fulltimestudent

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Posts by fulltimestudent

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  15

  Babylonians Discovered Calculus

  by cofty in

  1. social
  2. current

  it had been assumed that rudimentary calculus was developed in europe in the 14th century but now it turns out that the babylonians worked it out more than 2000 years ago.. researchers have deciphered a detail on a cuneiform tablet held at the british museum and revealed that it describes the movement of jupiter.. babylonians believed that jupiter's position was integral to predicting the weather, the price of goods, and the fluctuating river levels throughout the year.. "the now-decoded 'text a' describes a procedure for calculating jupiter’s displacement across the ecliptic plane.. by tracking jupiter’s speed as a function of time and determining the area under a time-velocity curve.".

  read more here....

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  fulltimestudent

  It's a great discovery, isn't it.?
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  21

  If the trolleydolly carts are a failure, what's next?

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  they could try this:.

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  fulltimestudent

  They could try this:

  
  
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  8

  The Winter festival in Harbin - piks of this year's ice constructions.

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

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  fulltimestudent

  No reason to post this image, except I liked it and wanted to share it. It was photographed in China's far northern province of Heilongjiang and is part of a series on Yilehuli Mountain of the Olunchun people.

  
  
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  16

  Why do American Christians stand with Muslim Nations on the Question of Evolution?

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some statistics.

  this graph charts national responses to the statement, "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animal," and show some strange bedfellows.. .

  as you see, a huge majority (70% and higher) of western europe people surveyed, accept evolution (in some form).

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  fulltimestudent

  Off topic, but interesting.

  That Pewforum chart stated that 8% of Jehovah's witnesses support the idea that evolution is a better explanation for the origin of human life.

  Since this conclusion is based on surveys of some kind, I wonder who those (jws?) were?
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  16

  Why do American Christians stand with Muslim Nations on the Question of Evolution?

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some statistics.

  this graph charts national responses to the statement, "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animal," and show some strange bedfellows.. .

  as you see, a huge majority (70% and higher) of western europe people surveyed, accept evolution (in some form).

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  fulltimestudent

  And for an analysis of how religions (generally-grin) view evolution, this Pew research centre provides useful summaries.

  http://www.pewforum.org/2009/02/04/religious-groups-views-on-evolution/

  and another Pew Summary can be found at: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/02/04/religious-differences-on-the-question-of-evolution/

  which contains this chart:

  

  and you may note that in lumping Muslims together, I 'generalised' again. As the chart shows, the Pew researchers hold an opinion that 45% of Muslims agree that evolution poses the best explanation for the existence of life on earth.

  The 'special creationists' are indeed a minority.
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  16

  Why do American Christians stand with Muslim Nations on the Question of Evolution?

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some statistics.

  this graph charts national responses to the statement, "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animal," and show some strange bedfellows.. .

  as you see, a huge majority (70% and higher) of western europe people surveyed, accept evolution (in some form).

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  fulltimestudent

  Village Idiot : Your chart only included Turkey amongst Muslim nations and there was a big difference between the USA, 40% pro-evolution, and Turkey at 25%. Also, your title's mention of American Christians implies that most who identify themselves as such, about 85% of its population, hold on to that belief. It's fundamentalist Christians who are the focus, not liberal Christians and moderates who tend to believe in evolution and outnumber the Fundamentalists.
  Of course, the USA lags behind the secular minded Europeans because of its having a larger fundamentalist Christian presence but it is not fair to compare them to Muslim nations.

  Unfortunately, not 'my chart' V.I. but 'the chart.' I would love to have the facilities to produce such charts)

  Nonetheless, you are quite right. Both 'the chart' and my comments contained generalisations. The fact that Christianity is hopelessly divided on this (and, other topics) is a point I made in Shadow's thread, "What are the biggest holes in Evolution." This is the point I made, emphasising that relatively few Christians (a minority) refute evolution.

  Even more basic is that the question can be reduced to this, "How did humans come to exist on this planet?"
  Faith based Christian religions, a rather small minority of the 2.2 billion professed Christians* in the world insist that it is by special creation. If you ask the same questions that you suggest should be asked about evolutionary scientists, what answers do you think that you will get?

  I fail to see why it is 'unfair' to compare fundamentalist Christians to Muslim nations. Though of course, to speak of Muslims as a monolithic, homogenous bloc is also a generalisation. Not all Muslims are the same, not all are fanatical. Neither, are all Christians peace loving, are they? The point I wanted to make in the thread's title was that the beliefs of both groups on the topic of evolution are similar.

  But I accept your judgement that it may have been better to define the term, 'American Christians' more specifically to fundamentalist American Christians.

  
  
  
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  16

  Why do American Christians stand with Muslim Nations on the Question of Evolution?

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some statistics.

  this graph charts national responses to the statement, "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animal," and show some strange bedfellows.. .

  as you see, a huge majority (70% and higher) of western europe people surveyed, accept evolution (in some form).

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  2. 
  3. 
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  fulltimestudent

  Some statistics.

  This graph charts national responses to the statement, "Human Beings, as we know them, developed from Earlier Species of Animal," and show some strange bedfellows.

  

  As you see, a huge majority (70% and higher) of western Europe people surveyed, accept evolution (in some form). In East Asia only Japan* was surveyed, but their level of support for evolution is also at 80%. China was not surveyed, but since a big majority do not believe in any religion, we can expect that likely there is big majority that believe in evolution. Vietnam has a large Catholic population who are allowed to believe in evolution - adding that to 50 years of communist teachings means that likely support for evolution would be over 70%. In south Asia, India and similar cultures influenced by the religious system the west calls hinduism, also permits acceptance of evolution (See this Wikipedia entry for an overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_views_on_evolution )

  In eastern Europe with its strong orthodox Christian following, the level of support diminishes.

  In the USA though we find only 40% (according to this survey) acceptance of evolution, a percentage that is only matched by similar fundamentalist thinking in Turkey, which is more liberal in attitudes than other Islamic nations, which likely have an even lower level of acceptance.

  This chart was from a Wikipedia entry discussing the level of support for evolution.

  Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution

  Footnote references 108,109 deal with the above chart.

  * Japan has a very small percentage of people that accept Christianity - around 1-2 %
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  8

  The Evolution of Humans

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tracing the evolutionary path of humans is complicated.

  simply because human and proto-human remains (including bones) are perishable.

  remains from the distant past are usually only preserved when some unique features exist that assist preservation.

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  fulltimestudent

  This next article from Nature discusses:

  New evidence on the earliest human presence at high northern latitudes in northeast Asia

  Nature 431, 559-562 (30 September 2004) | doi:10.1038/nature02829;
  

  In it the authors describe the finding of a range of stone tools in layers of sediment at Majuangou in north China. The stone tools are considered to be evidence of human activity.

  An interesting side point is the level of international co-operation in conducting this research.

  The researchers are listed as: R. X. Zhu1, R. Potts2, F. Xie3, K. A. Hoffman4, C. L. Deng1, C. D. Shi1, Y. X. Pan1, H. Q. Wang1, R. P. Shi1, Y. C. Wang1, G. H. Shi1 & N. Q. Wu1

  And the co-operating Institutions are:

  1. Paleomagnetism Laboratory, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
  2. Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0112, USA
  3. Hebei Province Institute of Cultural Relics, Shijiazhuang 050000, China
  4. Physics Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California 93410, USA

  The Abstract reads:

  The timing of early human dispersal to Asia is a central issue in the study of human evolution. Excavations in predominantly lacustrine sediments at Majuangou, Nihewan basin, north China, uncovered four layers of indisputable hominin stone tools. Here we report magnetostratigraphic results that constrain the age of the four artefact layers to an interval of nearly 340,000 yr between the Olduvai subchron and the Cobb Mountain event. The lowest layer, about 1.66 million years old (Myr), provides the oldest record of stone-tool processing of animal tissues in east Asia. The highest layer, at about 1.32 Myr, correlates with the stone tool layer at Xiaochangliang1, previously considered the oldest archaeological site in this region. The findings at Majuangou indicate that the oldest known human presence in northeast Asia at 40° N is only slightly younger than that in western Asia2, 3. This result implies that a long yet rapid migration from Africa, possibly initiated during a phase of warm climate, enabled early human populations to inhabit northern latitudes of east Asia over a prolonged period.

  Weblink: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7008/full/nature02829.html
  
  

  If early humans (or, even proto-humans) were in existence at the times indicated by the layers of sediment, how do we explain the ignorance of the author of Genesis?

  
  
  
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  8

  The Evolution of Humans

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tracing the evolutionary path of humans is complicated.

  simply because human and proto-human remains (including bones) are perishable.

  remains from the distant past are usually only preserved when some unique features exist that assist preservation.

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  fulltimestudent

  A BBC overview covering evidence of early human and Neanderthal inter-breeding can be found at:

  http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33226416
  
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  8

  The Evolution of Humans

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tracing the evolutionary path of humans is complicated.

  simply because human and proto-human remains (including bones) are perishable.

  remains from the distant past are usually only preserved when some unique features exist that assist preservation.

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  2. 
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  fulltimestudent

  • Mephis : Just away from Nature itself, a few other places which give you the ability to go to sources directly if you want to research something for yourself.
    JSTOR offers limited access to papers with a free account, for those without access to a decent library. It's only 3 articles every fortnight however. But better than a kick to the nether regions and it covers a crazy amount of academic journals.
    http://about.jstor.org/rr
    Plosone is becoming very fashionable to use. Open access, peer reviewed papers. Thehomo naledi papers were put up there, which caused quite a stir as usually one would expect it to take a few years from discovery to publication in a traditional journal.
    http://www.plosone.org/
    Academia.edu has a huge number of essays and articles put up by individual academics wanting to do open access. You may want to just create an account (free) to be able to browse through. Much goodness contained whether you're into science things or the humanities.
    https://www.academia.edu/

    Thanks for your very useful suggestions, Mephis. I'm sure other interested folk will find them useful.