Confusedjw
That would be included in the god-of-the-gaps section. I wonder, will god explain how he does this, or in a few yrs, will science explain how it happens? Something to consider.
S
EVIL LOUTION? Why do you still resist? Science doesn't work?
by Terry 95 Replies latest jw friends
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funkyderek
You seem to know a lot more than some of the brightest minds of the world.
Perhaps it's just that you know a lot less than you think.
I thought you might give me one example of a coherent theory which explains how human language has evolved so far and which theory cannot be described with your 5 adverbs + one adjective combination: "simply, absolutely, totally and completely, laughably wrong".
Language is not really my area but whatever. How about this: the ancestors of humans had the same ability to communicate as modern apes. As their brains grew beyond a certain point, so their ability to consider and communicate complex ideas also increased. This conferred such a survival advantage that it led to a sort of runaway evolution, with brain size and complexity of language increasing in parallel. That's just off the top of my head, but I don't see anything implausible. If you want to argue details, then go ahead.
I don't want you to explain the details of the theory. Just give me the names of the linguists/evolutionists who've come up with an exlpanation of how language has been becoming gradually more complex, and whose arguments are not based on a bunch of "laughably" hypothetical premises.
Well, it's always worth reading Chomsky and Skinner to get a bit of a background on modern linguistics. You might try Steven Pinker as well. I'd be interested to hear which theories you consider laughable and why.
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seattleniceguy
El blanko:
They are both plants and according to 'their' kind are allowed to mutate using the rules of the creationist.
Wow! A "kind" covers an entire kingdom? Plants are all one kind? If that's the case, then animals are all in the same kind too. That's painting with a pretty wide brush!
The point of the post about the flowers is the fact that flowers that were once the same species have now diverged so much that the two populations cannot be breeded together. That's the basic definition of a species. Imagine two groups of humans, separated for hundreds of thousands of years. After they are reunited, they learn that the two groups can no longer interbreed. That would indicate tremendous genetic divergence, and that is exactly what evolution is.
SNG
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Terry
The interesting thing, to me, is that many people lead lives without knowing how to read or write, or use math or even understand the basics of physics and they don't care. They can eat, sleep, shtup, have bowel movements and laugh at Beavis and Butthead reruns---all without an education of any sort. Evolution or Creation doesn't impact their life because they don't car and don't want to spend any time considering it.
Somewhere between that fetid and feckless example and a doctrinaire insistence on orthodoxy each of us take our place in line. My faithful JW friend who relegates such questions to unimportance because he has microbes in his butt that he can't explain--puzzles me and my puzzlement disturbs me.
How can an honest, intelligent human being not want to know things? Even relatively meager things? How can a person not care if something is true or not true? Why would anyone arbitrarily stifle their own education? To avoid painful discovery? To spend more time on Wrestle Mania? I just don't get it! I not only want to know the facts about everything; I want to learn how to think and reason and explain and discuss articulately. I may never know everything and I may not ever know what I know 100%---but, that doesn't prevent me from the effort.
The Evolution question, I think, helps each of us confront our own place in a scale of intellectual curiousity and honesty. No matter which way we answer---what actual effort have we expended getting to that answer? That is what fascinates me.
I refused to read anything but books that refute Evolution for about 40 years. I only wanted to know how to argue intelligently against it if I was confronted by a question. I see now that I was lazy and dishonest as a thinker. I was bolstering my position and not investigating facts. I am deeply ashamed of myself. I may not correctly understand things even now--but, I am open and willing to hear both sides honestly.
What I still do not understand about myself is why I was the way I was! It is deeply troubling to me.
Terry
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GentlyFeral
el blanko,
At risk of hijacking this thread:
Take a cursory glance at occult science ...
Does anybody on this thread actually believe in invisible entities or the miraculous?
I do: but I also disbelieve that "the occult" is a science. Magic evaporates in the laboratory. Such magic work as is actually "real" rather than fraud or wishful thinking will remain unprovable - whether by its intrinsic nature or by the design of some invisible entity, I decline to speculate.
GentlyFeral
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logical
People do tend to forget that evolution is just a Theory and often take it as a proven fact.
I just dont swallow evolution, neither do I swallow whats in the bible. Both stories have agenda's. Maybe some things are just out of our grasp and we wont know, and these are attempts to describe them.... like many other Theories in science.
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Pole
Perhaps it's just that you know a lot less than you think.
It's good rhetorics, but after you've suggested Skinner as a possible introduction to what you've called "modern linguistics", I guess this statement applies much more to you than to me - at least as far as linguistics goes.
Language is not really my area but whatever. How about this: the ancestors of humans had the same ability to communicate as modern apes. As their brains grew beyond a certain point, so their ability to consider and communicate complex ideas also increased. This conferred such a survival advantage that it led to a sort of runaway evolution, with brain size and complexity of language increasing in parallel. That's just off the top of my head, but I don't see anything implausible. If you want to argue details, then go ahead.
It's definitely not your area, but thank you for letting me know what you consider a "plausible" model of language evolution. I'll have one or two questions to begin with - see below.
If you want to argue details, then go ahead.
Well, it's always worth reading Chomsky and Skinner to get a bit of a background on modern linguistics. You might try Steven Pinker as well. I'd be interested to hear which theories you consider laughable and why.
Chomsky and Skinner are mutually exclusive in many respects, but maybe that's what you mean - getting a little bit of both approaches? Anyways, I didn't ask you for an introduction to linguistics. I asked you for an introduction to the evolution of language. Skinner's linguistic behaviourism may be relevant, but only remotely so. I can't remember where Chomsky or Pinker speculated about the evolution of language (not to be confused with language acquisition) - but it's possible - I cannot claim to have read all of their works.
I didn't say any language evolution theories were "laughable". I asked you to give me an example of one which you think is not laughable. So I am not so judgemental about it.
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I have no rigid agenda concerning language origin anyways - just some questions.
Here's three of them to begin with:
1) You suggest that "the ancestors of humans had the same ability to communicate as modern apes" and that this ability has gradually developed into the thousands of human languages we have today. Would you then say that this gradual improvement also works over shorter perdiods of times - that is the "historical" periods of time that we know something about for sure (as opposed to the prehistorical ones, no written records, etc.)? For instance would you say that languages spoken four thousand years ago should be more complex or less complex than languages spoken today according to your theory?
2) There are thousands of languages all around the world. According to the evolutionary view most of them must have evolved for many thousands of years independently of one another - just like human races (take Australia and North Canada for instance). Would you then assume that some of them should be less developed or less complex than others because they have been shaped by different environmental factors?
3) Please name some features that you think all human languages have in common and which make them different from "animal communication". In this way we will know what we are arguing about.
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confusedjw
Satan's Butterfly said:
That would be included in the god-of-the-gaps section. I wonder, will god explain how he does this, or in a few yrs, will science explain how it happens? Something to consider.
Yeah no kidding. I really want to know how they got that tiger and girl to switch places in mid air!
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Terry
A brief word about THEORY.
A theory is a logical explanation or model based on observation, facts hypotheses, experimentation, and reasoning that attempts to explain a range of natural phenomena. Theories are constantly subject to testing, modification, and refutation as new evidence and ideas emerge. Theories also have predictive capabilities that guide further investigation.
user.mc.net/~kwentz/eduspeak.htmlScience has a method. The method is to try and prove themselves WRONG.
That is the role of experiment. It is called Falsifiability.
capable of being tested (verified or falsified) by experiment or observation
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwnWhen science tests, updates, refines, modifies, hones and rigorously examines its observations you can rest assured the existing theory SUCH AS EVOLUTION is a target balloon which has survived many attempts to puncture it.
Theory is often spoken of in a non-science milieu with contempt or derision. In that sense it is just a mere opinion.
I would submit to you for your consideration that the theory of Evolution would be long ago trampled into smithereens by both scientists and religious opposers if it did not stand up to the attempts to destroy it by presenting a viable representation of how things have come to be.
Terry
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undercover
It's not evolution. It's note evil-loution.
It's Elvis-lution.Cause Elvis is a perfect being.
We are all moving in perfect peace and harmony towards Elvisness
Soon all will become Elvis.
Everything everywhere will be Elvis.
Why do you think they call it evolution anyway?
It's really Elvis-lution.Elvis is everywhere
Elvis is everything
Elvis is everybody
Elvis is still the King.
Man oh man What I want you to see
Is that the big E's Inside of you and me.