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Evolution of Intelligence More Complex Than Once Thought
palegray.net writes "According to a new article published in Scientific American, the nature of and evolutionary development of animal intelligence is significantly more complicated than many have assumed. In opposition to the widely held view that intelligence is largely linear in nature, in many cases intelligent traits have developed along independent paths. From the article: 'Over the past 30 years, however, research in comparative neuroanatomy clearly has shown that complex brains — and sophisticated cognition — have evolved from simpler brains multiple times independently in separate lineages ...'"
If anyone assumes linearity in complex systems, it only shows they have no clue. In complex systems, linearity is the exception, not the rule.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
This proves that the Intelligent Designer:
- has never been taught of proper design practice and re-use of previous work
- has been sued by the other intelligent designer who built the previous brain for patent infringement and thus couldn't use the same brain but had to built a new one
- is so messy that instead of trying to dig again her/his/its plans of the previous (intelligent) design for brains somewhere under a mountain of junk, restarting everything from scratch is a better alternative
- isn't meticulous and precise enough be succeed making the same brain twice in a row
- is so bored the she/he/it needs to reinvent the wheel every week or so
- has Alzheimer's disease
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'm curious, assuming you really don't "believe in evolution," what do you believe stops it? Leptons and quarks organize themselves into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into amino acids and peptide chains. All of this has been observed in nature or laboratory facsimiles thereof. So what magical force prevents organization from continuing to higher and higher levels, especially once rudimentary feedback loops form?
I've seriously never understood the classical religious position on this stuff. I don't believe it would take a God to steer evolution; based on all available evidence, it would take a God to stop it.
As people who work with computers, we already know that the hard work is never done. What we often forget is that new, exciting changes in our field, whilst just stepping stones, are progress nonetheless.
I wouldn't make any big predictions for the future of our understanding, I think it's many years further off than we all hope. But I am always heartened to hear of progress, and optimism, in the field of scientific advancement.
I am feeling particularly uncynical today. Let's enjoy each new step.
What I don't believe is the "many have assumed" bit.
Parallel evolution is evident in all kinds of animal and plant features. I can't imagine why intelligence would be any different.
I strongly suspect that most evolutionary scientists don't consider these findings to be surprising. Still, it makes a better headline if you pretend it's a shock discovery.
I don't believe it would take a God to steer evolution; based on all available evidence, it would take a God to stop it.
Hence, the bible belt.
. as if following some pre-determined path to a completed, human state.
Or, as if there are a limited number of adequate solutions to the problem 'control a bunch of muscles in order to survive in a three dimensional environment in which other organisms are trying to do the same thing'.
It seems like what we're seeing is that *if* a species randomly goes down the brain route, it'll either die out, or develop a brain very like other brains. Note that many organisms survive very nicely with no brain at all. Where's their "pre-determined path to a completed human state"?
No, it is not. Things of the same type evolving separately, only shows that those traits are successful.
It is also not new. It is pretty obvious that cephalopod and vertebrate brains evolved separately, and that bird and mammal advances over reptiles evolved separately.
So the upshot here is that the intelligence of any given creature is not a function of it's size or age (in evolutionary terms) but is very tightly geared towards the problems it likely faces in it's natural environment.
For example, even a spider can do quite tricky maths in order to work out how to spin a web between arbitrary fixed points, yet is completely flummoxed by even the simplest general knowledge quiz.
So what I want to know is, what was it about human beings that caused us to develop the capacity to drive cars, build computers and walk on the moon?
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
this means the nascent potential evolutionary building blocks for intelligence are widely distributed in species in nature and given a chance will give riser to a smarter brain.
It takes more than a chance - it takes evolutionary pressure. If something's already perfectly adapted to its environment without a brain, then it's unlikely to evolve one. A brain might even reduce the fitness of an organism (by diverting energy that could be better used for other survival/reproduction mechanisms).
Christians do not deny MICRO-evolution. For example, when two different breeds of dog mate, they form something different.
However, we deny that species evolve into other species. For example, fish do not become horses and cats do not become giraffes.
Now I have heard an example of modern evolution that defines a new species like this: suppose you have a fish that is normally green, but occasionally a mutation occurs and a blue fish is born among the green fish. Suppose these fish live near some green coral where the green fish blend in and thus survive more than the blue fish. Then, say that several of the green and blue fish migrate away from that area several miles to where there happens to be a lot of blue coral. Now, the green fish die off and the blue fish survive. Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred. I call that a convenient definition to suit evolutionist agenda. Utterly ridiculous.
I have a hard time accepting evolution in general due to the wild leaps it makes. For instance, Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins about the origins of life in the universe and the possibility of intelligent design. The best answer that a practiced scientist and atheist can give on the spot is that some higher form of life evolved and then populated the earth with life. That is, aliens evolved & put life on earth. But, the aliens themselves would have had to evolved through some natural process. THAT is his answer to intelligent design. He answered NOTHING, but merely moved the issue to another planet. It is circular reasoning. I simply do not understand this die-hard attitude towards something that many reputable scientists have abandoned and continue to abandon to this day.
For reference, the interview with Mr. Dawkins is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc&feature=related
You kid, but this is pretty good support for the intelligent design theory. Here we have multiple organisms evolving human traits independently... as if following some pre-determined path to a completed, human state.
Wrong, unless that "completed, human state" also looks like a super-intelligent squid capable of toppling the feeble empires of man.
The only reason there isn't a super-intelligent, man-eating squid race is because we beat the squids by a few evolutionary epochs, and their ancestors (who are currently living but less than super-intelligent) will probably go extinct before they have a chance to grow a better brain and develop an oceanic civilization of their own.
But rest assured, I'm sure they would have hypothesized an intelligent designer of their own. Only their intelligent designer would have tentacles on its face, and he would live under aquatic heat vents in heaven while sending the unfaithful to those hellish clouds way above the water.
However, we deny that species evolve into other species. For example, fish do not become horses and cats do not become giraffes.
Do you understand the idea behind "common ancestors?" Nobody has ever claimed that fish become horses and other such absurdities. Burning a straw man without an EPA permit is likely to result in a hefty fine, unless, I guess, if you do it out in the middle of the desert.
You are aware that speciation -- divergence of one species into two incompatible ones -- has been demonstrated, right? What barriers do you propose might exist that prevent one ancestral population from diverging into two arbitrarily-different ones? Be specific.
I'm curious, assuming you really don't "believe in evolution," what do you believe stops it? Leptons and quarks organize themselves into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into amino acids and peptide chains.
I dropped a petitde chain this morning the size of a small baryonic particle. At one point, I wasn't sure if I was taking physics, or if the physics was taking me. And while I'm on that point, what's the deal with studying physics? Shouldn't it be physically studying? I'm certainly not taking anything with me when I'm done.
But back on topic, that dude's argument didn't make any sense, so why did you even respond?
Let's try the alternative:
Comparative neuroanatomy findings indicate that all the various animals have identical brains that evolved identically, and that they all operate on a single function through a single pathway.
I could go on but I'm not going to page through the article to pick at it more, and in so doing satisfy their click-through quota.
I used to really like the old, stodgy, stuffy SciAm. It said what it meant clearly and didn't end up with an oral-pedal inversion by trying to say more than was warranted, or that it felt it had to pump up with hype in the name of market share.
I like the new SciAm too, but I liked it better when it was called OMNI.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
As I've wrote before (f*cking IEEE paywall):
"Convergent evolution is one of the most impressive concepts of Darwinian thought. As stated in the literature, "It is all the more striking a testimony to the power of natural selection that numerous examples can be found in real nature, in which independent lines of evolution appear to have converged, from very different starting points, on what looks very like the same endpoint" [Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker, p. 94]. Eyesight is a good example of a remarkable biological tool that has appeared independently many times. For instance, the octopus' eye has evolved from a line independent of our lineage, and there are records of some 40 such "parallel" lines of evolution leading to the development of eyes [L. F. Land, "Optics and vision in invertebrates," in Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII, H. Autrum, Ed. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1980, pp. 471-592]."
However, we deny that species evolve into other species. For example, fish do not become horses and cats do not become giraffes.
Fish and horses are quite a bit more than a species apart. That doesn't just require speciation (what you Christians call "maroevolution"), but it requires the jumping of genus, family, order, perhaps more depending on your comparison.
There is not one single science paper stating that this happens. Nobody says "Fish become horses". This is a typical creationist (read: Christian) misstatement and misunderstanding. It shows you really don't know what evolution means or says.
Now I have heard an example of modern evolution that defines a new species like this: suppose you have a fish that is normally green, but occasionally a mutation occurs and a blue fish is born among the green fish. Suppose these fish live near some green coral where the green fish blend in and thus survive more than the blue fish. Then, say that several of the green and blue fish migrate away from that area several miles to where there happens to be a lot of blue coral. Now, the green fish die off and the blue fish survive. Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred. I call that a convenient definition to suit evolutionist agenda. Utterly ridiculous.
That is what is known as speciation. This is when one species becomes two. Again, what you Christians call "macroevolution", or evolution of one species into another. What you have described above is evolution... you have random mutation (your blue fish), natural selection (the green coral environment and the predators within), genetic isolation (a group of these fish move to a different environment), natural selection once again (the blue coral environment and its predators), and this results in speciation (the green and blue are separate and will no longer breed with one another).
One species is now two. Evolution. Now, do this process six-hundred-million times.
I have a hard time accepting evolution in general due to the wild leaps it makes. For instance, Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins about the origins of life in the universe and the possibility of intelligent design. The best answer that a practiced scientist and atheist can give on the spot is that some higher form of life evolved and then populated the earth with life. That is, aliens evolved & put life on earth. But, the aliens themselves would have had to evolved through some natural process. THAT is his answer to intelligent design. He answered NOTHING, but merely moved the issue to another planet. It is circular reasoning. I simply do not understand this die-hard attitude towards something that many reputable scientists have abandoned and continue to abandon to this day.
Yes, that is Dawkins' answer to Intelligent Design. This is not a reference to anything pertaining to evolution. Stein asked how ID could be applied to science, and the ONLY way is if alien life (intelligent) seeded Earth (design). Why is this the only answer? Because a deity is not science. Your God is not scientifically verifiable. Therefore it (and anything pertaining to it... your Bible, creationism, cdesign proponentists, etc.) cannot be a scientific answer to anything.
And for further reference, Stein was referring to life on Earth, not life in "the universe", something that IDists do not believe in either.
"Who modded this informative? Whoever it is must've been smokin' some of that martian pot!"
Sure, I could tell *you* knew what you were talking about. But if you're not precise with your words, the ID crowd get funny ideas.
I always figured one day humans would evolve into machines, and machines would continue to evolve.
But Vista changed my opinion about that.
That's actually true, isn't it? Fish -> amphibians -> reptiles -> mammals.
Sure it's true. It's true in the same way that you can go from California to Brazil to the UK to Japan. You're simply leaving out the travel time and stops in between, and quite often that is more important than the destinations.
"Who modded this informative? Whoever it is must've been smokin' some of that martian pot!"
Go tell that to him, but he won't be happy.
Disclaimer: he doesn't shoot the bearer of bad tidings, but he will eat his soul.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Everything is more complicated than you assumed. Even when you take this into account.
Note that many organisms survive very nicely with no brain at all.
Commence republicans/neocons jokes in 3... 2... 1...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_disorders note:
# C - Whole chromosome extra, missing, or both - see chromosomal aberrations
# T - Trinucleotide repeat disorders - gene is extended in length
Anyway, I will ask you a simple question if we build a device to directly view the past and you can watch over billions of years as life evolves as scientists thought it did, and see the most interesting thing Jesus did was starting a cult. Would you still believe in God?
What barriers do you propose might exist that prevent one ancestral population from diverging into two arbitrarily-different ones?
If an individual strays too far genetically, God drops a rock on it.
Maybe clever creatures get too clever for their own good, such as putting brain-good before gene-good. ie: a smart male praying mantis may avoid murderous females.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
There is not one single science paper stating that this happens. Nobody says "Fish become horses". This is a typical creationist (read: Christian) misstatement and misunderstanding. It shows you really don't know what evolution means or says.
Please don't pidgeonhole all Christians under the Creationist camp. There are many Christians that are not diametrically opposed to evolutionary theory. Rather, we see the creation story in Genesis to be allegorical and poetic, instead of trying to place it under textbook scrutiny.
If you think the Bible is just poetry (which it is, at best) you shouldn't call yourself a Christian.
More intelligence isn't always useful to reproduce better, which is what matters for evolution.
A bird that is born with a better brain that allows it to realize that it can pick a sharp rock and bash it against an egg with a hard shell to break it has an advantage: it now has more food available to it. It will be healthier (or survive) and will be more likely to reproduce.
A cat born with a brain that allows it to realize that if it could perform the necessary operations it could build mousetraps to catch mice isn't any better off. In fact it's probably worse off due to being depressed after realizing that an improvement is possible but it physically can't do what would be required due to cat paws being useless for the job, and having a larger brain that takes more energy for no benefit.
Same thing for humans. A brain that makes you a supremely good programmer isn't terribly good at attracting women, especially when using that extra ability involves withdrawing from society to get things done.
.
Hardly, more like
Proto-fish
Intermediate fish . Proto-amphibian
Intermediate fish . Intermediate-amphibian . Proto-Reptile
Intermediate fish . Intermediate-amphibian . Intermediate-Reptile . Proto-Mammal
__ Current Fish _ . __ Current Amphibian _ . __ Current Reptile _ . _ Current Mammal
.
Most modern fish are as far from the common ancestor as modern amphibians, reptiles, and mammals; barring archae that live in relatively unchanging, low mutation ecologies.
Note that many organisms survive very nicely with no brain at all.
I'm tired of you people picking on Bush. It's over for crying out loud.
Technically, murder-suicide does not violate the golden rule.
As Dawkins himself answers here, the entire question at that point was nonsensical. Stein was asking a man who emphatically believes that Intelligent Design is nonsense to construct a scenario in which Intelligent Design might have happened. And as ID proponents so often point out when asked about the religious implications of their position, "they're not necessarily talking about a deity." Well, what does that leave, apart from aliens? The entire exchange in question is basically a believer getting a scientist to describe Intelligent Design's own belief structure, and then crucifying him because he didn't mention God. It's ID that's nonsensical, Dawkins was merely repeating your own words back to you.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
- is just another damn Perl hacker and enjoys exploring different ways of accomplishing the same thing.
FTFY.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Where's the paradox? The dumber you are, the more you need to reproduce for your genes to survive.
Smart genes can survive on half a child per parent.
We're constantly being told that scientists have it all hammered-out; they know all there is to know. About everything.
By whom?
If that's the case why don't all the scientists pack it in and do something else?
Fact is, science distinguishes itself from religion by NOT having it all hammered out. There's always more to find out.
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
I don't think that word means what you think it means. (Or rather what the word "races" meant at the time.)
Here is a rebuttal against accusations of Darwin being a racist.
Actually I don't know what he believed about non-white humans, but none of it would make him wrong about evolution.
Yes yes, and Newton was a mystic and an alchemist, but that doesn't mean we should abandon calculus and classical physics. We don't dismiss all of psychology because of the quirks of Freud and Jung.
The map is not the territory. The part is not the whole. Evolution is not "Darwinism", relativity isn't "Einsteinism", and physics isn't "Newtonism". But engaging in an ad-hominem attack on a man centuries dead is sheer "Bozoism".
The parent post didn't say he/she thought the whole Bible was just allegorical or poetic; just the creation story as found in Genesis. There are plenty of us Christians who believe that the creation story told in Genesis is simply a simplistic retelling of what happened. For example, the 6 days (+1 of rest) are not actually 24 hours or 1000 years are anything like that - they simply represent periods of time, which could have been millions or billions of years.
Further, a belief like creatio ex nihilo, for example, is not Biblical. It takes some serious stretching of scripture to argue that point. The clearest reference to it is in 2 Maccabees, which is not generally considered canonical scripture by most Christians.
In any case, you can accept parts of the Bible as allegorical or poetical (although I'd argue that those are very few) without accepting the whole Bible as allegorical or poetic. I do not believe the creation story is simply allegorical or poetic, I just believe that it is not a fully accurate description of what happened (however, it's no more simplistic than most textbook descriptions of evolution - the issue is much more complex than can be described in a few sentences).
So the bible is fact until science disproves some part of it, at which point you can simply decide that that part is just metaphorical and thus is still correct by some interpretation.
Genesis is not a retelling of anything. It is just as truthful as the Australian Aboriginal "Dream Time" and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's story of drunken creation.
1178161 is prime...
Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred.
So, here we have two different varieties of fish that look different, have different genes, and cannot inter-breed. Species is a classification system that is subjective in nature, so there is no truly objective definition of whether they are two different species, but where would you draw the line? What else would need to happen before you could say they were different species?
The hard part is this; When you say I believe in microevolution but not macroevolution, you are really saying "I believe in evolution, but with some exceptions". The broader your definition of species is (I.E. the more differences that are needed to declare something a new species), the fewer exceptions you are allowing. The narrower your definition, the more exceptions you are allowing (and the more credit you are giving to a god), but also the more difficult it is to make a claim that hasn't already been disproved.
I have a hard time accepting evolution in general due to the wild leaps it makes. For instance, Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins about the origins of life in the universe and the possibility of intelligent design. The best answer that a practiced scientist and atheist can give on the spot is that some higher form of life evolved and then populated the earth with life. That is, aliens evolved & put life on earth. But, the aliens themselves would have had to evolved through some natural process. THAT is his answer to intelligent design.
In this interview, Richard Dawkins was asked for a scenario in which ID would be feasible. He answered "Aliens" because the theory that a god existed seemed unfeasible to him. But of course, if you believe in a god, then he is an alien. Dawkins merely repeated ID's claim and suggested an answer to the question "where did god come from".
If you want to criticize Richard Dawkins for having ridiculous ideas, then please criticize him for the moments in which he describes his own beliefs, not yours.
Oh how I wish it were possible to have a discussion of biology on Slashdot without discussing mythology. Having to explain/defend the basic principles of evolution over and over to the the hordes of deliberately miseducated really is a tiring exercise.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Hah, man was made in gods image, aliens weren't! Time for some intergalactic space crusades.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Same thing for humans. A brain that makes you a supremely good programmer isn't terribly good at attracting women, especially when using that extra ability involves withdrawing from society to get things done.
If you have to withdraw from society to get things done, then perhaps you're not as great a programmer as you think you are. The qualities that make a good programmer are in no way incompatible with getting on in society.
The qualities that make a good programmer - abstract thought, application, problem solving, general geekery - have always been useful in society. People look to you for inventions and solutions, and are willing to pay for it.
The 'programmer' in a prehistoric tribe, might be the guy who realised you could throw spears further by flinging with a curved stick... or the guy who realised you could herd mammoths into a gulley to trap them. Their tribe would definitely be interested in keeping that person around, so they'd be high up in the pecking order when it came to sharing out food, drink and shelter.
So being useful tends to keep you alive, healthy and wealthy. All terrific things to look for in a mate.
Once you do reproduce, your kids are more likely to survive and reproduce themselves, because you've earned privilege which you pass on to them. Better food, better education.
(I'm imagining all this in a prehistoric setting - but I think it applies right up to the present day.)
Geeks are not extinct. Guess why not? Because being clever is a good survival strategy.
Other good survival strategies include being physically strong, or just breeding a lot. Homo Sapiens exhibits those too. I'm not judging!
evolutionist agenda
Huh? What agenda is that? What really bothers me about religious thought is that they (you?) see everything in terms of agendas. Because religious people have no method for understanding whether something is true or not but only an understanding of competing faiths, they see science as merely a competing faith. Well, it's not. It is a method for refining the understanding of data, improving knowledge, repeatedly analysing and perfecting what we know. There is no agenda. There is only a search for truth.
Of course, that's the ideal. In practice we're all human, filled with petty pride and whatnot, and politics comes up in science too. But no matter what the politics, the fact remains that truth can be tested. Science works.
But compare that with religion. You have a set of "truths"--things that are not subject to investigation. If you don't believe that Jesus or Mohammad or Hermes is the true messenger of God(s), you are cast out from the circle of people who have chosen--CHOSEN--to believe some nonsense. Based not on reason, but on a hunch. In the intellectual world of religions, the best you can ever hope for is to make an argument based on wishful thinking. Science could show you which variety of Christianity or Islam or Zoroastrianism or Hinduism or whatnot is correct, but of course admitting the possibility of finding out that truth is never admitted, for obvious reasons.
There is NO AGENDA. Science seeks truth. Religion simply declares it. If there's an agenda, it is getting all those religious morons to understand the difference between data and wishful thinking.
. That is, aliens evolved & put life on earth. But, the aliens themselves would have had to evolved through some natural process. THAT is his answer to intelligent design. He answered NOTHING, but merely moved the issue to another planet. It is circular reasoning.
Huh. That seems odd. You're right--that's circular reasoning, and has no place in science (at least the version you presented; if Dawkins did the same thing you're right to be shocked). But of course, religious people perpetrate a more extreme version of the same thing: remove "aliens" and insert "god". Who created the universe? Who created Man? Which is more likely to have come about naturally and to put an end to this loop of "A created B": a simpler life form that somehow evolved naturally, or a life form at one time capable of breathing universes into existence (but now strangely capable of miracles on the order of drawing a picture of the Virgin Mary on a grilled-cheese sandwich)? Which is a more sensible hypothesis?
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I'm a baptized, confirmed, signed, sealed, and approved Christian. It's my culture. A lot of it is pure voodoo, but there are some decent messages buried in there. Big man in the sky? Probably not. It looks to me like we're on our own, but I'll still put an angel on my tree, thanks.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with the bible basher on this one. I'm pretty sure if you're to claim you're a Christian, you need to believe at least:
All the other stuff, I think you can be flexible about. But that bullet list - you need that to be Christian. I know it all looks a bit unlikely. That's why it amazes me there's so many of them.
Now, I was brought up in a Welsh Presbyterian tradition (which doesn't the fundamentalist connotations it may have in the US) and like you, despite not believing in the mumbo jumbo aspects, I hold 'Christian values' dear - love thy neighbour, turn the other cheek, all that good stuff. I have a star atop my Christmas tree. But I'm still an atheist.
You, since you don't believe in a "big man in the sky", are either an atheist, an agnostic, or an "it's a bit more complicated than that". If anyone asks again.
Why don't Republicans believe in Evolution?
Because the first generation in their sample was Abraham Lincoln. The last was George W. Bush.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
I'm sorry but you are wrong. There is no legislative body with any true authority that can deem you a real Christian or not, no matter how hard they may try.
I'm pretty sure that by definition, anyone who tries to live by the teachings of Christ is free to call themselves a Christian. This is regardless of whether or not they live by all of them, or live by the rules of the religion his ideology grew out of.
Just splitting hairs. But I think it's important because otherwise you set up a polarizing environment, where you think all Christians actually believe everything you listed.
Some of them just want Christ Consciousness. You know, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek.
I'm atheistic/apatheistic/agnostic, whatever you want to call it, but I've never understood why anyone would say that proving evolution (via your device to view it in action) would prove god/gods doesn't/don't exist.Likewise, I don't understand people on the flip-side who think that somehow believing in evolution is contrary to believing in god/gods.
The only thing proof of or belief in evolution would indicate is that the literal interpretation of the Bible is false. That's it. Trying to push it and say that evolution disproves god is illogical - it just disproves a particular tale of how a god or gods might have created things. A particular tale, I might add, that only *recently* has been believed by anyone to be anything but a bunch of metaphor and allegory for various events, concepts etc.
The whole "evolution denies god!" or "evolution disproves god!" argument is just flat-out stupid. It's like saying that the existence of apples demonstrates conclusively that super-string theory is false, or that Newton's laws of motion prove conclusively that unicorns don't exist. The two arguments have nothing to do with each other, except that some people use tortured logic to try and connect them in some kind of meaningful way.
By the way - Georges Lemaitre, the father of the big bang theory (though he didn't call it that)? Catholic priest and, one imagines, quite the believer in god in addition to being a half-decent physicist. I guess he didn't get the memo about the bible being literal truth...
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
The Council that put together the Bible 200 years or so after Christ's birth, debated hotly which books went into it. The whole Old Testament was included for chiefly two reasons*
1. Some (not nearly all), wanted to include any OT book that seemed to have a prophecy of Jesus's coming, so that Christians could see that He met all the tests.
2. Some wanted all the Jewish laws in every copy of the Bible, so that Christians could see what laws Jesus was talking about when he spoke about living not by the law but by every breath which comes from the Mouth of God, and other such things.
While there were some people who favored a third reason, genuinely believing that God wanted all Christians to keep to all the OT rules, they actually were far, far short of a majority. Paul's writings on circumcision seemed to have already clarified that point to most.
Some of the council didn't want parts or even any of the OT. The resolution to cut it to just the five books of the Torah narrowly failed. Some felt that any Christians who wanted copies of what became the OT for their church should just make those on their own, as they were of the opinion that only churches with a large Jewish convert membership would want to go to the extra expense.
This same process happened with the New Testament. Some Gospels were excluded because they seemed to disagree with others, some were taken as true but left off the list just because they didn't add all that much to the first four. There was a debate about whether four was enough, or too many, and it ended up being settled by an argument that four was the number God must have wanted, since He made so many 4's in nature, such as the four classical Greek elements. (And half a dozen attendees wrote home saying that the argument was silly, but since enough people bought it that the council could move on to the next point, it was probably OK). There were lots of Revelations, and the council picked one that seemed best, but some of the ones they left out were believed to be doctrinally OK, just too long to add to an already huge book that the council was going to urge every church to get a copy of.
I have tried to keep the two commandments as Christ gave them, and I hope that Paul was right when he said 'the greatest of these is charity', for those times that faith and hope have seemed far away. I do not see how it is possible to be a Christian while denying the existence of God, but I have every hope that, if the first AC has tried earnestly to love his neighbor as himself, he just might make it through the needle's eye.
*As various of the members themselves said, in letters back to the churches that had sent them. These are letters of record, both ones found by modern archaeological digs and ones that have been in the Vatican's collections for centuries. Even if the latter may include forgeries and such, the people who have studied these have done real science to weed most of those out. It's extremely unlikely, for example, that anyone planted a forged letter in the Vatican's collection in, say, the 12th century, and then bothered to plant copies with the Ethiopian Coptic Church or the Eastern Orthodox churches too.
Who is John Cabal?
I'm pretty sure that by definition, anyone who tries to live by the teachings of Christ is free to call themselves a Christian. This is regardless of whether or not they live by all of them, or live by the rules of the religion his ideology grew out of.
Well, that's two of you, and I guess there might be plenty more. I'm surprised I must say - in 35 years this is the first time I've been exposed to what seems to a mainstream tendency to describe yourself as 'Christian' despite not believing in, you know, the basic tenets of Christianity. You live and learn.
Just splitting hairs. But I think it's important because otherwise you set up a polarizing environment, where you think all Christians actually believe everything you listed.
It only becomes polarised if you think that all non-Christians don't believe in the good stuff. The being a good person bit.
By reserving the Christian label for people who believe in the Christian faith, you can demonstrate that the rest of us are decent people too. I bet if you tell a real Christian that you're Christian, they're going to assume, as I would, that you believe all the God/Hell/Heaven/Sin stuff.
Some of them just want Christ Consciousness. You know, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek.
There's already a perfectly good phrase to describe that kind of person "decent human beings". You don't need Christ to be a decent human being (though he did create some catchy slogans). Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. all manage to love their neighbours and turn the other cheek.
Evolution theory does not require that a new species be introduced in a single generation. The theory contends that small genetic changes from one generation to the next accumulate over time, eventually giving rise to a new species. At every point, organisms from any given generation could produce fertile progeny with members of several previous and several subsequent generations. But, if genetic lines are allowed to diverge enough, at some point the accumulation of genetic differences would provide infertile offspring or no offspring at all.
If, on the other hand, this creationist argument is correct and evolution theory is flawed, this would suggest that different species should not be able to breed at all. If two separate species since the beginning of time could never produce fertile progeny, it would be very surprising if there were an example of two species that could produce hybrid offspring of any kind regardless of that offspring's ability to reproduce. Unfortunately for the creationist, this argument offers no explanation for the existence of the mule or the many other sterile cross-species hybrids.
Addressing the micro- vs. macro-evolution argument as a whole is easily done. The taxonomic categorization of organisms is a construct defined by people. It is not reasonable to presume without evidence that there exists some cellular mechanism that prevents genetic mutations with regard for human-created taxonomies. Once one admits that evolution occurs within a species, it naturally follows that mutations could conceivably accumulate to any degree without regard for species or any other invented taxonomic boundary.
Conversely, discounting macro-evolution while accepting micro-evolution is tantamount to the belief that, inside every cell, there exists a mechanism that prevents mutations which would give rise to offspring if that offspring could not produce fertile progeny with not just its parents' generation, but its grandparents', great-grandparents', etc, all the way back to the beginning of life itself. There is no logic or scientific research that supports such a conclusion.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
So, if given the right, who would they have voted for in the previous election?
"Now I have heard an example of modern evolution that defines a new species like this: suppose you have a fish that is normally green, but occasionally a mutation occurs and a blue fish is born among the green fish. Suppose these fish live near some green coral where the green fish blend in and thus survive more than the blue fish. Then, say that several of the green and blue fish migrate away from that area several miles to where there happens to be a lot of blue coral. Now, the green fish die off and the blue fish survive. Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred. I call that a convenient definition to suit evolutionist agenda. Utterly ridiculous."
Personally, I'd liken that to breeds in dogs, rather than species, if the only thing that's changed is the color to suit an environmental issue. But, it's a helpful jumping off point, so let's push it a bit further and perhaps you'll get a visit from the clue fairy.
The two populations of fish have split off - green and blue. Let's fall them family 1 and family 2.
Family 1 stays by that coral - green fish survive, blue ones die. Family 2 moves off to the blue coral where blue fish live, green ones die.
Now, let's say there is some kind of infestation/earthquake/algal bloom or whatever that ruins family 1's coral, kills it off. F1 now splits again - F11 and F12. F11 is comprised of members that try to make a go of it staying at the coral, and let's say that F11 is mostly made of individuals who are big enough to make predators think twice about attacking them. F12 is mostly made of smaller members who move to a new environment, one in which their small size is an asset to avoiding predators, let's say it's a cave system.
F11 members - the biggish ones that resist predators through size - continue to "breed for size" (of course, they don't know this, it's just that the ones that live long enough to breed are the bigger ones). Over time, they become substantially larger than their old F1 ancestors - and food becomes scarce by the coral source. So some members of F11 - the ones who can range over larger distances for food, let's call them F112 - start to spread out over larger and larger distances to find food. The ones maybe some are more efficient at hoovering up plankton or algae (bigger mouths, maybe slightly more efficient stomachs, whatever) - they become F1121. Others are maybe a little more aggressive and instead of going after nutrients from plants, they actually go after smaller fish that eat plants - so they swallow those little fish and their guts rip up the little fish, releasing the plants the little fish ate (let's call these predators F1122). The F1121's keep on getting bigger, more effective at hoovering up plankton and stuff like that, and more able to just roam for VERY long distances to get their daily meal. So we have F1121 - gigantic vegetarians capable of covering huge distances.
The aggressive ones, the F1122's, something interesting happens to them... One batch (F11221) has a bit of a less discerning gut, one that happens to derive nutrition not just from the plants released from their prey, but also maybe a little bit from the blood of that prey that gets released. At first it's not much, but the ones who are able to do that trick well wind up being just a little more efficient than the ones who can't, and soon F11221's have gotten to the point where they're also able to digest the meat from their prey which is MUCH more efficient than digesting the plants. So F11221's have become basically carnivorous.
The F11222's are the F1122's that aren't as maneuverable. They prefer shallower waters like those nearer to land. They still eat plants, but lots of the plants are on the surface of the water, and some of these guys, it turns out, are able to pull some oxygen from air (not a lot, just a little, just enough to let them stay on the surface eating plants a little longer
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Well...as soon as the Protoss bring in their Templars, I'm quite sure humanity won't stand a chance anymore ;P .
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
A while, but almost two thousand years less than your use of "Gallileo" (which is spelled wrong and should be "Copernicus" anyway if you are looking for the person who reintroduced heliocentrism to the Christian West in the Renaissance) in the subject suggests that you think it took.
"Center of intelligence on Earth" doesn't even make sense.
Not "anyone" that knew much about what the word "random" means.
....Probably - over a few hundred million years.....
Probably is a statistical word. Do you have an idea what the probability is that a fish can evolve into a horse? I'll give you a hint. Your probability of winning next 23 consecutive lotteries is significantly higher than that a fish will evolve into a horse. The probability of another planet existing in the universe that can support intelligent life is about the same. Mathematicians consider any probability less than about 1 in 10^-42 equal to zero.
All theory is gray
If I were a Christian, I would hate you and see you as an incredibly bad person.
If you were a Christian, you would love him, you would fear for his mortal soul, and you would pray for him regularly.
The fish that had descendants that were some fish and some amphibians were very different from both sets of their descendants. (This isn't required, but that's how it happened.)
During the evolution of amphibians into reptiles, there existed many intermediate species, that if they still survived today would cause classification problems. That one was a transition with lots of intermediate steps. Lots of the transition species still survive, but they tend to get grouped into "amphibian". Salamanders aren't that similar to frogs... But then consider the Axotyl, which is almost an intermediate between an amphibian and a fish. (It generally never passes from the "tadpole" stage to the adult stage...but instead becomes a sexually active "child". So it never turns into an air-breather, even though it looks more like a lizard.)
If you doubt evolution, then you are merely displaying your evidence unless you have a different explanation for millions of disparate pieces of evidence. You could be displaying skepticism, but only if you also doubt all competing theories.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If you think the Bible is just poetry (which it is, at best) you shouldn't call yourself a Christian.
The only condition to classify oneself as a Christian is the belief that Christ died on the cross to forgive our sins and give us everlasting life. That's it. I am also a Christian who happens to believe in evolution and I take the Bible very loosely rather than literally. I believe that the Bible was inspired by God and not the literal word of God, because the latter can't be written into any human dialect. You lose something in the translation.
I do have friends who believe the universe was literally created in seven days, and I happen to think that is ludicrous (and impossible, since days are measured in units of rotations of the earth, which hadn't been created yet). So whether a "day" to God is a microsecond or a millennium, it doesn't matter to me. When I read "God said 'let there be light'", I read it as "God made the Big Bang". When I read that God created Adam from dust, I read it as "God set evolution in motion from the primordial soup and eventually humans came into being."
Believe me, fundamentalists who say that the earth is 6000 years old or that dinosaurs never existed annoy me as much as they do you, but to say that I'm less of a Christian for taking the Bible as words of inspiration rather than literal truth is flat out incorrect.
John McCain, of course, because he's a fat cat himself and gives free room and board to another cat. And then there's this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wguQGP4p-Dk
Were the first fish of which you speak fish, or were they not fish? If they were, then by your own admission I was right; fish evolved into amphibians. If they weren't, why did you call them fish?
Did I say otherwise? You, along with several others, seem to have have read a "direct" or "overnight" or "in one step" where none was written. Also, you said some fish had offspring that were amphibians. Why then did some amphibians not have offspring that were reptiles? If one transition happened through intermediates, why not the other?
What possible grounds do you have for that accusation?
Assuming I wished to disprove evolution (which I don't, anyone with a room temeprature IQ in centigrade could work that out) what else would one do with evidence? Hide it? Compase a symphony about it? Make it into a soufflé?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The probability that a fish species can evolve into a horse species can only be 1 or 0, since it either can or it can't (hint: it's not zero). However the probability that a fish species will evolve into a horse species is quite small, but again not zero. Also, since we don't have the technology to accurately observe extrasolar planets, we have no idea the likelihood that other planets could support intelligent life; however, given the size of the universe, I would expect it to actually be fairly large that there is at least one other planet similar to ours.
If someone claiming to be God knocked on the door of your dwelling, what evidence would such a person have to provide to convince you that such claim was true? If you slam the door in such a person's face and they came in anyway, right through the wall, what other evidence would you require?
That's the weirdest question I've ever been asked. Let's face it, it's never going to happen.
I can't think of any conjuring trick that would convince me - walking through a wall is hardly on a par with, you know, creating the whole universe.
But presumably an omnipotent being, who wanted to, could simply rewire my brain to make me believe anything he wanted me to believe.
That is an irrational answer. He's basically saying that if God seeded life on earth, then science would therefore become useless for understanding that life. He's as bad as the worst of the creationists. He's co-opting and perverting science to support his emotion-based belief system -- in his case the belief in the non-existence of God.
You can get to the Atlantic from Chicago by boat, so I want to agree. On the other hand, Chicago really isn't really part of an oceanic coast is it?
If you think the Bible is just poetry (which it is, at best) you shouldn't call yourself a Christian.
I think you're not qualified to decide who get to call themselves Christians. After all, that's one of the few things where the truth really is decided on popular vote... Only the worst fundamentalist christians believes that all the christians that believe differently from them are not Real Christians(tm).