Evolutionary Advantage - I think not

Videos like those below (And there are a lot of them - BBC, Discovery, History, indie) pretty much end the discussion on whether we are a product of straight evolution or the product of a higher creation....(We are both)

Folks "arguing" that we are just merely evolved from apes, etc...are fond of noting how "this or that" feature/characteristic of an animal and/or human behavior evolved for this reason or that ....well somebody...tell me the evolutionary advantage of counting Pi to thousands of digits....and "where" & "how" would this ability manifest itself w/o any form of creation....

These are just two guys...there are more....got other videos equally or even more astounding....

Discovery Channel - Daniel Tammet - Counting Pi to 22,500 digits.




Here is a guy who is not a savant and he can count pi to 5,000 digits. Never mind his calculation skills.

Mental Calculator - Rüdiger Gamm








Would calculating pi to this many digits be some evolutionary - survival - advantage...I think not.

But "Evolution / Science" folks pretty much ignore stories / people like this because it doesn't fit into their model.
"Modern Science" is the equivalent of the "Catholic Church of Galileo's time."

There are more examples...and when some of these mental powers are revealed to be acquirable...

I'll go so far to say that we all have this capability inside of us...but our mind-body is not operating properly...like a computer overheating that freezes up / miscalculates...the fix...that is another thread...someday...

I don't think it has much to do with evolution.

Training your brain and education is what it's all about. Of course not everyone will be able to do it in to the same degree but it's still a trainable skill, there are tons of methods out there to practice it.

I guess it can kind of be viewed as a hobby? More constructive than getting drunk for example...

A case like Daniel Tammet is hard to study since what he experience is very rare, synesthesia. He manages to use it to his advantage, he also has Aspergers syndrome, both which arent well studied yet.

reply to post by dontneedaname


Your thread title is spot on, because it's apparent you indeed "didn't think" about it.

Here: inform yourself: serendip.brynmawr.edu... Science isn't ignoring anything, that's just wishful thinking on your account! Do a google search for scientific journals on studies done on savantism and it's link to autism and you'll find 10000 of relevant links.

But hey...Anything to discredit that pesky "evilition" theory is game eh... even if it has nothing to do with it, or it's just made up stuff from people who refuse to accept reality

but our mind-body is not operating properly..like a computer overheating that freezes up / miscalculates.

^Yeah, right, perceft example of some serious Unintelligent design right there.

Folks "arguing" that we are just merely evolved from apes

Only religious nutcases argue those facts. It is a fact that we share a common ancestor, but in the mind of some religious persons, that is somehow an offensive fact they refuse to accept. the only one "arguing" are the ones who dismiss the entire fossil record, who reject the validity of the science of geology and anthropology.

Intelligence is the ultimate evolutionary tool, and it's most dangerous 'for obvious reasons'..
As for the apes.. We know we share a common ancestry with them by studying their dna and the fossilized remains of creatures that share many similarities with modern man and the great apes. The evidence is undeniable, no matter how much you may dislike it.

Originally posted by dontneedaname
....well somebody...tell me the evolutionary advantage of counting Pi to thousands of digits....

I'm not sure if you're serious or a troll. But really, you can't think of any advantages that being able to memorize things (not necessarily the digits of Pi!) brings to the table?

Originally posted by dontneedaname
"Modern Science" is the equivalent of the "Catholic Church of Galileo's time."

Did the Catholic Church of Galileo's time seek answers to questions via observations and repeatable experiments and revise its theories when they didn't agree with the results? To this day Catholic Church for example encourages people to pray. Why is this? Experiments have shown that prayers don't have any affect on reality. Science on the other hand is forever changing. When results don't agree with theories, theories are revised. It's called progress, and everything humans ever achieved is because of it. You think you'd have electricity or abundance of food if it wasn't for science?

The thing is, I actually agree with the OP, but the facts used are in no way relevant to the argument. As already pointed out, being able to remember things has a clear evolutionary advantage. If we replace the words 'digits of pi' with 'ears of corn' we can see why.

If you are going to argue against evolution then you will need to be a lot more sophisticated than that. I'm not going to do that because I do believe in evolution, but I also believe that there MAY be a direction to it. To say so is a 'faux pas' within Western mainstream thinking, but this is largely born out of a reflexive position to remove any hint or religion from the equation. This is understandable to a degree, but I think we should at least be able to consider the possibility of a direction, and also think that part the reason why it is so frowned upon is political. Basically, reductionist materialism is a necessary part of the propaganda that supports capitalism, consumerism and Western values generally.

Sometimes, there is not an evolutionary advantage to specific traits, but other traits associated with them.

Counting pi to thousands of digits, was not the result of a random mutation, and kept by natural selection. Instead, the way our brains work(designed for survival), that just happens to have that ability to count pi, did arise out of natural selection. Memory, Short Term, Long Term, association tendancies, abstract processing, all the stuff that leads to this are indeed evolutionary advantages.

Just like, there's no evolutionary advantage to plants for being green. However, chlorophyll is green, and there's an obvious advantage to having chlorophyll.

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Hypothetically, if there were a creator, I'm sure he didn't decide to make it so that some of us could do that on purpose. It'd still be the same case of him building a good system, with that ability to happen just a side result.

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Even if, there were no "Evolutionary Advantage" to this, despite the fact that there are. That wouldn't support creation. Something with no reason to evolve, would also have no reason to be created that way. So, it'd hurt the argument for a creator just as much, if not more, by showing something that wouldn't of been created that way. At least evolution has the defense of being imperfect and a variable of randomness, a creator would have no reason. Any reason a creator would see fit that we can't see, would also amount to an Evolutionary Advantage we can't see either.

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A real example of something that's not an Advantage. Would be like the blind spot in the center of all our eyes. No Intelligent Designer one would create like that. However, a Blind(Pun) Watchmaker may make mistakes along those lines.

reply to post by dontneedaname


Not everything that is part of human beings is advantageous. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean evolution works toward perfection, it means that whatever can survive long enough to breed is likely to do well and continue surviving.

Savants, and those like them, are just a variation of humanity, and variation is explained by and supported by evolution.

There are negative genetic aspects to humanity as well, and there are flaws evolutionarily speaking. Nowhere does anyone argue that everything that evolved did so simply because it was advantageous. Why anyone would look at someone who can calculate big numbers in their head and imagine they gained those powers via some magic supernatural force, rather than naturally, is beyond me.

reply to post by dontneedaname


Pi is a measurement and is indicative of human intelligence. It has nothing to do with biological evolution. Why does every thread in this section have evolution in the title, but have nothing at all to do with it?