Posts by Viviane

posted

266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

I did address that, Viviane, see my 2nd and 3rd to last paragraphs.

I read those. You are trying to make the case for a first of a species and then prop it up by describing a population evolving. As you said, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

The suggestion that there can be no first human because everything evolved from something else seems to me to suggest that there are no humans at all.

That's not the suggestion. It's that speciation occurs is a population, not an indivual. Why is that so hard to grasp?

Either there are species which can be defined, and one of those species, H. sapiens, has a nickname, "human", or there are no clear species distinctions and therefore no such things as humans. In this way of looking at things, there is only life, and some life can interbreed, and some cannot. Wikipedia says:

That's been brought up several time, mainly bu Cofty and myself to point out some of the errors in the suggested tests and the arbitrary nature of terms.
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

Now, this is all following the notion that species are defined by their ability to reproduce with each other, and looking at Wikipedia, I see this is only one way to define a species. But according to this long-accepted definition, I fail to see why there cannot be a first member of any given species.

Because it would have no partner to reproduce with (in sexual reproductive scenarios) and would die off. This is why populations evolve into new species, not individuals.
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

If you take my filter I don't see why it wouldn't work. You add enough rules and exceptions and you will cover everything specially since is a finite example.

That's been explained at least five times to you. Unknown unknowns, arbitrary definitions, lack of prediction, not knowing what to do when your tests produce inconsistent results, etc.

The only thing I have seen that you cannot count is some types of infinity but we are talking of a discrete sets here.

Infinite set work just fine in math.
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

#2 Again I might just be ignorant but I don't see why evolution cannot be applied to individuals as well.

Because that's not what evolution is.

If we claim we are clearly humans(in the video he makes this claim) and that his resent ancestors are clearly humans what makes them so clearly humans. Couldn't that criteria be used to test the rest of the ancestors.

"Clearly human" is not a testable criteria and there is no way to test every ancestor from 30K years ago.
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

Viviane the test would be applied to all ancestors of every human living today and the ancestors of last X(10,000) years. Since you would test all you would find the first human not just A human.

Why? You would also have to test every single human alive today, and by the time you were done, there would be more people alive to test. And by the time you captured all the new humans, you would have more yet again. And you are completely ignoring the scenario I proposed.

Thought experiments still have to be practical and account for various scenarios, such as, what if you find 1K humans from the same time period of 30K years ago that every modern human could mate with, you still have a population!
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

Viviane we never said analyze why some could mate with others. The point was that if you can define human you can find the first human. Mate was just one example it might not work or prove accurate.

No, you still wouldn't find the first human. You would find A human.

So what if population A evolved faster than B. Even if B produced humans eventually if A produced humans first thats the winner. It doesn't matter if they lived on the same timeline that was not the problem presented. For my example tests between population A and B are irrelevant, the test would be from current population and a few thousand years to the rest.

It actually matters because you're test to determine "Is human?" just gave contradictory results from the group that you defined all as human.
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

We never said all humans are equal that was I originally suggested a set of parameters with ranges that would include all current humans and from the last 10,000.

Why 10000 years ago and up? That seems arbitrary.
33
Evolution is just a theory
by donny in
1. watchtower
2. bible
for those who have heard this comment, check out aron ra's great site.. http://www.aronra.com/.
Viviane

My point is that it's fine to believe scientific marvels, but always be willing to accept new ideas.

You just described science!
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

I think there is also a slight error in the premise of the argument, in that it is geneticlly proven that we all came from one mother.

Had we all evolved along different lines, as one race from monkeys to humans, the debate would more interesting. All you need to really ask, is, was "Eve" the first human?

Denisovans, Neanderthals and Flores Man come to mind off the top of my head. I'm not sure what you are saying.
266
There Was No First Human
by cofty in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
this excellent 4 minute video will help to clear up a few common misunderstandings regarding evolution.. ....
Viviane

You're missing the point. What there was a hominid 30K years ago half of the worlds (population A) could mate with and the other half (population B) couldn't. Now, suppose there is another distinct hominid from another part of the world that population A couldn't mate with and population B could.

What would that tell you?