Posts by A Ha

113

I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

so... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).

actually, i am helping with two classes.

i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.

A Ha

Let me back up half a step. There are a number of pieces of evidence in favor of evolution--cofty's 35 (and growing) evidences, or talkorigins' 29+ evidences for macroevolution. Your response is to call it "magic," a "myth" and to say you "would be ashamed to believe it was real" and that it "cannot happen." Those are bold statements. What reason(s) do you have for them? It appears you offer two points of evidence:

1) The laws of nature.

What laws of nature make evolution impossible? Do you think the hundreds of thousands of scientists over the past century and a half all happened to overlook these laws of nature and the problem they pose for evolution? Or is it more likely that perhaps you don't understand the application of these laws of nature, and that they pose no problem whatsoever to evolution--indeed, that evolution depends on them? If you can list the laws of nature that evolution violates, we can discuss them.

2) The laws of information.

Here you appear to be using a made-up term. I'm not aware of the laws of information as you've posted them being accepted in the scientific community. They appear to come from creation.com. Again, you have to ask yourself why the guys at creation.com, discovery.com, and other creationist organizations are to be believed over countless scientists. Before answering, consider that most of these creationist organizations state that when science is in conflict with their interpretation of the Bible, they will always come down on the side of the Bible. Their board members (the people--sometimes scientists, and sometimes even scientists writing in their fields of expertise--writing most of their articls) must sign pledges to this effect; that they will uphold creationist beliefs even if the evidence contradicts them.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe these "laws of information," as you've presented them, are accepted by the greater scientific community. Or maybe they're valid observations that haven' t yet been accepted but someday will. If so, it's because these laws of information are without exception. Yet when I present an exception, you say it doesn't apply because it doesn't qualify as UI because you've defined UI as information intentionally passed from a sender to a receiver.

My counter is then that DNA also does not qualify as UI as you've defined it, since there is no volitional sender and no volitional recipient. Your answer is to simply assert that the will comes from the one who created DNA. This seems circular. You want to claim UI is evidence of a creator, but UI seems to be debunked by the existence of volition-less information in cells and DNA, so to get over that hump you must first assume a creator--the very conclusion you're trying to reach.

Why does the information in a crystal lattice, or a snowflake, or tree rings not count as UI, but the information in DNA does--and you need to answer this without first assuming your conclusion.

113

I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

so... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).

actually, i am helping with two classes.

i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.

A Ha

As seen, language, computer programs and the activities controlled by the nucleus of living cells, all qualify as UI. [1] A very important prerequisite of UI is the will or volition, i.e., an intelligent sender and/or receiver [2] (UI is not a property of matter, meaning it cannot originate from lifeless matter, organic or inorganic). The source of information is always an intelligent mind.

[1] What is the will or volition of a cell nucleus? When the membrane potential of a mitochondria is decreased enough that apoptotic proteins are triggered, which leads eventually and inexorably to cell death, where is the volition of this event?

[2] Says who? I wouldn't bother arguing that information is a property of matter, rather that it's a result of various configurations of matter and energy.

Do you doubt if I cut down a tree and looked at its cross-section, that there is information to be gleaned from it? The rings carry information about the age of the tree (99 years) and about weather and other environmental conditions at various times in the past (the rings tell me that seven years ago there was a forest fire, and that two years ago was a particularly rainy season). Do you claim the tree is willfully sending this information to me?

18

Genital Warts Because our Ancestors were Banging Neanderthals

by cofty in

researchers have found evidence that modern genital warts – otherwise known as the human papillomavirus (hpv) – were sexually transmitted to homo sapiens after our ancestors slept with neanderthals and denisovans roughly around 100,000 years ago.....

A Ha

A 100,000 years ago? I'm a little confused. Although we started migrating 60,000 years ago from Africa it wasn't until about 45,000 years ago that our species colonized Europe where Neandertals lived (There is no evidence of them elsewhere). There may have been other "archaic" species in Africa who, when we began to expand in and out of the continent, might have infected us. - Village Idiot

There have been a number of migrations out of Africa. Sorry, I don't have citations, but there is strong evidence of sapiens meeting neanderthals 100,000 years ago, the "retreating" back to Africa. This doesn't mean there was large-scale conflict, but for whatever reason, sapiens were not able to establish populations in the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia at that time. Then about 45,000 years ago there was another migration that "stuck."

33

Disassociation revealed what type of man my father really is.

by Paul Mooney in

i began my exit from the jehovah’s witness organization about 5 years.

i was a 4th generation born-in, with all the baggage that comes with having the “spiritual heritage” attached to the group.

i was an elder/bethelite/pioneer/whatever other useless privilege there was, i had no family or friends outside of the organization… my entire life was that org.

A Ha

I love you so much and miss you all the time. I want to keep typing the same three words to you over and over hoping you will believe me.

Getting a little dusty in here. Damn allergies.

113

I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

so... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).

actually, i am helping with two classes.

i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.

A Ha

TheOldHippie, that's not what he's doing. He is asking--if I might assume I know his motivations, but I'm likely correct since he's made the same argument before--because most often people confidently proclaim that hundreds of thousands of experts are wrong when they themselves have never even read an entry-level book on the subject.

The argument isn't, "Nobody doubts that, so you should blindly accept it." It's, "Nobody doubts that, and if you do you need to be able to demonstrate why you're right and everyone else is wrong." I don't think cofty asks this question to bully or embarrass people, but to point out that they might be missing huge pieces of the puzzle and/or have read only wildly distorted arguments.

I was asked this question many years ago when I was first having doubts. It didn't have a large immediate effect on me at the time, but it stayed in the back of my mind, and when I finally took the mental step of accepting the JWs weren't inspired, it was the idea maybe you don't know everything and maybe your JW "education" was sorely lacking that helped me more readily accept new ideas (and new facts).

37

Why are there still so many of humanity that are immersed onto the lies, ignorance and delusions of religion ?

by Finkelstein in

all religions under critical examination has been recognized inherently as formative lies devised to appeal to human emotions and as a means to cultivate power and control for a select propagating few.

knowledge acquired through scientific inquiry and evaluation has proven that all religious adherence was mostly drawn out human ignorance targeted toward the emotions and consciousness of people.

here we are in the 21 century and people like the jws are still adhering to the lies of christianity and how this religion developed over time.

A Ha

I'm thinking that brain size climaxed because they gradually became more efficent over time due to natural selection because the mating chances increase with the smarter males getting most of the action while the dumber ones lost many a chance to mate due to the smarter guy getting more than his fair share of spoil. Favoring the more useful brain for the same skull size.

I think the leading theory is that our brains grew because of our social interactions. In intensely social animals like primates, it's important to keep track of who's sleeping with who, who can be trusted and who is a cheater, who doesn't get along with who, etc. A larger brain is needed to keep track of all those interactions and relationships. Group stability is more important than an individual who's strong or smart.

37

Why are there still so many of humanity that are immersed onto the lies, ignorance and delusions of religion ?

by Finkelstein in

all religions under critical examination has been recognized inherently as formative lies devised to appeal to human emotions and as a means to cultivate power and control for a select propagating few.

knowledge acquired through scientific inquiry and evaluation has proven that all religious adherence was mostly drawn out human ignorance targeted toward the emotions and consciousness of people.

here we are in the 21 century and people like the jws are still adhering to the lies of christianity and how this religion developed over time.

A Ha

Well the atom being orbited by elections and the pictures they used to describe them are all fictional and simply vision tools to explain something we don't have camera equipment(electron microscope), that will ever be able to view things at a quantum level, just physics trying to explain things with visual illustrations with no visual proof.
Could that be considered different fiction? or what about we are in a computer simulation I think that is a much more harmless fiction?

Well I'm not a sociologist, but it seems the things you're describing are starting on the road to advanced thought, but they wouldn't qualify as the fictions I was talking about. Other animals are capable of this type of representational thought, but H. sapiens seems to be the only animal capable of, for example, carving a figuring with the body of a man and the head of a lion (e.g., the Stadel lion-man carved about 40,000 years ago), and telling--and convincing--others that this lion-man is our tribal guardian who will help us on our hunts.

The computer simulation would probably be a fiction in this context. Another, used in the book, is that of an L.L.C.(limited liability corporation). It doesn't exist as a physical thing, but if we pay a lawyer to write some magical words on a page, everyone will act as if this thing really exists. We refer to it as a thing, sue it if it harms us, etc... "Human rights" is another fiction that benefits us to treat as if they're real.

Neanderthals and Homo erectus were capable of abstract thought in the sense that they could make tools, seeing the arrowhead in the piece of flint. But H. erectus lived for two million years after inventing tools, and didn't progress beyond that. Neanderthals had language that probably included some more advanced concepts--we know they buried their dead, cared for the sick, made tools, and decorated themselves, but despite having larger brains than H. sapiens they don't seem to have developed the ability to create fictions, which if true, held them back from growing beyond small groups of a few dozen.

37

Why are there still so many of humanity that are immersed onto the lies, ignorance and delusions of religion ?

by Finkelstein in

all religions under critical examination has been recognized inherently as formative lies devised to appeal to human emotions and as a means to cultivate power and control for a select propagating few.

knowledge acquired through scientific inquiry and evaluation has proven that all religious adherence was mostly drawn out human ignorance targeted toward the emotions and consciousness of people.

here we are in the 21 century and people like the jws are still adhering to the lies of christianity and how this religion developed over time.

A Ha

I think there are two related things at work. 1. We have evolved to detect agency. The brain has been called a pattern-recognition machine. The brain that interprets measured footfalls and snapping twigs as a potential predator lives while the brain that thinks it's the wind ends up as someone's lunch. 2. We alone have evolved the ability to invent, talk about, and believe in fictions.

The following is cribbed from Yuval Harari's book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, though I'm paraphrasing and maybe doing some editorializing.

Between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago, Homo sapiens underwent the single greatest change in our history--the Cognitive Revolution. During that period we learned to think--and more importantly--express ourselves differently, with immensely more variety and fluidity of information transmission.

Without this breakthrough, archaic Homo sapiens would likely have not been able to sustain groups much larger than 150 because that's the limit to how many relationships we can keep track of, and this is vital to such intensely social animals.. Most chimpanzee troupes max out at about 50, and Neanderthals would have probably been somewhere in between the two numbers.

The ability to think and speak abstractly--to invent fictions, 'imagined realities' or 'social constructs'--is what allowed us to work collectively in very large groups. It is interesting to note that other fictions besides religion--art, social stratification (governments), commerce--all appeared at roughly the same time.

To answer the question, so many humans are still immersed in religion because it's at the core of who we are. In a very real way, it was religion that allowed us to expand beyond small hunter-gatherer groups and take control of our environment.

Personally, what I would like to see happen is for a different fiction to overtake and replace religion--that of worldwide community and balance with the environment. But I don't think that will ever happen. I think religion is with us until the end. Ironically, the same thing that played such a large part in our success may also be what eventually dooms us as a species, though perhaps that's not fair, since what's at play in religious strife is in-group out-group thinking, and if we didn't have religion we would find another reason to hate the "other."

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