will come insights into the need for our so-called "religious practices" that semi-moderate this alienation. But that's a topic for another day!)
-- thinkyhead software and media
or maybe +1 Pedantic
THE HOMOS ARE ERECT
does that mean they don't work anymore?
NO, DAMNIT....
uhhh picalo....
JUST COME OVER HERE AND I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT IT MEANS, GOHAN!!!!
I don't see why co-existence would discount evolving from Homo Habilis. Since after all if we really did evolve from primates, there would be no primates today under this logic.
It' still possible that some Homo Habilis evolved into Homo erectus while others remained homo habilis. Just as monkeys evolved into whatever became the H. Habilis, yet monkeys still exist.
Damm you all !! I do not have an Ape Ancestor. I was created.
...we wouldn't have the Force!
Since this IS Slashdot, and neither the "alien theory" nor the Bible have been referred to, I'll start off with the Bible's side of the story...
1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3 Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. 5 The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
PHBs are evidence that devolution occurs.
Well while you're being all "logical" and such, maybe you can explain how "God" got here.
Root said let there be God, and there was God?
Hydrogen is by far the most abundant chemical element in the Universe. Helium is second. Oxygen is third. Carbon is fourth. None of these are in any way scarce; I have no idea where you got the notion that there was a shortage of oxygen in the Universe. As for water, the solar system is full of the stuff; water vapour is present in the atmosphere of Venus, water ice is present at the Martian poles, and the outer solar system is practically made of ice. The only thing that's unusual about Earth is the presence of liquid water.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It doesn't "challenge" that view at all. Evolution is mutation plus competition, you need the competition part. Of course they co-existed, as must have all consecutive evolution stages in every being's evolution.
Exactly my thoughts.
Think about this, archaeological and genetic evidence points to modern humans having left Africa 50000-100000 years ago. Modern humans are only about 200.000 years old as a species and yet, the Scanvinavians already have lighter skin full facial beards and some other biological features which make them distinct from those who didn't leave Africa.
We could say that the scandivavians "evolved" from the Africans to suit the cold climate, nonetheless the two are still co-habiting almost everywhere in the world.
The time period which the article states as a "proof" is 500.000 years long. Just imagine how the scandinavians, ot the inuits might look after 450.000 years if there was no communication between the two groups.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
For water to form, it requires the planet to have a certain temperature. This in turn requires the planet to be a certain distance from the Sun. We are at that distance, and hence funnily enough none of the other planets in our solar system are.
Around other stars, it is quite likely that if there are planets at the correct distance from the sun, then they water on them.
I don't know where you got the idea that it's extremely rare. We really don't know, but current estimates are that there should be millions of such planets just within our own small galaxy.
is when did homo erectus, habilis and the neanderthals give way to homo sapiens. There are different kinds of gorillas and monkeys and fishies and doggies and snakes. Why did only one type of homo-whatever survive? Or is that even the case? Are the different homo-whatevers genetically divergent enuff to not be able to cross impregnate? I havent read up on all the current theories so in traditional /. action i will not read any articles and wait for people to post the answers to me!
Balderdash!
At least, scientist have some evidence that life emerged from simple chemical processes, but you, on the other side, have no frigging evidence at all for your point?
Just because theory A does not currently explain all phenomens, theory B (God did it) is automatically true. That is just ... nonsense.
This kind of thing always makes me wonder about the origin of tales that probably come to us from pre-history -- stuff like the Cain and Abel story. I can't help thinking that, at one time, these stories might have told of some much more important historical event than one brother killing another, and that, slowly, over time, they've been watered down into something that everyone understood in their current context -- one guy killing another.
> The other thing I'd like to have an atheist tell me is how they believe water got here initially, and more specifically, why the water cycle starts on
> some planets and not on others.
Let's assume that the answer to that question is "Nobody knows." That just implies that not all the underpinnings of a theory are known. It does NOT, under any circumstances, prove an opposing tenet, Mr. Cryptocreationist. It's high time you morons learn that an unknown in evolution by natural selection, real or invented by you, does NOT, and never will, prove that your pathetic superstitions are true - superstitions that, on the other hand, are constantly proven to be false using different and unrelated branches of science.
You don't need any sort of pre-existing "genetic algorithm"... what a bizarre viewpoint. The properties described by population genetics emerge from molecular underpinnings, the molecular processes do not occur because there are population genetic rules. Exactly how it all got going is not, of course, directly known. However, just as any apparent case of irreducibility does not suggest a god (it suggests a current lack of understanding), nor does the gap in our knowledge of how the process began suggest a god. Evolution seems to be an emergent property of any system with imperfect self-replication, though the exact rules governing that evolution will be different depending on the nature of the system. A number of relatively simple molecules have the potential for auto-catalysing self-replication. Currently a popular hypothesis is that RNA was the original evolving molecule.
All they have found here is evidence of very early archaeology: an H. erectus unearthed the fascinating bones of a young H. habilis ancestor, but got caught off guard by the sabretooth and never got to report his shocking discovery. Archaeology was set back a million years by a sabretooth!
"You don't know that he couldn't have done this without steroids"
You're a fucking idiot.
He's a skinny little 30-30 guy for most of is career, suddenly bulks up for no obvious reason, and starts creaming the ball.
I do know he wouldn't have done it without juice. So do you, you're just too much of a nuthugger to admit it.
As far as I understand it, in order for one species to split into two distinct species the original group has to be split up into two distinct habitats with different selection pressures. If they all remained in the same place, they'd have the same selection pressures and would continue to interbreed so that you wouldn't end up with two distinct genetic groups. However, one species staying in the same place can slowly change into another if selection pressures shift somehow (climate change, arrival of new competition, etc.).
Anthropologists don't think that we evolved from any other currently existing primates. Rather, they think that we share a common ancestor, meaning humans and our closest primate relation (chimps?) both evolved from some other, now extinct, species. I think the idea is that that happened because our ancestors moved into a new habitat, like grasslands, while the other primates stayed in the old habitat, the forest. They continued to adapt to living in one condition and we adapted differently to living under different conditions.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Evolutionary theo-ray has been proven ta be unree-liable! Praise Be! But... but what are all them thar antedelluvian dates doing in our new justification for willful ignorance?
Hence, a chicken-and-egg problem. Once you've got the GA, the whole process can go along just fine, working according to the rules of the GA. However, the burning question is, how did the GA itself get there? I've never heard of any scenario where a GA itself can evolve via an atheistic process, but if anyone knows of one, please share.
In the context of natural evolution, the heuristic is physical survival. As opposed to a simulation, where the heuristic is whatever characteristic the programmer is trying to induce.
I'm not sure I entirely understand the point you are making but if you are saying how can a computer simulation evolve naturally, all I can say is GAs are designed by humans. Humans evolved naturally. So such simulations are ultimately the product of natural processes.
If on the other hand you are likening biological evolution to a GA, and then saying since GAs are designed, so must biological evolution be, then you are making a rather confused point. GAs were originally inspired by the natural process of biological evolution. We stole the idea from nature. Mutation with natural selection and heredity are self evidently intrinsic to the logic of our physical universe. Your question implies circularity but only by implying its own answer.
Thus, when I think about it at all, at least at the moment I'm inclined towards a hybrid theory of how we got here, which actually includes elements of both creationism and evolutionary thinking. My own perspective is that yes, evolution happens. We see the end products of it all the time, and yes, to a degree the process has been successfully simulated (with some interesting results) in the AI field.
However, where God steps into the picture for me in this context is as the provider of the initial GA, after which organisms can themselves take over the process from there. I'm not claiming (at least in this context) to have any definite idea of what God actually is or was, either...but I do think that there are at least a couple of areas, (such as the GA question) which atheistic evolutionary theory alone can't really account for.
You're talking about aspects of the universe outside of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory describes how biological organisms change over generations. The gap you are filling with god is the creation of the physical laws of the universe. This has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. It's an important distinction to make, as a lot of anti-evolution crackpots use the tactic of lumping the stupendously well established theory of evolution in with a bunch of questions that have yet to be satisfactorily answered, such as abiogenesis and the source of the universe, in an attempt to undermine the credibility of the theory of evolution in a kind of guilt-by-association. Your position regarding the creation of the universe is covered here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument
The other thing I'd like to have an atheist tell me is how they believe water got here initially, and more specifically, why the water cycle starts on some planets and not on others. From what I was reading a while back, water actually initially gets produced in a closed-circuit chemical reaction, with the three elements, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. Once it gets started, the loop can keep going as long as those three elements are all present; my question is, how did those three elements become present here on Earth, especially when oxygen in particular seems to be rare almost to the point of being entirely unique in the universe, from what I've seen?
All I can say about that is that you really need to do some reading.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
This challenges the view that the upright humans evolved from the tool users.
Does not. Homo sapiens could have forked from erectus while the two coexisted for quite a while until erectus died out. This means nothing.
I write only to warn people off wasting time on a "reasoned discussion", it will only be an exercise in futility.
I sometimes wonder if even today we have two different species, Homo rationalis and Homo religious!
Anyways, the real story here is the incredibly poor coverage of this finding by the mainstream press. The BBC article linked to here isn't so bad, but just go to Google News and look at some of the headlines, in what I would consider increasing order of ridiculousness:
"Fossil find casts doubt on origins of man"
"new theory on the dawn of humanity"
"Fossils Paint Messy Picture of Evolution"
"Fossil Discoveries Challenge Theory of Human Evolution"
"Darwin's rolling over"
They make it look like this is somehow a CHALLENGE to THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION ITSELF. In other words, "let's take some story we don't really understand, but it hey it has the word 'evolution' in it, so we can manipulate this to stir up that ol' hornet's nest and sell papers!"
I think this is the most disappointing example in a while of the sorry state of science journalism.
Perhaps you should pull your head out of Bonds' asshole long enough to read the actual parent post, dumbass. "Meaningful legislation" referred specifically to healthcare reform, and generally to anything EXCEPT commenting on sports. Caring for the baby-boomer generation as they retire is going to bankrupt this country, our borders are a joke, Social Security is just a giant slush-fund that Congress regularly raids to fund their pork projects, Global Warming is being used as an excuse to take junkets around the world to exotic locations and $1200-per-night hotels to view the "damage", but these fuckers all have time to take a month-long vacation and congratulate a cheater. Well congratu-fucking-lations Congress and the President for fiddling while Rome burns.
"Anyway, steroids didn't make Barry Bonds any better at being able to see a 90 mph fast ball, or move his hands quickly and expertly enough to hit the ball once he does."
Wow, have you ever had an original thought in your entire worthless life? This mindless crap is being spouted all over the internet by all of Bonds' jock-sniffing apologists. It's such a stupid and easily-defeatable argument that I suspect it must have originated from some mindless commentator drone on Sports Center to justify their celebration of this asterisk-marked event. No, steroids didn't enhance Bonds' reflexes - but they DID enhance his ability to loft all those balls out of the yard. Maybe you should loft Barry's balls out of your mouth long enough to realize that everyone outside of San Fransisco hates his bitch-ass.
Not to mention that we see hundreds of cave drawings of bison and deer and other roaming mammals... yet does anyone find it strange that no caveman decided to draw a HUGE monstrous death machine roaming the lands? I mean, not ONE SINGLE MENTION anywhere in all of human culture until we discovered their bones?
Biblical references to dragons obvious mean sauropods, and the leviathan was clearly a reference to lipleurodon. Jeez, some people!
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
What is being tested is not a 'theory' but a hypothesis. "the upright humans evolved from the tool users" is not a theory but an explanation of certain phenoma using the conceptual framework of a theory (evolutionary theory, theories from paleontology and whatnot).
'Anyway, steroids didn't make Barry Bonds any better at being able to see a 90 mph fast ball, or move his hands quickly and expertly enough to hit the ball once he does.'
Actually they do. Steroids enhance his eye muscles and the muscles in his hands, making him better able to see and giving him precision control of his swing. They don't give him any expert knowledge but hitting or catching a ball is really an instinct not something you study up on.
For the rest of your post, I agree.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Evolution doeesn't work in the way, humans started using tools so we evolved to walk of two feet, the fact that we started walking on two feet was just down to chance and it happened to be really usefull for tool use then it won out due to survival of the fitest.
If there was no shortage of food and resources then there's no reason that the pre-humans that didn't walk on two feet would have died out at all so the two species could have quite happley lived together.
(Sory, the spell checker in firefox has stopped working!)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
According to original article in Nature.
Anagenetic means one type of an organism is a direct descendant of the other type without splitting. Co-existance by definition eliminates that, meaning the individuals that lived at the same time are not descendants of one another but descendants of earlier generations. If you and I are of the same age, I cannot be your father and vice versa, but we still can share the same father, grandfather, etc...
This is is because of the mess with nomenclature which essentially stems from that we do not know if erectus and habilis were not able to mate producing successful progeny. Those guys might very well be Homo Bushus (no pun intended) and Homo Norwegius of that age - of the same human species and all the terminology around it is just Bullus Shitus.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I the infallible, omniscient, and omnipotent Belial6 made the universe 15 seconds ago. Being that I am infallible, my statement must be correct, which proves that it was I, and therefor not you who created the universe. Besides, if you can't even get the age of the universe right, how could you have possibly been the one who created it? See? More evidence to support my statement of fact.
Now where is my beer?
But I shall not post on this article anymore because inevitably the conversation will degrade into drivel of God fearing individuals vs people angry at God, pissing on each other then there will be a couple references to the great spaghetti monster and a few obscure misinterpretations of the Koran and Bible then some fear mongering and finally Godwin's Law takes effect...
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Therefore, I am very interested in the lineage of hominids, fact is fact except when it isn't, but that is where faith comes in (Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see Heb. 11:1). Without the use of one hell of a mirror and a couple wormholes we will never know exactly what happened in the beginning but we can come up with some great theories none of which can possibly preclude a creator be it an omnipotent deity or a clever scientific mind. I would like to think in another life I was an anthropologist.
I do however think it is interesting to see two lines co-existing and really look forward to the research that will come out of this exceptional find. I will have to read more, but what allows this kind of thing to occur, did one migrate away and follow a different evolutionary track and eventually come back? When they did come back did they mingle with the race they found, or did they war with them? Did they have children? Things like this are exciting in that they grant us more evidence to what the truth is. As long as people keep their minds open we will find the truth of our history, even if it is not what we hope for.
And to complete my prophecy in the last post therefore nullifying anything I say here I shall say one horrific statement to all "The Great Spaghetti monster was Hitler".
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Coexistence in no solid way rules out one species evolving from another.
That's right, and it was stated in the article.
There are many instances in which dinosaurs are depicted in the artwork of early man. That dinosaurs and man existed at the same time is uncontestable. Their bones are found in the same layers, and their footprints side by side in the same mud. It's just the way it is.
r t.html
http://www.creationists.org/dinos_artifacts_and_a
Hi all:
It's futile for creationists to find flaws in the theory of evolution in an attempt to promote their own ideas. Even if a flaw (however great it may be) is found, it only follows that evolution is a theory that needs modification and refinement. Ultimately, finding flaws in evolution will never show that God created everything.
Cheers.
B. Pascal.
We all know how religions feel about Homos.
Hi c6runner:
I was wondering about your question of how God came into existence.
First, I made the assumption that "in order for anything to exist, it must be first be created."
Then, I re-examine your question, which was "how God came to exist, if He brought everything into existence?" I concluded that this is a perfectly valid question that shows circular thinking of all who believed that God created the world, so long as the assumption I made above holds.
My question would be, why must that assumption hold? Why must all existence proceed from being created?
What's also interesting is this: the Big Bang theory may explain how every matter and energy came into existence. If that's the case, what existed before the Big Bang? Nothing? Just some "flat" space-time curvature? If so, then what existed before that?
In comparison, I think that being unable to answer "who created God" is just as ridiculous as being unable to answer "what existed before the Big Bang". That's my 2 cents.
Cheers.
B. Pascal
I'm looking forward to the caveman TV series this autumn, although I heard the early reviews were mixed and the network has not yet ordered a full season of episodes yet. I vaguely remember some 1960s TV show about astronauts mixing with cavemen ("Its about Time").
Somewhat ironic from a guy who's nick is drawn from Blaise Pascal :P
Piltdown man
A tooth of a pig drawn into an apeman!
A lie and a fake 5 years by 1927.
Nebraska man
A lie and a fake for 40 years.
By then everyone in the world thought they were from apes.
How did it take 40 years for the scientific community to find it was a clumsy fake?
Javaman (homo erectus)
Discovered by Dr Dubois and he himself declared in 1938 that it was just a monkey (gibbon).
He had found human skulls in the same stratum did not tell anyone for 30 years!
A lie and a fake. He eventually renounced the javaman as a fraud himself.
Peking man
Dr. black discovered it, a tooth and some ashes.
Soon after human remains were found mixed with animal remains. The animal remains were the food of the humans.
Hey but they wanted an apeman! so they grabbed bits of both and made Peking Man!
1972
Richard Leaky
Found a skull that supposedly blew evolution out of the water by 2.5 million years. The only thing left was
Ramapithecus. Just some fragments of jaw bones and some teeth. The same size and shape as a babboon in Ethiopia.
It never has been found and it never will be found a creature that is more than brute and less than human.
Also there is such little evidence for apemen that the amount would not be accepted in any other field of science.
And there's plenty more scientific evidence for the non-existenance of evolution!
(I know this is not what you like to hear, so just score me nothing as usual. Thanks)
I think you're on the right track in terms of trying to understand evolution and God's role in the universe at the same time; however I think it's a mistake to make God a "God of the gaps," merely an explanation for what would otherwise have NO explanation. If God isn't present throughout the process of evolution, then why the long straight road progressing from bacteria to humans? Neodarwinists say it's just an engine fueled by fitness for reproduction and survival. Yet by any reasonable measure, bacteria are far more fit than humans for reproduction and survival. There are definite continuous trends in the lines of descent, such as the reduction of symmetry, and the increase of intelligence. But none of those trends jibe with the neodarwinist theory of it being driven by fitness for reproduction and survival. That fitness is only a constraint within which the evolutionary process must fit. The direction is altogether different. But back to the point, to understand correctly, we should see God's hand in ALL the laws of nature, not just the ones we don't understand yet.
Ofcourse, the whole point is that religion has nothing to do with logic, and couching it in those terms is dishonest in the extreme. If you want to believe that there is a God, feel free. Just don't pretend that your belief has anything to do with logic.
As a sibling poster said, we're different because we can send humans to space using only the tools we build. Now, building those tools - requires advanced planning skills; it won't work if the best thing you can do is pick up a stick and customize it.
Of course, you have to read the book, in order to find out what a 'prediction' is and so on. The book provides a high-level description of the brain's functions, the theory is called MDT - modelling device theory. It can explain many things, such as the point made above, or "what is love?". Well, I hope this was enough to 'touch' you and make you interested in reading the book.
The saddest poem
Hi c6gunner:
I think I didn't make myself clear. What I was trying to say is that the assumption doesn't necessarily hold, and both the Big Bang theory and the belief that God created the everything share the same illogical assumption.
In the same manner, one can say, if you want to believe that the Big Bang started it all, feel free. Just don't pretend that your belief is completely logical.
And finally, I agree, religion is more emotional and experience-based than logic based. Attempts to rationalize religious teachings deny the component of faith.
Cheers.
B. Pascal.
Ok, I'll start off by saying that the original discussion had nothing to do with the Big Bang theory, so you're going off topic here. With that said, there is no comparison between the two explanations. Why? Because the "proof" that God must exist is always one of two things: either a phrase along the lines of "well SOMETHING must have created us", or an appeal to (false) authority in the form of pointing to the bible.
The Big Bang theory on the other hand is backed up by scientific research, and is constantly being revised as we acquire more data. You won't see any scientists saying "well SOMETHING must have created the universe", or "well, in Einstein's book it says that....". That's because the big bang theory was derived from observable phenomena, and is free to change over time, while "faith in God" is a dogmatic belief which can never be either proven, disproved, or made more accurate.
I understand why you think the Big Bang theory is illogical, however, I must point out that this is mainly due to the fact that you have only a very basic understanding of it. If you want a very simple explanation of "what came before the big bang", try here.
In the end, you're right to an extent: for most people, belief in the Big Bang is just as dogmatic as belief in God is for religious people. In this sense, there is very little difference. Fortunately, however, you can go out and study subjects like quantum physics in order to gain a better understanding of the underlying theory, and thereby come to understand the Big Bang in scientific terms. Whereas no matter how hard you study religion, you will never find any scientific evidence for God.