In the developed world, most of the intricate artisan skills have been lost to us. Basically, most things are done for us and few of know a tiny bit about how to survive without modern technology. We have only to look into history to see how capable people used to be. And people are still left wondering how ancient peoples did great things.
Human Devolution? Interesting Article...
by AGuest 233 Replies latest jw friends
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sabastious
Confirmation comes as the result of the principle of falsification, and is not a seperate tenet of the scientific method. The falsification process is not simply a debunking of theory . . . it involves the continued testing and experimentation of previously presented hypotheses, in a search for genuine exceptions and flaws . . . it is only through this process that these become exposed and dealt with. The results of the process confirm . . . or otherwise.
What I am asking is when do you test to see that something is true rather than false? If you are testing exclusively to see if it is false then you are going to end with a vague conclusion unless there is a plethora of data (which is rarely the case). "It's not X" isn't really a conclusion, it's just a useful point of reference. "It's not X, and it is Y because" sounds to me like a legitmate way of coming to a conclusion. It's not that I don't understand the scientific method, I'm just not sure I agree with it. Methodical falsification is just asking for negative mindset. Most atheists think that the earth could be destroyed by varying cosmic phenomenon such as a massive solar flare. This is not a positve outlook on life and frankly it's just scaremongering in my opinion. "We are being protected" is just as valid a scientific conclusion as "we are not being protected." When was the last time humanity was wiped off the face of the planet by a natural disaster? The argument could easily be made that we are cared for by something that wants us to survive as a species. You could falsify that all day long, but you will just be contributing to the world's problem of chronic negative thinking. Falsification is negative outlook. When used for the search of absolute truth it's useful, but when applied to human filled environments it starts to show it's massive flaws and contrast to human nature. No matter how much we may want to believe it, we are NOT biological robots doomed for destruction, we are living breathing beings that are heading in the progressive direction. We transcend therefore we are.
-Sab
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Band on the Run
I listen to an NPR show about Thoreau of New England transcendaltism and Walden Pond fame. During the Viet Nam War, Walden Pond was almost a Bible. It was interesting b/c he was a renaissance person. He had three or four trades. Besides philosophy, he also knew how to manufacture pencils, build homes, and a few other skills. The biographer said this was not atypical for Civil War era people. Bejamin Franklin's main gig was running the British postal system in America and publishing. The science was an interest. Yet he was the most famous American of his generation. He was the Beatles, Stones, and Dylan combined. He lacked intellectual rigor (I read Einstein was in a similar state) but his mind saw practical uses for theories. The lightning rod saved many lives.
Humans seem to advance the more intricate and intertwined our trading patterns are. We live in a very social world. Loss of electricity sets up back for a long time. Perhaps I am bored but when I watch TV, read a book, or discuss public policy, I am aware of how many related fields were necessary to achieve the result.
The birth rate for the poorest groups, Latino, is sky high compared to middle class blacks and whites. The more prosperous group are just holding on and prob. even loosing population. Large families usually lead to poverty. So one can note the phenomena but the reasons why and the implications are complex. For example, leading American universities, including Teachers' College at Columbia and Harvard, believe in the hard science of eugenics. People were sterlized against their will. This made eminent sense of one of the most brilliant justices of the Supreme Court. He reasoned that "one generation of idiots if enough." American institutions measured head size and declared blacks and other minorities physically inferior to whites. You would think it was written by Nazi scientists. Indeed, most mental illness has a strong genetic component. After HItler, society would rather err to privacy rights and sacrifice children. The tide turned dramatically. At the time these theories were put into policy actions, the science was considered valid.
It is hubris to make grand conclusions from a Daily News article. The article is evidently newsworthy but inadequate. It reminds me of trivia in itself. The conclusions are way beyond my educational level. We "discuss" apples and oranges here frequently.
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NewChapter
(2) I didn’t necessarily set out to “play” with anyone or any particular group of people. This switched perception, though, is what I perceived borne out in some of the responses at/to me... that I was the "trespasser"... and being treated as such... and so why I began to perceive some of it as "personal." I really found the topic intriguing, however... in light of my own observations... and so was quite serious in trying to understand what others thought about it and/or had to contribute. I realized from the start that I was taking a micro position, versus the author’s macro position (given the timeframes involved in such “change”)... and perhaps that was my error here. But I intended no particular group as a target nor to arbitrarily invite controversy.
Not at all---you may have misunderstood. What I meant was that if you want us to join in the discussion, it may be good to understand where we are coming from and how we approach topics of a scientific nature. It was not meant to suggest that you were invited to a game, or that you have broken rules or anything even remotely close to that. Simply that you put the topic out there, and we approached it as we would if ANYBODY had put the topic out there, and in a way, that in itself is a show of respect, because we treated you and the topic exactly how we would treat it if anyone else had put it out there. And if we are 'playing' so to speak, it's good to understand that we think ideas are open to a lot of challenging, and for us, that is very stimulating and means we are engaged and very much enjoying the discussion---not fighting.
I learned this approach when I started taking science classes in college. The professors never shut down challenges, which they surely could do with an appeal to authority. Instead, they welcomed the challenges and let them be argued out---even when they disagreed with the professor who was a scientist. They encouraged the challenges, and as the discussion would continue, others would start to add their challenges. The professors, rather than saying 'this is the way it is, and much smarter people than you came to these conclusions' instead put forth the message that ALL theories were open to challenge by anyone. They would even go to the board and start mapping out the challenges. They used this as an opportunity to teach us critical thinking and confidence. That was the atmosphere, and I found it very refreshing. The professors were not ego driven, even when their opinion got smashed. Instead they considered every argument, and in the end, the debate was often not resolved, but everyone walked away with some things to think about. They were teaching us to challenge what we were told (can't ever be sure the next Einstein is not in the room) and that we should be comfortable with it and confident with it. That a challenge was not personal, but enlightening.
That is what I was trying to relaty here. Not that there is some kind of hierarchy that it is improper to breech, but that an idea was put out there, and it's a good and interesting one, and that if we have to worry that our challenge will be taken personally, that we really can't 'play'. We've only made the progress we have made because there is a system that welcomes very enthusiastic challenges.
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TD
Sizemik,
I'm not convinced of that at all . . . and such a suggestion is made with unwarranted haste IMHO.
Well I did preface it with an 'If' statement. (i.e. If John Hawks can be believe...) Dr. Hawks may be mistaken.
I'm aware of others that have attempted to make sense of his data, like David Geary and his collegues at the University of Missouri, Brian Hare at Duke University, etc., but I'm not aware of anyone who disputes the raw data itself.
"Loss of brain tissue" is a slightly suggestive description for what is better termed a change in volume.
I agree that the word, 'Loss' is a little sensationalistic given that none of us have personally lost anything. 150cc is roughly the size of a tennis ball and that's how much of a reduction in volume has ocurred. I also agree that there is not a direct one to one correlation between brain size and intelligence, but the two are by no means disconnected either, especially when we are talking about the same species with the same brain typology.
it is very premature to suggest any other mechanisms are involved IMO.
Not at all. Rapid changes in a species are indicative of simple breeding trends rather than mutation driven changes in the genome itself. Demographic studies in humans have indicatd that fertility rate and intelligence are inversely correlated. This was shocking when William Shockley (No pun intended) proposed it in the mid-60's but it has been confirmed by other studies. Of course this is only one possible explanation for why human brain size started shrinking at the dawn of civilization. I don't think anybody really knows.
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still thinking
Sab, I'm not sure why you are associating scientific method of disproving, with negativie outlook on life. It is simply a method that gets rid of false ideas. I see that as VERY positive.
Once something can no longer be dismissed the result is either positive or non viable and can lead to other types of enquiry. There is nothing that I can see that is negative about dismissing non truths.
Whos world view is it that we are biological robots doomed for destruction? It certainly isn't mine. I see an evolution of a species that is awe inspiring and a universe that makes us appear so insignificant, and yet we are as vital to it as it is to us. We are all interconnected just because we exist. What's negative about that?
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AGuest
The professors, rather than saying 'this is the way it is, and much smarter people than you came to these conclusions' instead put forth the message that ALL theories were open to challenge by anyone.
Which is how I perceived you as approaching this thread, dear NC (peace to you... and thank you for that!). And so I understood/understand YOUR good intent and thus, lack of malice (hence, I acknowledged the respect you showed when making the statements, as well as didn't pointedly name you when I commented on them). I don't believe everyone came with that... mmmmm... same frame of mind, though (although a few did) and my point was toward those who seemed to exhibit a different... mmmmm... "attitude"... and why (from my perspective, based on "history").
I think we're all good, now, though, and so no more worries on my end. My further comments on this were only to perhaps assist with the clarification YOU seem to be trying to do so that should a similar "discussion" perhaps take place in the future, some who wish to participate might understand others' [frame of mind] in doing so. Which I perceive is what you're trying to facilitate, as well.
Again, peace to you!
A slave of Christ,
SA
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sabastious
Sab, I'm not sure why you are associating scientific method of disproving, with negativie outlook on life. It is simply a method that gets rid of false ideas. I see that as VERY positive.
There is very little positivity because for every positive thing that technology brings to the table it can all be rendered obsolete by a massive solar flare or a space rock. Also technology will always be used as a weapon of mass destruction, which is NEGATIVE. You don't acknowledge the bad with the good because if you did, you'd see the bad outweighs the good. Which is why you don't believe in God, right? True hope is telling your child that everything is going to be OK. You don't want to preach blind hope, but science doesn't seem to be in the industry of hope, only as a selling point of hope. But they also use doomsday scenarios as much as any religion, also for the purposes of sales and they just use logic and reason only, instead of that plus spiritual doctrine and Scripture. The article in the OP paints this point perfectly. Apparently, all we know how to do is devolve into lesser forms and fade into time. "We had a good run" is about all science can offer as far as hope goes. Like I said every peice of technology like the Tricorders for example are a moot point when thinking about the cosmic picture. If we are all just going to freeze to death, why not just make as much money as possible and ride the backs of the working class? Why not cheat to get ahead? Morals exist for a reason and they are actually why we are still on this rock not only alive, but alive and well ready to move onto the next step, whatever that may be. Maybe YOU can keep positive, but that's not the way I look at it. I see it as hopeless doom with no point and counters logic itself. God is a much more elegant explanation.
Once something can no longer be dismissed the result is either positive or non viable and can lead to other types of enquiry. There is nothing that I can see that is negative about dismissing non truths.
That's exactly how Monotheism was discovered, eventually it just couldn't be dismissed and once it become the precedent people needed to conform to the truth or fade into time. There is a lot of negatives to concepts that involve the destruction of life as we know it. Mass devolution is NEGATIVE. Why is that hard to understand? Evolution works one way: progress and that's what humans do, we progress. There is no reason to paint these doomsday scenarios other than to develop interest in the field of science, an urgency if you will, much like my former religion.
Whos world view is it that we are biological robots doomed for destruction? It certainly isn't mine. I see an evolution of a species that is awe inspiring and a universe that makes us appear so insignificant, and yet we are as vital to it as it is to us. We are all interconnected just because we exist. What's negative about that?
Atheists don't ever say they are biological robots doomed for destruction becaues it's bad PR. But that's what we are when you factor in all the data. We were NOT created remember? There is NO direction to life, only natural selection which only appears to be intelligently directed. In the atheist "reality" we are set for destruction, the universe will eventually cool down to the point where no life is supported. There is always a "game over" scenario that isn't really talked about, but looms in the distance like a superstorm just waiting to tumble your house across the street. Then you are asked to work your fingers to the bone on your house when you know one day it will just be whisked away.
It's flabbergasting to me that you can say that Intelligent Design is stupid because it would mean God is a monster and then you say that the life that God didn't create actually isn't negative. I just don't understand atheists, I yearn to understand their position, but frankly it's so contradicting that's hard to respect much less keep up with.
-Sab
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NewChapter
Sab, I find Evolution to be very beautiful and not negative at all. The process of falsifying with the goal to finding the better answer is not negative at all. It's liberating. It tamps down egos, and it cuts off bias---two things that can prevent progress.
There is falsification for the sake of being contradictory and argumentative. That is not what we are discussing here. That would not bring about the results we are all trying to achieve. ID is this way. It is not honest debate, but has an agenda. For scientifically minded people we find the scientific method to be beautiful, not negative, because it brings us closer to the answers and that is what really excites us. The better answers and the process that leads to them.
You seem to think that scientists sit around in a room sniping at each other and getting personal. That they view the entire world with cynicism. We are pretty much too blown away at the granduer of what we are learning to worry about being overly cynical. It's' humbling. I'm sure that because it is driven by humans, there are personality conflicts, but this is why it is even more important to keep the process pure.
In the end, you are arguing against results. It is through this method that we have reached some pretty astounding results. And yet you seem to resent that the approach is not more phylisophical. Learn to compartmentalize. Philosopy has its value for some, and perhaps even draws on science for further enlightenment, but it is a different area with a different method. Science does not ask that Philosophy be more scientific. Why must you lament that the scientific method is not more philisophical? They are separate issues that feed very different things.
But the notion that scientifically minded people just see all life as organic robots is just wrong. It is reducing something very complex and layered to the barest minimum and most rididulous.
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cofty
you can say that Intelligent Design is stupid because it would mean God is a monster
The Intelligent Design argument is dead in the water becasue there is no positive evidence to support it.
The question of evil is a different one.