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What questions do you have about evolution?
page: 2share:
Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by Phlynx
you
Some cells will mutate when they duplicate and add on pieces of itself extra in that process. I'm also using this question answer thing so I can learn more about evolution. I do not know everything.
You know what Phlynx. I respect the hell out of your answer
Thank you.
reply to post by randyvs
He wasn't stumped or avoiding the question. He was right. Evolution is a process of decay not of mutation. Sure it's a remote possibility that you grow wings and learn to fly from a radioactive gull but it doesn't occur vastly enough and it doesn't occur well enough to give any sort of evidence of their addition.
As I was writing that and reading the rest of the thread so I don't come off odd, I realized an actual answer to the question posed in the video. Microbes. Though it probably has something to do with the simplicity of their make-up --and I don't pretend to know anything on the subject specifically-- and their susceptibility to what environs them, microbes are extremely good at adapting and evolving to suit their needs. Also, the gigantic insects of the carboniferous period. They were able to grow to massive sizes due to the overabundance of oxygen in their air. I'm rather fuzzy on the size of insects before that period but we can see now that they adapted (again, perhaps,) to lower oxygen levels. As with the microbes these are relatively subtle shifts in their genetics. Chromosome here chromosome there and they either came from mars or they wipe out all the wheat in north america. My rant sort of got a little cryptic in the end there. Kudos if someone figures out the references.
[edit on 10-7-2010 by Limerick]
He wasn't stumped or avoiding the question. He was right. Evolution is a process of decay not of mutation. Sure it's a remote possibility that you grow wings and learn to fly from a radioactive gull but it doesn't occur vastly enough and it doesn't occur well enough to give any sort of evidence of their addition.
As I was writing that and reading the rest of the thread so I don't come off odd, I realized an actual answer to the question posed in the video. Microbes. Though it probably has something to do with the simplicity of their make-up --and I don't pretend to know anything on the subject specifically-- and their susceptibility to what environs them, microbes are extremely good at adapting and evolving to suit their needs. Also, the gigantic insects of the carboniferous period. They were able to grow to massive sizes due to the overabundance of oxygen in their air. I'm rather fuzzy on the size of insects before that period but we can see now that they adapted (again, perhaps,) to lower oxygen levels. As with the microbes these are relatively subtle shifts in their genetics. Chromosome here chromosome there and they either came from mars or they wipe out all the wheat in north america. My rant sort of got a little cryptic in the end there. Kudos if someone figures out the references.
[edit on 10-7-2010 by Limerick]
I am Evolveing Continuesly, and i can spell words wrong still, wink wink, so tell me about me,
reply to posts by Johnze and
nophun
Nice one, nophun. Yes, of course, we evolved tastebuds to help us work out what's good to eat and what isn't. But that doesn't really answer Johnze's question.
Why does an orange taste good to Johnze? Because it evolved to taste that way. It didn't evolve that way with Johnze in mind, though; it had its own selfish reasons. It wanted to taste good to birds and arboreal mammals. That is what fruits exist for: to be eaten by birds and swing-through-the-trees-type beasts like Johnze's ancestors and mine. That gorgeous orange globe was 'designed' to catch the eye; that juicy, tasty pulp was 'designed' to be devoured. Why? Only so that a few hard, bitter seeds would be eaten along with the pulp, pass through the eater's gut undigested, and be excreted somewhere along with a dollop of fine organic fertilizer. Because that is how orange trees have baby orange trees.
Of course, Johnze's folks and mine did evolve digestive systems that could extract the appropriate nutrients from an orange, and tastebuds that found things like oranges tasty, so you're partly right as far as that goes.
Adolescent couch potatoes often notice that it's difficult to have any sex if you spend your whole life rooted to the spot. Couch potatoes can do something about that because they (usually) have legs, but plants are pretty much stuck. Some, like grasses, trust to the wind to blow their genetic material far and wide, hoping some of it sticks to an attractive member of the opposite sex and makes more grass, but it's just as likely to end up on a car windscreen or inside a hay-fever sufferer's sinuses. A bit wasteful, a bit message-in-a-bottle. So what many plants do is recruit things with wings and legs to have their sex for them, and carry their offspring too.
Excepting the insects, we are the most diligent of those recruits. Many species of plant no longer rely on any other creature but man to do their sex and childbearing for them: from cabbages to courgettes, oranges to okra, rice to red beans, a vast number of plants have evolved to use human beings as their sole reproductive aids.
Of course, that's not the whole story. Many of these plants have their present-day form because of careful breeding - artificial rather than natural selection. The original oranges were green and quite bitter; the original corn, teosinte, is something you wouldn't even think of as food. So it's a process of co-evolution; we help them make themselves attractive to us, helping to ensure our reproductive success as well as theirs in the process. But the plants probably started it, back in the Cretaceous, when angiosperms first evolved with their flowers and fruit. There were, of course, no humans around back then.
Did you ever think that your true purpose in life might be to help an orange tree have babies?
reply to posts by filosophia and Phlynx
I'm sorry to hear that, filosophia, and - hoping my answer to Johnze above was to the point and didn't insult your intelligence - I'm happy to have a go at your questions. Phlynx didn't answer them too well, I'm afraid; Phlynx, maybe you should be asking the questions, not offering to answer them!
To answer your question correctly: ultimately, modern humans evolved from the common ancestor of all life - the evolution of life is a vast, branching tree that grows from a single seed, the first living, replicating proto-organism.
But this answer, though correct, isn't really what you're looking for, is it? You want to know when a creature that was an ape gave birth to a creature that was, maybe not a man, but something with a touch of humanity in it. Well, that would be the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans or one of its descendants. We have never dug up a fossil of that common ancestor, so we don't have a name for or a classification for it, but we are sure it existed.
How can we be sure, if we haven't found the body?
To understand how, we have to recognize first that evolution is a continuous process. Even humans are still evolving - lactose tolerance in adults, for example, evolved in the last few thousand years. Now, since every living thing is subject to evolution, it follows that all species are 'transitional'. Any animal that dies and gets fossilized is a 'transitional fossil'. There are no other kinds. All fossils are transitional fossils.
But not every organism that dies gets fossilized. Actually, hardly any do - it's a rare occurrence. And of the very few dead organisms that do turn into fossils, fewer still are dug up, identified and classified. So the fossil record is spotty: like dots on graph paper, and spaced pretty widely apart as that. We can draw the line between them that shows how the evolution of a present-day species must have progressed, but we certainly don't have fossils for every point on the line.
On the line connecting humans to our ape ancestors, there are many, many missing points - what people who think of evolution as a chain instead of a tree call 'missing links'. One of them is the all-important point where the line of hominid evolution forked, with one fork leading to us and the other to modern chimpanzees. No fossil of the common ancestor of both species has yet been found. However, we can compare our DNA with chimps' (and other animals, too) and show that there must have been a common ancestor and it must have lived 5-7 million years ago.
Another important missing point on the long, long line of human evolution is the common ancestor of apes and monkeys. And there are plenty of other 'missing links' like this. Even so, we can trace the evolution of primates back 65 million years, all the way back to the end of the Cretaceous. Evolution of the great apes
If there are so many missing points, how can we be sure there's a line at all? Now there's a question. Sadly, it is not one that can be answered in a few paragraphs on a popular internet forum. You need to interest yourself in evolution, and thence in palaeontology and evolutionary biology, to anwer that one. Though Phlynx is welcome to try
We evolved from the common ancestor of chimps and people (but not of other hominids, like gorillas or orang-utans). Not directly, of course - there were several other species in between. The ape-chimp ancestor evolved from the common ancestor of hominids (but not other apes). The common ancestor of hominids evolved from the common ancestor of apes (but not of monkeys). Apes and monkeys evolved from the common ancestor of primates (but not, say, of badgers and wolves). Then we go back to the common ancestor of mammals, the common ancestor of land animals, the common ancestor of vertebrates and so on, all the way back to the beginning. If you want to take that trip in detail, read The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins (who, by the way, is a professional biologist and only a hobby atheist, though he takes his hobbies seriously). It's an easy read, and fun.
As you can see above, that is just what happened. Perhaps it would be better to ask, 'if we evolved from fish, why are there still fish?' The reason is, of course, that the aquatic environment still exists and can sustain life. Some fish stayed in the water and did well for themselves. Some ventured out onto dry land and found a new world of opportunity waiting for them. Later on, the competition on land began to hot up and new species evolved from mutation and natural selection to exploit ever more specific niches.
The real question you're asking is, 'why is there such a variety of life on Earth?' The answer is that Earth presents many different opportunities for different kinds of life to prosper - one species' meat being another species' poison. Evolution does not mean supercession unless the parent and daughter species are both competing for the same resources within the same geographical range.
Ah, an opinion question. An easy one, then.
Evolution is a force of nature, not a human invention. It has no purpose, unless you believe there is a God behind nature, who created the world for a purpose.
But I suppose you mean to ask what is the purpose of studying evolution. I give you Michael Faraday's reply to a similar, but not identical question: 'Of what use is a newborn child?' Thank you for your kind attention.
Nice one, nophun. Yes, of course, we evolved tastebuds to help us work out what's good to eat and what isn't. But that doesn't really answer Johnze's question.
Why does an orange taste good to Johnze? Because it evolved to taste that way. It didn't evolve that way with Johnze in mind, though; it had its own selfish reasons. It wanted to taste good to birds and arboreal mammals. That is what fruits exist for: to be eaten by birds and swing-through-the-trees-type beasts like Johnze's ancestors and mine. That gorgeous orange globe was 'designed' to catch the eye; that juicy, tasty pulp was 'designed' to be devoured. Why? Only so that a few hard, bitter seeds would be eaten along with the pulp, pass through the eater's gut undigested, and be excreted somewhere along with a dollop of fine organic fertilizer. Because that is how orange trees have baby orange trees.
Of course, Johnze's folks and mine did evolve digestive systems that could extract the appropriate nutrients from an orange, and tastebuds that found things like oranges tasty, so you're partly right as far as that goes.
Adolescent couch potatoes often notice that it's difficult to have any sex if you spend your whole life rooted to the spot. Couch potatoes can do something about that because they (usually) have legs, but plants are pretty much stuck. Some, like grasses, trust to the wind to blow their genetic material far and wide, hoping some of it sticks to an attractive member of the opposite sex and makes more grass, but it's just as likely to end up on a car windscreen or inside a hay-fever sufferer's sinuses. A bit wasteful, a bit message-in-a-bottle. So what many plants do is recruit things with wings and legs to have their sex for them, and carry their offspring too.
Excepting the insects, we are the most diligent of those recruits. Many species of plant no longer rely on any other creature but man to do their sex and childbearing for them: from cabbages to courgettes, oranges to okra, rice to red beans, a vast number of plants have evolved to use human beings as their sole reproductive aids.
Of course, that's not the whole story. Many of these plants have their present-day form because of careful breeding - artificial rather than natural selection. The original oranges were green and quite bitter; the original corn, teosinte, is something you wouldn't even think of as food. So it's a process of co-evolution; we help them make themselves attractive to us, helping to ensure our reproductive success as well as theirs in the process. But the plants probably started it, back in the Cretaceous, when angiosperms first evolved with their flowers and fruit. There were, of course, no humans around back then.
Did you ever think that your true purpose in life might be to help an orange tree have babies?
*
reply to posts by filosophia and Phlynx
Originally posted by filosophia
Usually when I ask questions about evolution, first my intelligence gets insulted, and then my question is not really answered. I appreciate the desire to answer questions we may have.
I'm sorry to hear that, filosophia, and - hoping my answer to Johnze above was to the point and didn't insult your intelligence - I'm happy to have a go at your questions. Phlynx didn't answer them too well, I'm afraid; Phlynx, maybe you should be asking the questions, not offering to answer them!
filosophia: if there are transitional fossils, what did humans evolve from?
To answer your question correctly: ultimately, modern humans evolved from the common ancestor of all life - the evolution of life is a vast, branching tree that grows from a single seed, the first living, replicating proto-organism.
But this answer, though correct, isn't really what you're looking for, is it? You want to know when a creature that was an ape gave birth to a creature that was, maybe not a man, but something with a touch of humanity in it. Well, that would be the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans or one of its descendants. We have never dug up a fossil of that common ancestor, so we don't have a name for or a classification for it, but we are sure it existed.
How can we be sure, if we haven't found the body?
To understand how, we have to recognize first that evolution is a continuous process. Even humans are still evolving - lactose tolerance in adults, for example, evolved in the last few thousand years. Now, since every living thing is subject to evolution, it follows that all species are 'transitional'. Any animal that dies and gets fossilized is a 'transitional fossil'. There are no other kinds. All fossils are transitional fossils.
But not every organism that dies gets fossilized. Actually, hardly any do - it's a rare occurrence. And of the very few dead organisms that do turn into fossils, fewer still are dug up, identified and classified. So the fossil record is spotty: like dots on graph paper, and spaced pretty widely apart as that. We can draw the line between them that shows how the evolution of a present-day species must have progressed, but we certainly don't have fossils for every point on the line.
On the line connecting humans to our ape ancestors, there are many, many missing points - what people who think of evolution as a chain instead of a tree call 'missing links'. One of them is the all-important point where the line of hominid evolution forked, with one fork leading to us and the other to modern chimpanzees. No fossil of the common ancestor of both species has yet been found. However, we can compare our DNA with chimps' (and other animals, too) and show that there must have been a common ancestor and it must have lived 5-7 million years ago.
Another important missing point on the long, long line of human evolution is the common ancestor of apes and monkeys. And there are plenty of other 'missing links' like this. Even so, we can trace the evolution of primates back 65 million years, all the way back to the end of the Cretaceous. Evolution of the great apes
If there are so many missing points, how can we be sure there's a line at all? Now there's a question. Sadly, it is not one that can be answered in a few paragraphs on a popular internet forum. You need to interest yourself in evolution, and thence in palaeontology and evolutionary biology, to anwer that one. Though Phlynx is welcome to try
We evolved from the common ancestor of chimps and people (but not of other hominids, like gorillas or orang-utans). Not directly, of course - there were several other species in between. The ape-chimp ancestor evolved from the common ancestor of hominids (but not other apes). The common ancestor of hominids evolved from the common ancestor of apes (but not of monkeys). Apes and monkeys evolved from the common ancestor of primates (but not, say, of badgers and wolves). Then we go back to the common ancestor of mammals, the common ancestor of land animals, the common ancestor of vertebrates and so on, all the way back to the beginning. If you want to take that trip in detail, read The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins (who, by the way, is a professional biologist and only a hobby atheist, though he takes his hobbies seriously). It's an easy read, and fun.
if humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? (this would make more sense if humans evolved from a now non-existent species like cro-magnum)
As you can see above, that is just what happened. Perhaps it would be better to ask, 'if we evolved from fish, why are there still fish?' The reason is, of course, that the aquatic environment still exists and can sustain life. Some fish stayed in the water and did well for themselves. Some ventured out onto dry land and found a new world of opportunity waiting for them. Later on, the competition on land began to hot up and new species evolved from mutation and natural selection to exploit ever more specific niches.
The real question you're asking is, 'why is there such a variety of life on Earth?' The answer is that Earth presents many different opportunities for different kinds of life to prosper - one species' meat being another species' poison. Evolution does not mean supercession unless the parent and daughter species are both competing for the same resources within the same geographical range.
What, in your opinion, is a practical purpose of evolution? Other than simply the curiosity of finding out where we came from, is there any scientific discoveries that evolution is giving to society?
Ah, an opinion question. An easy one, then.
Evolution is a force of nature, not a human invention. It has no purpose, unless you believe there is a God behind nature, who created the world for a purpose.
But I suppose you mean to ask what is the purpose of studying evolution. I give you Michael Faraday's reply to a similar, but not identical question: 'Of what use is a newborn child?' Thank you for your kind attention.
Originally posted by Johnze
I have a problem with evolution i would like cleared up
Why does an orange taste the way it does?, why does it taste so good?, how does a #ing orange understand what taste is and what impact that may have on it succes as a plant?
You think an orange tastes good, but I think it tastes bad. Now I would like ask you a question. Why does it taste so bad?
Originally posted by Phlynx
Originally posted by randyvs
Here's an easy one.
[edit on 9-7-2010 by randyvs]
Some cells will mutate when they duplicate and add on pieces of itself extra in that process. I'm also using this question answer thing so I can learn more about evolution. I do not know everything.
I can't believe anyone would still use that fake video of Dawkins being "stumped."
Originally posted by filosophia
Humans are the only species that have the awareness to realize they are smarter or dumber than other species.
And how do you know this?
Originally posted by Limerick
reply to post by randyvs
He wasn't stumped or avoiding the question. He was right.
He wasn't stumped at all. It's a fake video created by creationist fraudsters.
Here's a video with Richard Dawkins himself explaining the deceptive editing:
www.youtube.com...
[edit on 11-7-2010 by NegativeBeef]
Originally posted by NegativeBeef
Originally posted by Limerick
reply to post by randyvs
He wasn't stumped or avoiding the question. He was right.
He wasn't stumped at all. It's a fake video created by creationist fraudsters.
Here's a video with Richard Dawkins himself explaining the deceptive editing:
www.youtube.com...
[edit on 11-7-2010 by NegativeBeef]
randyvs knows this I have pointed him to Dawkins explaining what went down. randyvs is ignoring the facts and spreading BS ..
Not surprising is it ?
I have a question about evolution:
Why are we nov evolving? I don't see any new specie coming out anytime soon... Actually we're just getting worse and dumber.
Even our brain is only being used ~5-10% of capacity...
Why are we nov evolving? I don't see any new specie coming out anytime soon... Actually we're just getting worse and dumber.
Even our brain is only being used ~5-10% of capacity...
Originally posted by HSDA83
I have a question about evolution:
Why are we nov evolving? I don't see any new specie coming out anytime soon... Actually we're just getting worse and dumber.
Even our brain is only being used ~5-10% of capacity...
Of course we and everything alive is still evolving.
There are lots of examples of observed speciation.
en.wikipedia.org...
www.talkorigins.org...
www.talkorigins.org...
biomed.brown.edu...
evolution.berkeley.edu...
www.don-lindsay-archive.org...
Want me to continue ?
Oh the %5-%10 of our brains myth is bull#.
en.wikipedia.org...
www.snopes.com...
However, I heard that it is "fact" the average creationist only use 3.14% of their brains.
[edit on 11-7-2010 by nophun]
reply to post by nophun
I am talking about "we" as humans. Speciation is populations diverging into new species.
No one that sides with evolution is able to show a specie that is being evolved from humans.
To say we use all of our brain says nothing about the potential of human intelligence, creativity and problem solving. Such a skeptical rebuttal of the vast potential of the human thinking machine implies that we have reached our limits of brain potential - probably the most harmful dead end notion of all. We haven't even got close.
To say we use all of our brains ignores the fact that we keep losing our car keys all the time, ignores the fact that you couldn't remember where you parked your car in the garage - even though it's well within your brain's potential...
Why are there pills to stimulate your memory? pills for brain alertness? Your brain is like a muscle, the more you use, the better and stronger it gets. No one uses 100% of their muscles all the time, most people not even once in a lifetime.
____________
edit
Aparently creationists defend that at some point we did use 100% of it, then we started to degenerate. It sound like a law called entropy, that actually disagrees with evolution: "Everything tends to degenerate" not to evolve.
[edit on 11-7-2010 by HSDA83]
I am talking about "we" as humans. Speciation is populations diverging into new species.
No one that sides with evolution is able to show a specie that is being evolved from humans.
To say we use all of our brain says nothing about the potential of human intelligence, creativity and problem solving. Such a skeptical rebuttal of the vast potential of the human thinking machine implies that we have reached our limits of brain potential - probably the most harmful dead end notion of all. We haven't even got close.
To say we use all of our brains ignores the fact that we keep losing our car keys all the time, ignores the fact that you couldn't remember where you parked your car in the garage - even though it's well within your brain's potential...
Why are there pills to stimulate your memory? pills for brain alertness? Your brain is like a muscle, the more you use, the better and stronger it gets. No one uses 100% of their muscles all the time, most people not even once in a lifetime.
____________
edit
Aparently creationists defend that at some point we did use 100% of it, then we started to degenerate. It sound like a law called entropy, that actually disagrees with evolution: "Everything tends to degenerate" not to evolve.
[edit on 11-7-2010 by HSDA83]
The argument is humans are different then all other living things ?
Humans cannot and have not evolved ?
Care to explain the coccyx (tailbone), appendix, and wisdom teeth ? These are just three vestiges found in humans, explain why your magician.. errr .. I mean "god" decided to plant these on us to make it look like the use to have uses for our ancestors but have no use today ?
One word "goosebumps" ! They would be useful if lets say .. we had .. FUR! and could use them to make ourselves look bigger then we truly are.
You know like the other primates.
Yes the is a few more check out :
en.wikipedia.org...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/297f9b32d30b.jpg[/atsimg]
I am not even going to read the second half of your post on the human brain capacity, Mr. 10%.
[edit on 11-7-2010 by nophun]
Humans cannot and have not evolved ?
Care to explain the coccyx (tailbone), appendix, and wisdom teeth ? These are just three vestiges found in humans, explain why your magician.. errr .. I mean "god" decided to plant these on us to make it look like the use to have uses for our ancestors but have no use today ?
One word "goosebumps" ! They would be useful if lets say .. we had .. FUR! and could use them to make ourselves look bigger then we truly are.
You know like the other primates.
Yes the is a few more check out :
en.wikipedia.org...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/297f9b32d30b.jpg[/atsimg]
I am not even going to read the second half of your post on the human brain capacity, Mr. 10%.
[edit on 11-7-2010 by nophun]
reply to post by HSDA83
In English, 'species' is both singular and plural. 'Specie' in English means 'money', so it's no surprise we don't see it being evolved from humans.
The evolution of a species is a slow process. Different human populations around the world show different characteristics: some are lactose-tolerant, some intolerant; some are vulnerable to pernicious anaemia, others to malaria; some have respiratory systems that have evolved to operate efficiently at high altitudes, most have not. And some populations score well on average-IQ tests, while others do very badly. These are not yet specific differences because members of the different populations can interbreed, but if there were no genetic intermingling between them, these populations might eventually (over hundreds of thousands of years) differentiate into separate species.
However, human populations and genes have been mixing more and more in the last five hundred years and particularly in the last century as the world becomes more integrated and globalized. This makes it very hard for differences between populations to be retained. More likely that genetic variation between populations will be reduced, not increased, at least in the short run.
I don't think nophun or anyone else was suggesting that it did.
Are you expressing an article of faith? Or do you have some evidence for this? Scientific evidence, the kind nophun posted?
Here are the facts. We, like all animals, use 100 percent of our brains. Natural selection is merciless; evolution has no spare capacity to waste on useless luxuries. In survival and reproduction terms, human brains are very, very expensive. The architectural compromises of the female human pelvis, the absurdly extended juvenile phase of the human life-cycle, and our relatively high energy needs - all these are due to our big, greedy brains. Believe me, natural selection didn't create something that expensive only to use one-tenth of it.
Anyway, brain scans have shown that all parts of a living brain are in frequent use. Most of it isn't used for thinking, by the way; as a human being, you are mostly an automaton, in whose behaviour conscious thought and decision-making play very minor roles. Most of the brain is tied up with automatic processing and control systems.
Your belief in human potential becomes you. I salute it. Like you, I believe that the capabilities of the human animal are without obvious limit. However, that is not the same as believing old wives' tales that have no foundation in fact.
Edit to address:
The law is not entropy, actually, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy is its consequence. Neither disagrees with evolution. To understand better, read this.
[edit on 12/7/10 by Astyanax]
No one that sides with evolution is able to show a specie that is being evolved from humans.
In English, 'species' is both singular and plural. 'Specie' in English means 'money', so it's no surprise we don't see it being evolved from humans.
The evolution of a species is a slow process. Different human populations around the world show different characteristics: some are lactose-tolerant, some intolerant; some are vulnerable to pernicious anaemia, others to malaria; some have respiratory systems that have evolved to operate efficiently at high altitudes, most have not. And some populations score well on average-IQ tests, while others do very badly. These are not yet specific differences because members of the different populations can interbreed, but if there were no genetic intermingling between them, these populations might eventually (over hundreds of thousands of years) differentiate into separate species.
However, human populations and genes have been mixing more and more in the last five hundred years and particularly in the last century as the world becomes more integrated and globalized. This makes it very hard for differences between populations to be retained. More likely that genetic variation between populations will be reduced, not increased, at least in the short run.
To say we use all of our brain says nothing about the potential of human intelligence, creativity and problem solving.
I don't think nophun or anyone else was suggesting that it did.
Such a skeptical rebuttal of the vast potential of the human thinking machine implies that we have reached our limits of brain potential - probably the most harmful dead end notion of all. We haven't even got close.
Are you expressing an article of faith? Or do you have some evidence for this? Scientific evidence, the kind nophun posted?
Here are the facts. We, like all animals, use 100 percent of our brains. Natural selection is merciless; evolution has no spare capacity to waste on useless luxuries. In survival and reproduction terms, human brains are very, very expensive. The architectural compromises of the female human pelvis, the absurdly extended juvenile phase of the human life-cycle, and our relatively high energy needs - all these are due to our big, greedy brains. Believe me, natural selection didn't create something that expensive only to use one-tenth of it.
Anyway, brain scans have shown that all parts of a living brain are in frequent use. Most of it isn't used for thinking, by the way; as a human being, you are mostly an automaton, in whose behaviour conscious thought and decision-making play very minor roles. Most of the brain is tied up with automatic processing and control systems.
Your belief in human potential becomes you. I salute it. Like you, I believe that the capabilities of the human animal are without obvious limit. However, that is not the same as believing old wives' tales that have no foundation in fact.
*
Edit to address:
a law called entropy, that actually disagrees with evolution
The law is not entropy, actually, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy is its consequence. Neither disagrees with evolution. To understand better, read this.
[edit on 12/7/10 by Astyanax]
I'll probably be ignored and bored.
If a poster creates a new language then the poster decides the definition for the word .
A poster creates a new language
Therefore, the poster decides the definition for the new word.
You have one choice to make with evolution.
You either believe the evolution theory or you don't accept the evolution theory.
Make your decision and surrender to it!
[edit on 12-7-2010 by Erad3]
If a poster creates a new language then the poster decides the definition for the word .
A poster creates a new language
Therefore, the poster decides the definition for the new word.
You have one choice to make with evolution.
You either believe the evolution theory or you don't accept the evolution theory.
Make your decision and surrender to it!
[edit on 12-7-2010 by Erad3]
reply to post by Phlynx
Is there a so called missing link to the evolution of man, have we discovered every stage of human evolution so far?
Is there a so called missing link to the evolution of man, have we discovered every stage of human evolution so far?
reply to post by Astyanax
Mistakes everywhere in the last post! That's hilarious not to notice!
You are a scoundrel and shouldn't be posting misconceptions!
Mistakes everywhere in the last post! That's hilarious not to notice!
You are a scoundrel and shouldn't be posting misconceptions!
A major evolutionary success of mammals is fur - it's water-proof and keeps them warm. So why did we evolve to lose it? I've heard it said that it
might be down to sexual attraction, but this answer seems to be just a guess.
Why do we not see any transitional forms today when there should be millions? according to Darwin's THEORY?
Why do the fossil records indicate that some species have NOT EVOLVED AT ALL in millions of years and still exist today as they did millions of years ago, surely they couldn't have reached their "LIMIT" in evolution?
What about Irreducible complexities?
www.talkorigins.org...
www.harunyahya.info...
Why do the fossil records indicate that some species have NOT EVOLVED AT ALL in millions of years and still exist today as they did millions of years ago, surely they couldn't have reached their "LIMIT" in evolution?
What about Irreducible complexities?
www.talkorigins.org...
www.harunyahya.info...
Originally posted by Johnze
I have a problem with evolution i would like cleared up
Why does an orange taste the way it does?, why does it taste so good?, how does a #ing orange understand what taste is and what impact that may have on it succes as a plant?
Thats what i would like to know. Why do things evolve to taste good.
Because one might argue god just left all these wonderful tasty fruit treats for us to enjoy.
Don't think you understand. Our brain tells us what tastes good and doesn't...the sweet orange in question contains a specific substance which our brains neurotransmitters that direct our taste buds as being sweet and hence it tastes "good".As we have been eating this stuff for ages our brains have evolved our taste buds to like them.
Some links that you should view.
www.sciencedaily.com...
www.sciencedaily.com...
[edit on 12-7-2010 by Leonardo01]
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