Evolution is wack;God is the only way that makes sense! - Part 2

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by garbonzo, Sep 2, 2012.

  1. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    No. Science is testable. Science requires proof. Science without testability and proof is not science. A scientist who says, here is my scientific thesis, but i can't prove it, is not celebrated, even if they did get some flash of insight. And statistical evidence could be considered proof in the absence of the ability to run a test, but you have to at least have that before you can call your "scientific" idea something other than a philosophical idea. EDIT - You seem to be mixing up the two disciplines of science and metaphysics as well. You also have a very biased approach because you talk about delusion being endemic, instead of just the delusion as how things are.
     
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  3. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    I am obviosuly at cross purposes that is for sure...sorry for the confusion...

    science will not accept the "metaphysical" [using your definition] evolution of the human race due to the fact that it does not conform with the primary objectives they believe exist behind evolution.
    Why humnaity has evolved beyond those primary motivators is what I question as according to evoltionists "human values - such as painting ones hand on a cave wall" go beyond mere survival and are a luxury that evolution would NOT normally afford.

    It is a bit like Darwins Finches evolving a way by natural selection to turn a TV on and watch a sitcom broadcast from the USA via satelite...and value what they witness. [absurd]
     
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  5. gmilam Valued Senior Member

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    On the contrary, imagination and creativity have served us well.
     
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  7. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    i don't have a problem with a lower lifeform evolving into a higher one without specific metaphysical pressure. i am not a deist, but the deistic idea, or "set it and forget it", doesn't seem absurd to me.

    I would say that human values would definitely be a difficult thing to balance evolutionarily, but I think if you look around these values are not totally out of balance in the direction of global slavery and warfare (let's say), or in the direction of altruism either. I would rather not try to show a metaphysical cause is necessary, through science or even "science", because i think it is not possible right now to gather a conclusion from scientific data or principles. Please note that i haven't gotten a response as to the specific principle or data the existence of God would contradict, and i don't expect to find evidence in the positive either. For faith to be personal it can't be something as provable as "the world is round".
     
  8. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I think you're confusing genetic traits and plain old ideas. Simply put, ideas are not inherited genetically. My point about uncivilized tribes found by 19th-20th century scientists is that these did not have any religion. Now I suppose when you define what you mean by primitive people having a philosophy, then we can go from there. I'm not sure why you tie this to biology, though, other than the fact that the modern human brain obviously has a capacity for acculturation, plus, we evidently have the capacity to estimate the cost-to-benefit ratio of living cooperatively. That cooperation appears to be the source of the moral sense you are addressing. Strip away all moral codes by reducing them to customs, and all you will have left is your genetically-endowed empathy. Empathy is a good bootstrap loader. When we notice that local people have a standing rule, we tend to empathize, wishing not to come across as jerks, or to unwittingly raise their hackles. So empathy will encourage us to download the standing rules and then to start operating under those principles perhaps even in place of our own.

    It's up to you, I was left to assume you meant primitive people are by nature religious. That comes from tying in what you said with the thread title.

    I would be the last one here to do that. You're saying this in response to my remark that mammals innovated on intraspecies behavior by evolving the trait for empathy. What I mean by this is that empathy is not a strictly human trait, although it's probable you won't find it outside of the mammalian class. Behaviors in animals are very ancient - certainly fish exhibit a variety of learned behaviors. But certain mammals do sometimes exhibit empathy.

    That would go to definitions as well. There's a genetic definition, which ties in to the thread topic. That is, evolution is NOT wack, belief in God is. Corollary: ethics is the result of acculturation and empathy, both of which are generated out of inherited traits that evolved in H. sapiens sapiens.

    You mean breeding? That would be the extent of their service. The rest, like defending the herd (or running, to defend their stake in the gene pool) speaks to instinct.

    No, but the instincts you mention would seem to be a proximal cause, if not a DNA-coded platform upon which mammalian empathy evolved.

    That's correct thinking, since morality is necessarily an artifact of acculturation.

    Since deaf-mute people can express themselves in the visual arts, I didn't consider that a limitation.

    There's no tradition that we know of that explains this:

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    I wasn't referring to the fine arts, but to the renderings, in some neolithic medium, of ideas.

    I was referring to a hypothetical human that, if it had evolved without the trait to socialize, would have gone forward without any morality as you speak of it.

    I am distinguishing biological traits, which are genetically conferred, from just about everything else, which is culturally conferred (including through acculturation of the child within the family). Morality, or whether you prefer Haydn over Hendrix, are not genetic outcomes. They are merely ideas. Ideas freelance on the platfom, but the platform itself is tied to a contract.

    By now you should understand that I am addressing the thread topic, namely that evolution is real and God is not. Or, if you prefer, human intellect, and behaviors that exhibit socialization and empathy are genetically conferred traits whereas ideas like religion and morality are socially conferred.

    this is in reference to my remark I think it's not only irony to the point of paradox, but it's highly illogical, to assume that the base instincts that make a mob want to put up a scaffold or throw a rope around a tree justify the same instincts at work in the committees that write criminal justice bills,

    Maybe if you catch up with what I'm saying about empathy, you'll understand the connection.

    Are you Buddhist?

    I wasn't crossing into those murky waters. My point has to do with the paradox of glorifying morality as some absolute consequence of the biological trait (empathy), or superseding it (as fundies will do) whereas the reality of the thing most people call morality is justice (as in courts and law enforcement) which necessarily introduces some serious head bashing, which runs counter to empathy. Thus the paradox mentioned above. I'm not really interested in the problematics since I'm only trying to distinguish biological causes (products of evolution) from those that aren't (God).

    Dang. I was about to throw that straw you tossed in my yard back over the fence.

    You will need to cross over to biology to relate this to evolution. The evolution of the human species --away from our proto-human ancestor--ended when H. sapiens sapiens first emerged. There is no basis in fact for relating the step change in the new genome with something we call personality. To test your hypothesis, consider the hypothetical kid raised by wolves. Now try to fit this unacculturated human, this round peg, into the square hole of personality assessment. Personality has no context, no reference point, without socialization and the arrival of societal norms.

    I think you have it backwards. Random mutation, genetic drift and selective pressures force species to diverge. Isolation and confinement to two different habitats forces the maladapted species to diverge. On the other hand, the evolution of sexual reproduction (on or about the onset of the pre-Cambrian explosion) introduced a lottery system in which 1 out of N fertilizations would create monstrous (literally) genetic errors and rapid diversity.

    Regardless, it can have no bearing on evolution. That is, we would have to be carrying some uniquely human personality which the proto-human ancestors lacked.

    I know. But for the benefit of folks who may also be mistaking genetic traits for the pickled ones (acculturation), I've offered my counterpoint.

    They would certainly be off their collective rocker. The problem with all such ideation is that it hinges on superstition. The obsessive reluctance to read and understand how evolution works is (talk about personality disorders) a pretty bleak position, in that it requires denial of so much learning and progress since the bronze-age people who started this nutty thing we call religion. But the other folks who still cling to it would need to have a lot of resolve, not to let their guard down and yield to any doubts that evolution is a process, on par with a law of nature, but which occurs thousand of times more slowly than the orbit if the earth around the sun* and is therefore relegated to the status of a theory, since it's only had 150+ years to prove itself true (in the nutty sense the fundies insist on).


    *a process even fundies don't usually bother to question
     
  9. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    well my guess is that until they do balance the issue out they will always have a debate of this kind going on...
     
  10. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Here hand me the chalk, I can balance that equation for you:

    X * genetic traits + Y * acculturation + Z * free ideas = U.

    We are solving for X.

    X = ( U - Y * acculturation - Z * free ideas ) / genetic traits.
     
  11. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    As you see, there really is no debate: X = f { evolution }.
     
  12. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    hahaha WTF???????????????????????????
    We need to drop the whole personality genetics thing, because it has clearly confused the discussion. Before we get into some more side discussions like "depression is an idea, or depression is not an idea", let's move on. You just said, "the sky is blue" as far as i am concerned. Seriously, i agree that ideas don't get transferred genetically, unless you accept jung and timothy leary and a bunch of other dudes who say it does, and i am not sure what they mean by that anyway. I am not woowoo enough to incorporate that psychological system into this discussion and say it is scientific evidence anyway, and i have to be honest i think leary's 6th (or whatever number it is) system of consciousness describing the dissemination of information from the past through biological means, if he means something more than instincts, is not a part of the 8 circuits of consciousness map that I would necessarily trust at all.
    please provide some reference as to what exactly you mean by this. Do you mean organized religion or spiritual ideas? VERY VERY different things. This may be an actual point of contention we can investigate.
    Primitive people's have ideas about death and whether there is something after it - burial mounds with possessions in them imply some thought about it at least. I'm sure they had other philosophical ideas, but even if it were just the one idea they have philosophy.
    about "empathy". Does biology have anything to say about whether a mouse that exhibits empathic behavior is a better mouse than one who doesn't? If so, how so? Please understand when i mentioned animals "performing actions in service of the genetic propagation of the species" i didn't mean breeding, I meant selfless acts in service of the species, i.e. your animal empathy.
    you keep confusing me with the person who started this thread. If i have to make all my statements with the assumption that i have to prove the original poster's idea (an idea i vehemently disagree with) i will have to switch gears so we all realize i will be playing a mental game of devil's advocate. If you can't talk to me without looking at my words as if they somehow match up with the thread title we are not going to have communication, just blathering.
    Damn, what is with you and the thread title? if you want someone to argue against about the thread title you have to look elsewhere. I think QQ has some ideas that are somewhat in line with the thread title but don't let me speak for QQ.
    a great number of later ideas for why people create art can be used to explain that cave painting. If you mean that we'll never know EXACTLY why this artist made this painting (which i don't think is your point), then i agree.
    I am distinguishing biological traits, which are genetically conferred, from just about everything else, which is culturally conferred (including through acculturation of the child within the family). Morality, or whether you prefer Haydn over Hendrix, are not genetic outcomes. They are merely ideas. Ideas freelance on the platfom, but the platform itself is tied to a contract.[/quote] specific ideas are not transferred genetically. You are preaching to the choir here, saying that to me.
    omg. I guess i will have to wait until you are ready to discuss these ideas with me instead of the person who started the thread.
    maybe if you discuss these things without filtering all of my words, erroneously, through the matrix you have set up within which MY words are twisted around to defend the thread title, YOU would catch up to what I am saying. "i am not the original poster" x infinity.
    Philosophically speaking i try to be. Religiously speaking I am not.


    I wasn't crossing into those murky waters. My point has to do with the paradox of glorifying morality as some absolute consequence of the biological trait (empathy), or superseding it (as fundies will do) whereas the reality of the thing most people call morality is justice (as in courts and law enforcement) which necessarily introduces some serious head bashing, which runs counter to empathy. Thus the paradox mentioned above. I'm not really interested in the problematics since I'm only trying to distinguish biological causes (products of evolution) from those that aren't (God).


    please note i said "if you mean", not "you mean". Keep all of the straw in your yard please.


    ok, so DNA confers a propensity for a type of brain development which often results in a particular personality trait (such as depression) after normal species behavior (such as getting teased by people at school et al.) call it what you wish, it isn't pertinent to my thoughts.
    No, i don't have it backward. Natural selection is the only thing that "favors" a species. If natural selection didn't favor diversity, we would have a lot less diversity. Although the opposite idea would say we would have a lot more albinos. Without a deeper analysis, it is unclear. Let's drop the diversity thing anyway.
    we could talk about THAT idea, which would be in line with a real question, if YOU could get past the idea that I am talking about the idea you mention below.
    Are you still beating that dead horse? I believe that evolution is real. Didn't you read my post saying I would wait to post until you felt the thread had sufficiently gotten past the point where we can say, "evolution is real" and then we could talk about morality and biology without you pulling out your little sword and stabbing the dead horse every five sentences.
    ... aqueous says "but the sun is not a giant lightning bug"
    cole grey says,"yes, I understand that"
    AQU-"but the sun is not..."
    CG"yes we get it"
    AQU "but the sun..."
     
  13. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    that is not even the equation we were talking about. The already closely balanced (which is amazing because it seems difficult to do) equation we were talking about was -
    (evolutioneffectA*nicepeople)-(evolutioneffectB*badpeople)=zero

    and we were talking about someday having evolutioneffectA be much larger than evolutioneffectB so the sum would be a very large number as well. Please pay attention. But seriously, whatever, I am just messing with you.
     
  14. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    You opened with a question concerning the adoption of a Chinese kid by non-Asian parents, meaning to tie it to an ethos that somehow (apparently) discredits the Theory of Evolution. My point here is that ideas are not genetic.

    No, that's a second issue you brought up. I'm not arguing the genetic predisposition to mental illness. I'm arguing that in evolution, which for us ended millions of years ago (minus a few minor adaptations), there is no assigment of generic mental health to the entire species. Therefore it's not a product of evolution at all.

    I'm guessing you have no idea what I'm talking about.

    Those are fun ideas to play around with, but not possibly even remotely supported by evidence, since, again, the benchmark for a question of evolution is: how do we differ from the proto-human ancestor?

    Specifically, these people I'm thinking of had no concept of a God.

    Also the one I mentioned, eating the brains of the dead elder. Also consider shrunken heads. Now: are burials (respect for the dead) genetic traits of the modern human species? I would suppose they are simple expressions of empathy, nothing more.

    I think you're confusing the trait of empathy with ideas and behaviors you associate with it. Biological empathy generally refers to the mammalian trait of caring for the altricial young. It's something more than the way birds feed their young, which could be seen as evidence of a genetic precursor. Other forms of animal empathy would include the care and grooming among apes, the cradling of their infants, and some evidence that they mourn their dead. This has been observed in several taxa - I would include elephants and perhaps whales and dolphins. I think we could compile a list.
    No, I understood that you are not comfortable with the Theory of Evolution in that you have not reconciled animal behaviors with biology, or linked these to the genetically conferred behaviors in us.

    Because the inference here is that you are substituting evolution vs God with evolution vs behavior.

    I was actually asking you to consider what kind of species we would be if our genetic trait for behavior made us loners as some other species are. This was an exercise in considering what biologically-endowed behavior means to you.

    Maybe you can relate this to your story about the Chinese girl to take me back to whatever your point was then.

    I'm addressing the fundies indirectly, but my direct remarks to you are in response to the things you posted, as I took them from what they meant to me, and within the context of the thread topic. I'm still listening.

    (A Buddhist. OK.)

    It's not straw if it's topical, is it?

    I thought your thoughts were to link evolution to behavior. My thoughts were that this is correct thinking as long as we narrow the range of behaviors to the ones actually conferred genetically. (I wasn't referring to genetic anomalies, but to the genome itself). This is why I brought up socialization and empathy, as two relevant behavioral traits that are known to be conferred genetically among other animals.

    In genetics the divesity is the range of ways that the DNA can randomize without losing the genome itself. Thus the traits such as blue vs brown eyes are remotely connected to a factor that selected for survival (pigmentation), whereas the factors for shape hair follicle (round vs elliptical) which yield straight vs curly hair might only be a consequence of genetic drift. It's not clear to me what you meant by diversity, or whether you think humans diversify more than other species. But to me dogs are a good example of how artificial selection accentuates what nature is doing in natural selection when a particular species undergoes wide diversification of the phenotype.

    I'll look back at your earlier posts. I think I forked at the one about the kid.
     
  15. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Good vs evil would not appear to have anything at all to do with speciation. Thus X is independent of Y and Z. That was my point.
     
  16. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Imagines.... Darwins Finches getting down on their knees praying to a God... just to prove that Darwinist Evolution is in need of a few minor adjustments...

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  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not sure how you can view creativity as anything other than a successful adaptation.
     
  18. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    well ....try to work out how evolution by natural selection with survival of the gene pool has anything to say about the genetic evolution of biological structures used to worship God or form religious values or even value art or music.
    Why would evolution evolve the brain to be deluded, for surely if one wishes to believe in evolution as it stands, the worship of God or valuing a TV set in the lounge room for example would be a delusion.
    How many millions of years would it take to evolve a brain that was capable of such delusion?
    I look forward to your elucidation....

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  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    About 3.7 billion years.

    Can you be more clear about what you are asking? Certainly those who were capable of creative thought would be rewarded with increased survival. The ability to be deluded is the same ability as creativity. It's a capacity to formulate non-obvious hypothesis about the world and judge them against our experience.
     
  20. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks for taking my arguement seriously... I shall consider it more before posting again... as I feel there is a need to be more precise in my approach.
     
  21. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    that was to talk about morality a bit, and other philosophical ideas. I was talking about an actual powerfully moving story i saw, not making something up to discuss genetics.
    like i said, although you seem to be having a hard time hearing me, i understand that. Agreed. never said anything different other than bringing up, just to point out that some pretty smart dudes disagree with you and I, jung and the leary 7th circuit of consciousness. Not agreeing with them mind you (which i clearly wrote was the case). (i actually was introduced to that map by the wilson book, whom, it notes on wikipedia, swapped the 6th and 7th circuits in his book. just goes to show me that i can be talking to someone who is not listening to me, and I can still learn something because i wanted to check which circuit it was.
    funny that YOU would say that to ME right now. quite funny. But seriously, I am quite glad i was able to provide for you a forum within which to stab the dead horse over and over, but using my ideas to try to attack the thread title, a title whose idea i disagree with and am not defending, is not going to work out for us as a game plan.
    You understood incorrectly. I am quite comfortable with evolution, both as a concept, and as a biological precedent to my being here in this physical state. I would like to point out the difference between the two and keep that difference in mind if we were to think about proceeding.


    anything you thought you heard from me that was a scientific attack on evolution was not a good inference.
    this, and other ideas you have had, would have been useful for us to talk about, in relation to my actual ideas, had you desired to have that conversation.
    well i am always glad to be of service in questioning the validity of fundamentalism in any form, i'm just not used to having a conversation while the other person is using my conversation to have an entirely different conversation.
    i wouldn't say so. I certainly disagree with their concept or non-concept or whatever, about God, and the possibility of reaching the union with it while lacking a mediator. At least in my case one seems to be appropriate. I do have to say i am not going to be accepted by the hardcore fundies (christian ones) because i am somewhat of a universalist, at least in saying it isn't my place to say someone else's religion is from the devil and similar stuff like that fundies say. So i am definitely not a buddhist in a religious sense, although philosophically i have borrowed, or tried to borrow, quite a large chunk of my ideology (philosophically speaking) from the buddhists. I would call myself a christian.

    and maybe NOW we can talk about what i was saying the whole time while you fought windmills - but seriously i don't want to be mean, i am just messing with you.
    I was talking about a world, with evolution in it, that needs philosophy to provide constructs with which we can figure out how to be fully and beneficially human, because biology does not provide us all the necessary tools with which to discuss all the ideas of life.(biology the study, not the lifeforms themselves, which of course are adequate enough for an attempt)
    please provide a reference or at least reasoning for this.
     
  22. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not sure I understand.
    You disagree with the Buddhist "concept or non-concept or whatever, about God"?
    And what would that Buddhist (non-)concept about God be?
     
  23. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    i am just saying their concepts of God do not entirely match up with my liberal christian concepts of God. However, if i am just putting my conceptual limitations onto God, and they are correct I can accept that. It's not up to me to make God whatever God is.
     

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