Because God created Darwin.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]DunnJH4 wrote:
Back to the original post, I agree with Honest Lifter. I constantly research(read) on the subject, but don’t believe I have read a good case for that often asked question. Humans do seem to have arrived almost by accident. Even looking back a branch or two in the evolutionary tree, Homo Erectus or whatever humanoid you want to use seemed largely disadvantaged against the world. Especially when it didn’t have the ability to use language or even complex tools. Without some form of society, an individual’s intelligence means little. Alone, it is mostly physical traits that seperate the prey and predators. What did the early human types do before they figured out spears, fire, and the like? I am constantly in awe that we have made it this far without fangs, claws, shells, or immense physical strength.
Considering evolution supposedly functions primarily via random mutations, it seems a lot like our evolution had some type of guiding hand along the way…[/quote]
Basically you put forth a version of the strong anthropic principle which is not quite a fallacy but assumes too much.
The very fact that you can even pose such questions already presupposes a universe where we made it this far.
It is true that we had quite a good run in the last few hundred thousand years, but that does not necessarly mean that this world was made for us, only that we were the lucky ones to profit from mutations more than most… so far.
If things had been only slightly different maybe intelligent rats would praise their very rat like creator or make very ratopocentric arguments.
[/quote]
if i am understanding you correctly, you are saying that we made it this far, so somehow we survived through the time before we had brains that could process like they do. if that is what you are saying, than that would be circular logic at best and doesn’t do justice to the original question.
Because much like Charlie, humans are wildcards.
Video related:
[quote]orion wrote:
No, but it pretty much “proves” that you are an ape.
A monkey without a tail that evolved in the rainforest.
In related news, you are also a mammal and a vertebrate.
[/quote]
Actually, I think you are wrong. Evolutionary theory holds that both apes and man descended from a common ancestor. Meaning man is not a descendant of apes, more of a cousin. At least according to a recent PBS show. But your assertion, especially of a proven fact, is incorrect.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
No, but it pretty much “proves” that you are an ape.
A monkey without a tail that evolved in the rainforest.
In related news, you are also a mammal and a vertebrate.
[/quote]
Actually, I think you are wrong. Evolutionary theory holds that both apes and man descended from a common ancestor. Meaning man is not a descendant of apes, more of a cousin. At least according to a recent PBS show. But your assertion, especially of a proven fact, is incorrect.[/quote]
I wrote “prove” because science is not able to “prove” anything.
Also, PBS is lying, we are apes.
Apes started eating psychodelic mushrooms; and through this they became aware of their ultimate mortality. To compensate for the fact that they knew they would eventually die, they sought to boost their self-esteem by creating and performing better than their predecessors.
I have a couple points to make:
First, in terms of survival of the fittest, I don’t think humans are anywhere near the best on the earth. I would say insects, bacteria, viruses, rats, rabbits, est. are all miles ahead of us in terms of populations and genetic survivability.
Second, not only are we not alone in social structure and organization, in terms of life on the earth, I don’t even think we do it that well. Look at ants and bees and rats and prairie dogs and on and on and on. Hell, I doubt we are even in the top ten in terms of productive and viable social structure. On a lot of levels our social structures facilitate wars, and genocide, and disease, not to mention things like dependence.
Which brings me to point 3, since when does technology make us superior? If anything I see technology building dependence and laziness. If anything I think it truly weakens the actual biological human. I guess the general rebuttal would be but we have better quality of life, but I think its really the opposite. Do you really think the average person is happier because they watch tv rather than read a book? Do you think we as humans are superior to the humans of the 1950s because we have better technology? I see technology as a de-evolution of the biological human. Certainly if you believe in evolution you have to see medical advancements as biological de-evolution (Iâ??m not arguing morals here or taking sides).
Lastly, I’d like to poke some wholes in the good old intellect. I don’t think is a survival tool at all. In fact, quite the opposite. In the grand scheme of things its probably more a hindrance once certain mental capacities are surpassed. I kind of think that ease of survivability for our ancestors lead to increased intelligence, not so much the other way around. I actually find that our higher intelligence makes us less rational. Our “superior” brains are what give us emotions, and lead to irrational decision as seen often in both love and hatred. Our brains are what allow us to feel sorry for ourselves, to choose to mistreat ourselves, whether through neglect, debauchery, or suicide. It allows for depression and schizophrenia and all manner of hosts of mental illness. It gives rise to the pursuit of pleasure as unrelated and often opposed to survival and physical well being.
Not to go all preachy, but I really see our big brains as evidence of a hand in the genetic soup.
Also, if you disagree and think people are rational, I have some suggested reading.
Itâ??s interesting stuff.
[quote]orion wrote:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_8.htm[/quote]
I seem to remember PBS saying that more recent discoveries date human ancestors much older than initially thought. This was leading scientists to believe that man and ape ancestry are close to the same age meaning they evolved in parallel, rather than one from the other.
I’m just going off memory though. I may be misremembering.
Language. Our ability to communicate drives productivity, and every aspect of society.
I am tired of people disparaging my species. The notion that â??we have NO skills that would keep us alive in nature except our brainsâ?? is ridiculous and displays a complete ignorance of anything outside of wikipedia. For some reason, people seem incapable of thinking about their own species in the same way that they would think about other animals. This results in all sorts of false analogies. Do you think the mighty Bengal Tiger ever says to itself, â??Iâ??m pretty bad ass on land, but if I was in the ocean with a Great White (sans the underwater, kitty diving cage) Iâ??d be screwed. No, Iâ??m pretty certain the tiger never thinks this. Why? Well, thereâ??s the supposed lack of mental capacity, but, also because, itâ??s a fucking tiger. Tigers are too busy being bad ass on land to waste time comparing cock size with the other animals. And, our ancestors make the tiger look like a pussy (cat.)
Hereâ??s some history that might help illuminate things for the folks out in forum land. Roughly twelve million years ago, during the Middle Miocene period, there was a great proliferation of apes with many more species in a great many more habitats than we see today. These early primates were generally arboreal and frugivorous. A series of glaciations extending for three million years from ten to seven mya along with competition from various monkey species caused the extinction of many ape species and forced the survivors to adopt a terrestrial existence. Terrestrial existence provided selective pressures for facultative bipedalism, and we see evidence for bipedalism as early as 7 mya. By 4.2 mya, we have the first primate who habitually walked upright. Despite the advantages of bipedal locomotion, there is little change in behavioral or dietary complexity. Basically at this point, our ancestors were muscular (though increasingly gracile) apes who walked upright and ate copious amounts of grasses, leaves, and sedges. They certainly werenâ??t competing with any predators.
This situation began to change around 3.2 million years ago, as a new series of harsh glaciations again increased selective pressures. It is at this point in our history, that the hominin line splits in two with the Paranthropus species reverting to an even more primitive, lower quality diet and the Homo species exploiting a completely new niche.When faced with increasingly harsh conditions and the decreased availability of high quality, nutrient dense foods, selective pressures tend to lead one of three solutions. The animal can increase its consumption of low quality foods leading to an increase in the size of the body and digestive tract as seen in gorillas. The animal can reduce its home range to a territory with limited competition as seen with the orangutan and gibbon. Or the animal can maintain the quality of its diet, but diminish its body size so as to reduce energetic demands as in chimpanzees.
At approximately 2.6 million years ago, taphonomic evidence (basically, ancient junk) shows that primates began scavenging marrow from animal carcasses and using stone tools to do so. The advantages of meat-eating in an unpredictable environment are obvious. One animal goes about all the work of acquiring nutrients from the environment in the form grasses and leaves, and then conveniently packages these nutrients in its flesh. When a famine strikes a predator has a readily available, nutrient storage device. The predator or scavenger invests little time but reaps an exceptionally high quality food source. On first inspection, it would seem odd that more of our primate brethren have not sought to exploit this food source. Even our closest relatives, Pan troglodytes, only derive 2 to 13% of the energy requirements from vertebrate and invertebrate sources. Additionally, they spend 75% of their waking hours foraging for plant material. This would all seem incredibly wasteful if one did not take into account that meat-eating generally causes health problems for primates. It is impossible to know whether mutations allowing for meat consumption proceeded entry into the predatory guild or if environmental pressures forced early hominins to adopt this food source regardless of the health consequences. Regardless, once meat was incorporated into the diet, this allowed hominins to further exploit foods that weren’t in the dietary repertoire of the other primates. In particular, they would have been able to ingest more underground storage organs, such as roots and tubers, as well as certain somewhat poisonous fruits and nuts. Iâ??ll spare you the biochemistry and possible sequences of mutations (and pre-adaptations.) Basically, we now had multiple food niches that werenâ??t being exploited by any similar creature. We also begin to see the amazing increase in cranial capacity at about this time due to the unique genetic combinations, which could only be seen in a predatory primate.
We basically became â??super-charged primatesâ?? at this point. Our nutrient density and complexity far exceeded normal primate requirements and allowed for a series of mutations without ill effect. This has permitted much greater brain complexity. As an example, modern, human newborns allocate 87% of their basal metabolic rate to neural development. Over the next 1 million years, we see a doubling of brain size. This is contrary to the normal increases in brain size seen to be concomitant with increased body size. And, by 1.8 mya, we have definitely acquired the brain structures that would allow for speech. For all of this increased mental capacity, our technology stayed the same for tens of thousands of years. I mean every hominid everywhere in the World used the exact same tools for this whole time period. This is sort of like everyone buying the same infomercial product for over 15 million nights with no innovations.
Why didnâ??t we change our tools during this entire time period? Because, we didnâ??t need to. This speaks volumes against the notion that we only became bad ass once we developed â??technology and cultureâ?? (whatever people mean by that) and indicates that we did indeed have skills in the sense that I believe the OP was using that word. Iâ??m not arguing against intelligence that certainly helped a lot. We could look at the other animalâ??s skills and say, â??Oh yeah, I see what your doing there. Iâ??m going to figure out a way of doing that ten times better, and Iâ??m also going to do a million things you could never conceive of. Itâ??s as if we had the ability to absorb the skills of other animals (Iâ??m sure the comic geeks can come up with appropriate examples for this superpower.) Aside from this we did have â??skills.â?? The obvious ones…walking up right, pack behavior, opposable thumbs, etc… But, for some reason, no one considers our other amazing skills. We were still crazy chimp strong at this point. We can control our sleep and wake cycles. We have insane endurance coupled with the ability to express maximal force as a reserve capacity. We have elaborate cooling mechanisms. As far as dexterity, no other animal comes close. If this was the â??Dexterity and Trajectoryâ?? vide game (catchy title I know) all the high scores would read HSS. Most other animals donâ??t even have these abilities. Donâ??t believe me? Teach a deer to catch.
So, letâ??s imagine youâ??re our prey at 1 mya. A pack of humans has been trailing your herd for the past several hours. You havenâ??t been able to spend your requisite 80% of the day grazing. Additionally, you are suffering form heat exhaustion. The hominids arenâ??t even slightly fatigued at this point. Suddenly, they increase the pace and single you out having realized that your leg is injured. You are running out of options as the topography funnels you into a small valley. You reach the valley and are confronted by three hominids. In your little deer brain, these humans seem to have teleported here (because no other pack hunters display this behavior.) You are trying to determine which directions they will move. But, they donâ??t need to move. They cripple you with a barrage of throwing stones and spears.
For all practical purposes, our ancestors were like a pack of super-intelligent tigers that could hunt you relentlessly because they never tired. Oh, and they could seemingly teleport and accurately shoot their claws at you from a distance. All of this without a culture (or arguably even technology) much more advanced than many other animals. And, you ask how we got to be dominant as though it is by some miracle? Creatures like ourselves are the stuff of horror movies. You donâ??t realize it because our modern examples of predatory primates are Dolce and Gabbana models and the IT guy. But, we used to make tigers look like pussies.
Before any IT guys get upset and cripple my computer with your supergeek powers, I’m just referring to the pathetic examples of humanity that I have experience with.
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
For all of this increased mental capacity, our technology stayed the same for tens of thousands of years. I mean every hominid everywhere in the World used the exact same tools for this whole time period. This is sort of like everyone buying the same infomercial product for over 15 million nights with no innovations.
Why didnâ??t we change our tools during this entire time period? Because, we didnâ??t need to. [/quote]
Great post Nancy Boy. I only take issue with your assertion that hominids didn’t advance during this time period because they didn’t need to. I believe that despite the increase in brain size hominids were still lacking critical architecture to be more innovative. Elephants and whales have bigger brains than we do (as did Neandertals), and while they are very smart, they lack the ability to innovate the way we do. Further, our species is currently very innovative yet we have all the tools to survive comfortably as a race. This goes against what you postulate above.
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
Book report[/quote]
So, you can survive in the jungle and take down tigers? I’m going to demand a video.
[quote]on edge wrote:
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
For all of this increased mental capacity, our technology stayed the same for tens of thousands of years. I mean every hominid everywhere in the World used the exact same tools for this whole time period. This is sort of like everyone buying the same infomercial product for over 15 million nights with no innovations.
Why didn�¢??t we change our tools during this entire time period? Because, we didn�¢??t need to. [/quote]
Great post Nancy Boy. I only take issue with your assertion that hominids didn’t advance during this time period because they didn’t need to. I believe that despite the increase in brain size hominids were still lacking critical architecture to be more innovative. Elephants and whales have bigger brains than we do (as did Neandertals), and while they are very smart, they lack the ability to innovate the way we do. Further, our species is currently very innovative yet we have all the tools to survive comfortably as a race. This goes against what you postulate above.[/quote]
I wasn’t attempting to address our current level of complexity in my earlier post. I was simply trying to show that our “rise to power” was an incredibly slow, incremental process not unlike that seen in other animals that rise to the top of their niche. Even after the advent of fully anatomically modern humans, we still see little change for quite a long time.
Although new brain structures are possible (hard to know either way,) I believe we eventually reached a tipping point. If you continue to increase the energy, density, size, etc. of an autopoietic system, the system can suddenly shift to a much higher level of complexity. I alluded to this phenomenon in my reference to “super charged” primates and brain development. This shift has allowed for the steadily increasing dominance of cultural evolution over biological evolution in recent history.
Our current “style” of evolution has become increasingly divorced from biological necessity for this reason. I believe people are really pointing to this shift when they ask questions about such weird abstractions as “superiority.” I don’t consider this a violation of what I postulated earlier, as we are discussing different forms of evolution.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
Book report[/quote]
So, you can survive in the jungle and take down tigers? I’m going to demand a video.[/quote]
I’m former special operations infantry. I can and have survived in all sorts of environments. Although I understand where you’re going with your question, why would I want to “take down tigers”? I was trying to make this point before. We are in a completely different niche than tigers (in the past and present for different reasons.) Roaches never take down tigers, and they have been doing quite well despite that fact.
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
Book report[/quote]
So, you can survive in the jungle and take down tigers? I’m going to demand a video.[/quote]
I’m former special operations infantry. I can and have survived in all sorts of environments. Although I understand where you’re going with your question, why would I want to “take down tigers”? I was trying to make this point before. We are in a completely different niche than tigers (in the past and present for different reasons.) Roaches never take down tigers, and they have been doing quite well despite that fact.
[/quote]
Sorry you took it seriously, it was a joke.
However, by you reasoning, viruses(borderline life) and bacteria are probably the baddest of all life forms on earth. Not only can they teleport, they are freaking invisible. and they can kill anything bears, tigers, elephants, humans, apes, whales, you name it.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]Nancy Boy wrote:
Book report[/quote]
So, you can survive in the jungle and take down tigers? I’m going to demand a video.[/quote]
I’m former special operations infantry. I can and have survived in all sorts of environments. Although I understand where you’re going with your question, why would I want to “take down tigers”? I was trying to make this point before. We are in a completely different niche than tigers (in the past and present for different reasons.) Roaches never take down tigers, and they have been doing quite well despite that fact.
[/quote]
Sorry you took it seriously, it was a joke.
However, by you reasoning, viruses(borderline life) and bacteria are probably the baddest of all life forms on earth. Not only can they teleport, they are freaking invisible. and they can kill anything bears, tigers, elephants, humans, apes, whales, you name it.[/quote]
I figured you were joking when you asked for the video. Sorry, I come across as a dick most of the time (I have the social skills of a slab of slate.)
I don’t really think it’s a matter of who’s the baddest or who’s superior (I was using some hyperbole in my “book report”.) I just think it’s borderline pathological that humans are so spiteful of their own species. I also don’t understand why people discuss themselves as though they are “unnatural animals.” And, yes, microorganisms are pretty cool. A lot of my work involves the symbiotic (and other) relationships between humans and microorganisms, so I may be biased. Speaking of which…I should probably get some work done.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]thick88 wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]thick88 wrote:
[quote]WormwoodTheory wrote:
[quote]TheCoolestLuke wrote:
I continually find it funny how humans assume they are superior to other species just because they are more intelligent, when in fact it hasn’t been proven that intelligence mean they are superior.[/quote]
the fact that we domesticated one of the most fearsome pack hunters on the planet is a good indicator.
speech, but more importantly writing.
i’ve never seen cows in space.
also the fact that you “find it funny” is a good indicator, i’ve never seen an animal laugh outside of a Disney movie, so you can chalk up complex emotions as another point for humankind.
i said COMPLEX emotion. not territorial displays and mating rituals.
[/quote]
We didn’t domesticate dogs, the relationship evolved naturally through packs of “follower wolves” who took to following human bands & eating our scraps, read Wolf in the Parlor.
Also emotion, even complex emotions come from the mammalian brain that all mammals possess, not the primate brain, which gives us the ability to use logic to override emotions.
I’m not arguing against the superiority of humans, but these are poor examples, this is not a personal attack either.
[/quote]
You must not deal with animals very much. I’m sure a feral dog will just “follow” you. Another example is horses, I have never met a wild horse that I could just sit on its back and ride, however I have broken horses to the point that they will let me sit on their back and ride.[/quote]
Horses are different then dogs, we did intentionally domesticate horses. I have no doubt you have more experience with horses then me, I'm not talking about horses. I've kept dogs my entire life, & I'm not talking about feral dogs either, I'm talking about entire pack's of wolves that took to trailing bands of primitive humans around to take advantage of the fact that humans are litter bugs. Again check out the book "the Wolf in the Parlor" [/quote]
I’ll check it out, I’m still not buying the whole thing though. It might have helped but we still probably have had to go through a process of breaking the dogs to put it in their nature. Just like the longer you have a blood line of horses the easier to is to ride the horses. I know about dealing with dogs, I have a kennel in my backyard with a few dogs.[/quote]
Micheal?
So interesting coversation so far. However, why are humans the only ones that seem to have a spiritual belief (not to turn this into a evo vs. creation debate)