Evolution.. fact or not?

[Simon Viavant]

That thread already exists and it's went on for 250 pages without anyone changing their viewpoint.

[Frigidus]

Might as well trot this old one out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyuP43nMYM

I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

[TheProwler]

That thread already exists and it's went on for 250 pages without anyone changing their viewpoint.

That's the thing, isn't it? Everyone has a viewpoint and nobody is willing to think about alternate possibilities.

It is clear to me that I am not dealing with free-thinkers here.

How often do I read "I think it is possible that <this is true>..."? Not very often. Almost never. But how often do I read "I know that <this is true>..."? All the time. The bottom line is that people have already drawn their own conclusions. They "Know". They don't "Think" anything else is possible. All the thinking has already been done - now they are just spreading "the truth". How arrogant, How unscientific. How disappointing.

It is as ridiculous as a fundamentalist Christian saying "I know there is a God."

You can say your minds are open all you want. That is what you want to believe. But facts are facts.

[Snorri1234]

That thread already exists and it's went on for 250 pages without anyone changing their viewpoint.

That's the thing, isn't it? Everyone has a viewpoint and nobody is willing to think about alternate possibilities.

It is clear to me that I am not dealing with free-thinkers here.

How often do I read "I think it is possible that <this is true>..."? Not very often. Almost never. But how often do I read "I know that <this is true>..."? All the time. The bottom line is that people have already drawn their own conclusions. They "Know". They don't "Think" anything else is possible. All the thinking has already been done - now they are just spreading "the truth". How arrogant, How unscientific. How disappointing.

It is as ridiculous as a fundamentalist Christian saying "I know there is a God."

You can say your minds are open all you want. That is what you want to believe. But facts are facts.

Please, you're ignoring the clear fact that your "new ideas and free thought" are just ridiculous. You're confusing "open-mindedness" with "willing to think about retarded ideas which are contrary to scientific knowledge".

[TheProwler]

What did I say that is contradictory to scientific knowledge?

[xelabale]

Prowler people are open to other ideas, but this is a thread entitled "evolution ... fact or not". Most people are arguing for evolution as a fact, and they have extremely good arguments that no-one has refuted. The thread has become you questioning evolution and everyone else patiently trying to explain how evolution answers your question, then you complaining that the answers are too mainstream. What's more, you already accepted the fact of evolution several pages ago!

Evolution is very hard to argue against, because it's such a good theory. Spacemen and a "many creator" hypothesis are interesting ideas that don't exclude evolution as a working theory. If you really want some debate on those, open a new thread about them. Alternatively provide evidence as to why they're a better theory than evolution.

[PLAYER57832]

Here is an interesting idea about how human civilization might have expanded:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =104973286

for those who don't want to read the article (its not long), basically he suggests that for a technological advance to be passed on, there has to be a large group. Else, it might not be passed on at all or, if it is, the advance will go when the small group is, almost inevitably, eradicated.


In many ways, this mirrors what actually is thought to happen in genetics. That is, one individual might give rise to a fantastic genetic advancement, but until that individual has contact with and can pass its gene onto a large enough population (at least over time), then any chance event can lead to the end of that "fantastic" gene. This is at least part of why Evolution has so many, many "dead ends". Genetic tracts that simply "died off".

[TheProwler]

I can see how this article could be used to show an analogy between technological/other types of advancement and the retention of this knowledge, and evolution.


This article is a good introduction into some interesting ideas. What it says is really referring to is communication and retention of knowledge. Way back when, before we had methods of recording complicated procedures, we have to pass the knowledge on first-hand. Then, with the creation of methods of writing, we had the ability to record knowledge so it could be passed on in different way (i.e. you could read the knowledge - nobody had to be there to tell you). Then, with the invention of the printing press, the mass distribution of knowledge was possible. Knowledge became accessible and affordable. Now, we can communicate with information that is stored digitally. It is a good thing, because we now have so much knowledge. We need the room to record and store it. And people have become very specialized. Nobody knows how to complete a task themselves without a coordinated effort of other specialists. captain.crazy, are you reading this? Can you let them know what will happen if we lose our digital media and one or two specialists in every area of technology.

Sorry guys, but that article reminds me just how delicate our retention of knowledge currently is. We could go back technologically 1000 years within a few generations with the loss of what is stored digitally.

[PLAYER57832]

Sorry guys, but that article reminds me just how delicate our retention of knowledge currently is. We could go back technologically 1000 years within a few generations with the loss of what is stored digitally.

As a natural scientists, I would say it is even more fragile than that. Because the more we rely upon media and print, learning from books and schools, the less we understand of the real practical applications onto the world around us. Or, to be more precise, knowledge of the natural world has gone from something that everyone understood more or less in the course of their lives to something only a few specialists understand. Yet, we all have the ability to impact our natural world in irrevocable ways.

[xelabale]

It's only become specialised in the extremes. Most people are taught algebra in schools. If we lost our entire digital infrastructure tomorrow there's enough people with knowledge out there to put it back together again, and probably do it better this time. You guys are too pessimistic. We'd need to lose such a big proportion of the world's knowledge base that knowledge would cease to be as important as raw survival...

[PLAYER57832]

It's only become specialised in the extremes. Most people are taught algebra in schools. If we lost our entire digital infrastructure tomorrow there's enough people with knowledge out there to put it back together again, and probably do it better this time. You guys are too pessimistic. We'd need to lose such a big proportion of the world's knowledge base that knowledge would cease to be as important as raw survival...

That you would say this is actually an indication of how far the education sysem has fallen away from most things natural.

As for being able to put our infrastructure together, true, but only barely. We are at a point when no person can possibly know or even really understand most of what is in any field of study. Understanding a bunch of pieces is not the same as understanding the whole. That is particularly true in the natural world, where a sum of the parts it not necessarily the whole in its entirety. How those parts interact is the most critical aspect, but the most difficult to understand.

There is a tribe in New Zealand that had a needle, the ability to sew and make clothes. They lost it. How? At some poine either its use went into disfavor, perhaps some leader did not like them, however. It was a needed object. The climate was not warm and clothes would have been more helpful than simple draped furs and hides. Yet, they never regained that knowledge.

We are on the verge of losing our "needles".

[TheProwler]

I know this wasn't his point...but this essay is relative to our discussion, as it describes how specialization would make it impossible for one man to make even a pencil:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7695/PENCIL.HTM

[PLAYER57832]

Interesting and fun article. Thanks!

I talk specifically of the natural world because so often, I wind up getting into disagreements with folks here, disagreements that ultimately come down to our different perspectives on the natural world and how things interrelate.

When a company manager decides to release this or that toxin into the river system, decides its OK to flush his tanks in the middle of the night, when most regulator agencies are sleeping and so that it will be diluted and flushed before anyone really notices, he justifies this by saying things like he "doesn't see any fish dying" or "it really is not as bad as those silly environmentalists claim" or even "hmph try to tell me that those FISH are more important than my BUSINESS, will they?"
(note: talking true situations, not hypotheticals here!). HOW can he do that? Because he has never been taught any different!

Of course, some people, no matter their education, will plain be jerks. And, absolutely, there are both uneducated and out-right "jerks" on EVERY side of the debates! I did more than roll my eyes when I heard about a group that sued the Allegheny forest for not properly protecting old-growth dependent species (Allegheny National Forest was created by Gifford Pinchot largely to show that logged areas could be regrown into a productive forest).

However, if everyone has at least the same basic understanding, knows the same basic terms and has a rough understanding of what really happens in the world, then we can at least sit down and talk together. Else, too often, it winds up into a "you are just misinformed".. "no, you are!"... ad infinitum.