Grrl Power #759 – It’s evolutionary my dear Washington Post
Fun fact, your brain burns about 20% of a resting human’s calorie needs. Roughly 300 a day – not a LOT like Dabbler is saying, she’s emphasizing her point for a soundbite oriented press. Her point is 300 calories ain’t nothing, especially when times are lean. The bad news is that while thinking really hard does burn a few extra calories, it’s not enough that you can think your way to a six pack.
It should be noted that having good depth perception doesn’t necessarily mean you’re any good at gauging distance, but I didn’t have room to make that point in the comic. FYI, in case it’s a little too small to see here, the green woman in panel five has 4 eyes. I sometimes forget to take the finished size of the page while I’m drawing it.
This page was hard to write because I’m trying to compress Dabbler’s fairly complex argument into two thirds of a page. I could have given her a little more room, but I couldn’t let go of the scissors gag once I thought of it. Which… describes 90% of my writing process for the comic to be honest.
I’m continuing her lecture on the next page, so I won’t be exhaustive here, but basically she’s saying, yes, three eyes would give you better depth perception than two, but it’s a minor upgrade. Ah, you say, but what if the eye was in the back of the head, giving a creature better environmental awareness? That would be nice, and there are probably aliens that have evolved that way, but you can’t just plop an eye in the back of a head for free. There needs to be a socket, and that either takes up space in the skull, impacting brain size, or has to protrude further from the body. So you either increase the mass of the lifeform, or shave that mass from elsewhere. Growing a body takes a lot of calories over a lifetime, and before all these species had spaceships and grocery stores, they had to survive long enough to get to that point. Don’t forget that at one point, there was some catastrophe, probably disease or a bad crop or whatever, and humanity was down to about 1,000 individuals at some point in our distant past. If that was caused by famine, what if we all had prehensile tails that required another 200 calories a day to break even?
Basically, she’s saying that every survival advantage a species evolves is great when food is abundant, but can spell doom when times are lean, so two eyes gives depth perception, two legs lets you run, two arms lets you climb and manipulate the world around you. Less is more.
Speaking of ergonomics. It would be a real pain in the butt if you were manufacturing for an alien populace. Right now, car makers have to make cars that drive on the right and the left sides of the roads, and they have to reasonably accommodate people from about 4’10” to 6’6″ I’m guessing. Plus or minus two to five inches there. But imagine having to accommodate klingons, who average about four inches taller than the average human. Well, the background ones do. The ones with a lot of dialog are curiously closer to human averages, heh. Okay, 4″ isn’t too bad. You could adjust the amount of padding in the seat. Klingons prefer less padding anyway. But what if you’re building your car for a protoss? Those dudes are like 9-10 feet tall. Now you basically have to build a whole new cab. Same thing for a faerie. They’re like 18″ tall. It’s conceivable that one of them might need an F-250, and adding stilts to the foot pedals isn’t going to offer those customers a luxury experience.
Usually the solution to this is modular ergonomics. If a faerie buys a big pickup truck, the dealership can replace the whole crew cab with a much smaller one with appropriately sized controls and seating. The advantage being it comes with a ton more storage space. That could be customized with bus-like seating, or simply enough cargo space to fit your whole tailgating party in. A grill, several coolers of beer… or ambrosia or whatever faeries knock back when rooting for sports teams. You wouldn’t even need the bed of the pickup truck for anything. That’s why most faeries go with economy cars.
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It has been quite a while since we’ve had a Dabbler’s Science Corner, and now we we are treated to one in comic. ☺
Dabbler’s Science Corner #1 November 28 2011
Dabbler’s Science Corner #2 April 23 2014
Yeah, explicitly bad science. The whole “humanoid is the best design” bullshit has been thoroughly ripped apart by actual science decades ago.
She did say that there was evidence pointing to panspermia and deliberate tinkering, but it was hard to pin down who did what when.
Note that she said there was a “simpler explanation.” That isn’t necessarily (or often) the more accurate one. It’s handy (no pun intended) if your main goal is less “be rigorously accurate with your science” and more “allay the fears of the public with a soundbite-friendly explanation,” though.
How about this guess, given what we know already: *Succubi* were the ones who tampered with the evolution of all intelligent species, so that they’d have more of a pool of species to…work with. So naturally they’d make them into things they’d find attractive.
Or alternatively (but less fun), the progenitor or progenitors of angels and demons (which we still don’t know anything about, but was probably somewhat godlike) did it.
Either way, if Dabbler knows (or suspects) it, she’d have a perfectly good reason for lying.
Well angels and demons in a lot of media, especially when used in sci-fi, tend to either be the degenerated descendants of some ancient super beings or else were the equivalent of bio-androids that could reproduce created by such ultra tech super beings. So not far off they’d follow their programming and continue a cycle of creating something like them, but less powerful, they can then “guide”, “aid”, or else take out frustrations on.
Sort of like, the butler bot has no one to butler for because the original owners left so he makes some other bots that can’t leave so he can continue to be of service.
Meanwhile some other household bots don’t want those new bots around so make trouble for them.
The very answer I was hoping *not* to get (right next to “all life has a common origin” – so why don’t other organisms in between the first life and ourselves have that same body plan?). I can think of at least 4 6-limbed body plans with significant benefits that would greatly outweigh the energy cost of growing them.
We have four limbs because the fish we evolved from had four limbs.
Where has it been ripped apart? Link please.
Where has it been ripped apart? Oh, just in every evolutionary biology or paleontology lecture. Do I have a link to the specific point in those entire fields of study where it addresses the fetish for wanting hot alien babes to be scientifically plausible? Alas, no. The understanding of why the idea of humanoid aliens is bullshit comes from an understanding of why certain body plans are the way they and not something completely different is a result of long learning and cannot be condensed down to a single “link”.
Just realize that every organism you see to day, humans included of course, is a collection of adaptational flukes. A myriad of adaptational flukes that stretches back a billion years. And every one of those adaptational flukes are just one fluke among many that would have sufficed as a solution to the problem of staying alive.
A hypothetical humanoid alien organism would have to have made the same flukes in the same order under the same evolutionary pressures of both the collective astronomical, geological, climatological environments and competing biological environments populated by organisms that made the same flukes in their evolutionary path to as Earth life forms did.
I’m not a professional teacher or lecturer or writer, so that was my shot at trying to impress on you the sheer improbability of humanoid aliens happening. I hope I didn’t come off as condescending, but there really is no simple response to your query.
The idea of life forming on a planet in itself is incredibly improbable, but that doesn’t mean that a bipedal humanoid form, with 2 eyes, hands possessing opposable thumbs, land-dwelling, with two ears, with the eyes situated in front of the head and a nose is not evolutionarily advantageous compared to other forms. It seems to have worked for humans quite a bit, considering we are not the strongest species, we have no natural weaponry on our bodies, and no hardened carapaces, and yet we wound up dominating a planet of far more dangerous animals.
So when you said that this idea has been ripped apart, I asked for some sort of example of your statement, which you were presenting as an undeniable statement of fact. I just haven’t seen ANY examples you’ve been able to give of it. While I have a rather substantial example that it is EXTREMELY advantageous evolutionarily – our domination of the planet against all other animals who had many advantages in a hand-to-hand fight, not to mention our ability to develop technology, which we eventually used to be able to change the planet to suit us.
That strikes me as proof that our form is evolutionary advantageous, and I would just like you to be able to show any examples of how that statement would be disproven, aside from simply saying ‘it’s been disproven over and over again, in every biology and paleontology lecture. Because I’ve checked several evolutionary biology pages on the subject, and I have yet to find any saying it’s not an evolutionary massive advantage to have the humanoid form we have. Actually I’ve only so far found the opposite.
Example:
https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution/Background-and-beginnings-in-the-Miocene
I’m not even saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying I don’t see anything you’ve presented to disprove the idea that bipedal hominid forms just happen to be very advantageous for a number of reasons.
^ exactly that, I had the same reaction to that statement.
Seriously, if you’re going to play rules lawyer, maybe don’t try to out-rule an actual lawyer without providing a single concrete source for a scientific premise that has been “thoroughly” developed and accepted.
:)
I had the same reaction
Just means you’re just as wrong.
You still havent been able to provide a single piece of evidence to disprove the idea that the humanoid form is evolutionarily efficient. You’re just calling people wrong. You made an assertion that a piece of empirical evidence is wrong. You then failed, when pressed, to back up that assertion. Now, multiple times. And when presented with links further showing that not only are there no links on evolutionary biology that support your assertion, but in fact the few links that even exist refute it, you again just double down saying wrong without putting forth evidence to back up your statements disproving the evidence.
Knowing something is false doesn’t always mean having the means to prove to strangers in the comment section of a webcomic that it is false… nor even the will to put in the effort to prove it if you technically can.
Data is data, whether “proven” or not. Just because it can’t be demonstrated in certainty doesn’t mean dismissing it as a probable explanation is a smart approach.
Knowing something is false means being able to at least have the minimal ability to show that it is false.
Data is data when it’s facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis. If you cannot show that it’s facts or statistics, then it’s not data – it’s an opinion. And a badly thought-out opinion at that.
Don’t think so? Go into court and when the judge asks for your side of the argument, tell the judge ‘it’s obvious that I’m right, and I should not have to give you any sort of proof or evidence to show that I’m right. You should just accept it.’
Then wonder why the judge ruled against you.
You need to at the very least show something when you say assert something as ‘ripped apart in every biology and paleontology lecture’ when it’s clearly obvious that there are no biology or paleontology lectures that have said what you’re claiming, assuming you’ve ever even read or been to a biology or paleontology lecture on ANY subject, let alone the one you’re talking about.
Why should anyone believe you if you aren’t even capable of bringing up the minimum evidence to back up a statement of supposed fact?
bipedal hominid forms just happen to be very advantageous for a number of reasons.
Yes, they have a lot of advantages. They also have a lot of disadvantages. Neither is relevant to the issue of whether or not alien life would produce anything similar. They are only the way they are because their environment and every other organism in their environment was the way it was all the way back to the proverbial primordial ooze.
Yes, we dominate our planet because it’s our planet. Yes, we have certain evolutionary advantages compared to other life on this planet but only because it’s this planet. We evolved on this one, and not another one. A different planet would be just that – different. The initial conditions for life would different. The subsequent conditions for life would be different. Every step of the evolutionary chain would be different.
In short you are assuming the conclusion. Sorry to say that that alone is an epic fail, my friend.
And your link is less than useless. The Miocene? The fucking Miocene? Son, the human body plan started way, way, waaaay before that! The human body plan at the very least requires the following assumptions in order of going back along the evolutionary chain (mind you this is an incomplete, very rough list): a dominant terrestrial tetrapod. A four-lobed fish that dominated shallows and mud flats. A four-lobed fish, period. A fish with a bony skeleton and a swim bladder that could become a lung. A fish with a jaw. A fish with an enlarged cranial nerve. A spine. A notochord. Bilateral symmetry. Trypoblasty. Deuterostome.
And that’s all the shit one must assume just for something that one day just might, under just the right evolutionary pressures, evolve into something vaguely humanOID.
The human form was not destined to dominate this planet – we got lucky. Every one of our ancestors got lucky. The first thing you have to understand about evolution is that it’s a crapshoot. An evolutionary advantage is NOT a guarantee. They improve odds, they do not produce slam-dunks.
“Yes, they have a lot of advantages. They also have a lot of disadvantages. Neither is relevant to the issue of whether or not alien life would produce anything similar.”
Clearly it is relevant, since there are far more advantages than disadvantages, or those evolutionary leaps would have been weeded out of the gene pool.
Also, until you can show evidence of actual aliens to the contrary, you again are showing no counter-evidence to refute the what has been presented to you.
“They are only the way they are because their environment and every other organism in their environment was the way it was all the way back to the proverbial primordial ooze.”
In other words, it was evolutionarily efficient for the environment vs alternative body-types.
“Yes, we dominate our planet because it’s our planet.”
How many planets have you been to capable of supporting life? I’m trying to figure where you’re getting your ‘evidence’ aside from your imagination.
“Yes, we have certain evolutionary advantages compared to other life on this planet but only because it’s this planet.”
Seriously, I implore you, what other life-supporting planets have you been to?
“A different planet would be just that – different.”
And yet according to Dabbler in the comic, a significant enough amount of planets that can support life seem to be geared to supporting it as humanoid, because humanoid forms are evolutionarily efficient. Think of it like Star Trek – M class planets.
Again, what planets have you been to, in order to say which other planets exist which support complex, sapient life? Actually which planets have you been to that support complex life, period. Or any life? Because if you have some special knowledge, you probably should let NASA know right away.
“Every step of the evolutionary chain would be different.”
Unless a significant amount of life-supporting planets in the universe have conditions within the Earth’s habitable range. We’ve already found a few which might in real life. And in the comic, Dabbler seems to be saying that there are quite a few. Hence… humanoid life is not only evolutionarily efficient on Earth, but on those other planets as well. You know, like the planet where they’re playing beach volleyball in bikinis while eating hot dogs.
“In short you are assuming the conclusion.”
I’m most definitely not assuming any conclusion. The conclusion is empirical evidence of our own existence on this planet and dominating the planet. And in the grrlpower universe, Dabbler’s assertion cannot be refuted by you either, because in real life, you have not been to other planets capable of supporting life, while in the Grrlpower universe, Dabbler has.
“Sorry to say that that alone is an epic fail, my friend.”
You’re not seeming particularly friendly, actually. And it’s also not an epic fail to use empirical evidence, especially when you’re just using supposition based on nothing.
“And your link is less than useless.”
I asked you to present a link showing that the argument has been ‘destroyed’ by evolutionary biology. You said it was impossible to present any links. I then presented a link on evolutionary biology that showed the exact opposite of what you were asserting, and in fact I could not find ANY links about evolutionary biology which support your claim that evolutionary biology has ‘destroyed’ the idea of the humanoid body being evolutionarily efficient.
“The Miocene?”
Yes, the Miocene.
“The fucking Miocene?”
Do you have a problem with the Miocene?
“Son,”
Girl, but go on.
“the human body plan started way, way, waaaay before that!”
But not the humanoid form. Bipedal locomotion. Standing upright. Also known as ‘The Age of Apes’ in anthropological circles. Because it’s the beginning of the humanoid form as an actual HUMANOID FORM.
“The human body plan at the very least requires the following assumptions in order of going back along the evolutionary chain (mind you this is an incomplete, very rough list): a dominant terrestrial tetrapod. A four-lobed fish that dominated shallows and mud flats. A four-lobed fish, period. A fish with a bony skeleton and a swim bladder that could become a lung. A fish with a jaw. A fish with an enlarged cranial nerve. A spine. A notochord. Bilateral symmetry. Trypoblasty. Deuterostome.”
Everything you just described are in no way ‘humanoid forms’ – you are confusing ‘humanoid form’ with ‘evolutionary process.’ Tetropods are not humanoid forms. Four lobed fish are not humanoid forms. Swim bladders are not humanoid forms. Again, the assertion presented, that you’re claiming has been thoroughly destroyed, is that the humanoid form is evolutionarily efficient. You don’t seem to actually understand what ‘humanoid form’ means though. It means looks roughly human. Two legs. Two arms (although Dabbler has 4, so while she has many features that are a humanoid form, she has distinctions that make her less so than, say, Altus). Bilateral symmetry. Bipedal, walking upright. Two eyes, situated in front of the head, facing forward with depth perception. One mouth, situated on the head as well. Two ears, situated on either side of the head.
“And that’s all the shit one must assume just for something that one day just might, under just the right evolutionary pressures, evolve into something vaguely humanOID.”
Again you’re off point. The point presented is that the humanoid form is evolutionarily efficient, and you claimed that was destroyed. That claim not only is not destroyed, it’s supported by empirical evidence. That being that we did form in a humanoid form instead of some other form, and it was very efficient and advantageous for us, since we essentially rule the planet despite not being the strongest animals, nor the fastest, nor the toughest.
“The human form was not destined to dominate this planet – we got lucky.”
You’re an expert on destiny now? I’m basing my assertion on what actually happened. Our features are more useful than if they were different features. We were lucky? Okay sure…. we were lucky to have features which let us survive bottlenecks and wilderness against other animals with natural weaponry. Because the humanoid form is evolutionarily efficient.
“An evolutionary advantage is NOT a guarantee. ”
You’re changing the goalpost now. No one said guarantee. No one said slam-drunk Just that the humanoid form is evolutionarily efficient. Which it was on Earth, which is the only planet in real life that we know for sure has sapient, complex life. Because we exist and rule the Earth, compared to any other animals on Earth.
And in the Grrlpower Universe, Dabbler is claiming that there are many other planets which have similar conditions in which a humanoid form is the most evolutionarily efficient form. Which you still have been unable to refute with any type of evidence to the contrary.
You still haven’t provided a single source for your claim that “it has been thoroughly debunked.”
That amounts to “I firmly believe this opinion”, no more. You are assuming your conclusion as well.
Convergent evolution has been proven MANY times. Animals evolve to fit niches.
Your claim that human society and the human ecological niche is not a fuzzy attractor is completely without any evidence, for or against.
There is a difference between the humanoid form is advantageous vs likelihood to appear on another planet at random.
However that isn’t to say similar evolutionary pressures wouldn’t possibly make something with a similar (but not exact) shape. There is a reason, aside from bad luck, why some of the pre-Cambrian and Cambrian body plans didn’t work out.
Take an environment and the pressures of that environment will generally support certain shapes, thin flexible and limbless, streamlined with a means of propulsion at the back end, grasping limbs, sturdy limbs, large mouth.
Yes the chances of seeing a Vulcan or a Gorn would be impossible as to be THAT similar they’d have to be related to humans at some point.
However if you saw something standing up on two limbs with four prongled claw tips at the base in a radial circle, a thin torso like structure with two limbs with six points with radial pincers with almost tentacle like segmented crab leg digits numbering eight per “hand” or…end of the limb, and a singular head on top with a sponge like “mouth” that sucks in liquids only and filter feeds nutrients, four optical sensors, two for visible light and two that see in ultra violet only positioned in front and on the sides of this head.
while clearly not related to humans, chances are by sheer silhouette we’d still call that a humanoid. Honestly Kangaroos should probably be considered humanoids, along with all primates, bears, raccoons, and anything else that can stand up and manipulate things with their hands.
then we have the L-frame bipeds like most birds and dinosaurs…only thing not making them humanoid is…a hunched over posture and tail? Despite fitting all other criteria.
flukes are one thing, but environmental pressures tend to kill off flukes that don’t work (granted ones that don’t get in the way or for some reason the species finds sexy tend to pass on so long as they don’t result in getting killed), so life has selected for a list of certain body shapes not just because of what they came from, but also what worked in the environment. Like the crab-groot example, the major differences will be in the details, no reason to think some body shapes won’t be found.
of course a yahoo scenario is also plausible, a world with smart horizontally aligned species and the bipeds that evolved are just dumb animals…not like every bird is smart either.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. This page should have been drawn in a chibi style.
It’s survival of the best fitting.
I have a personal project for this I call HUP (Human Upgrade Project) where I swipe the best bits out of characters I read about to upgrade humanity.
I figure that if you MUST have part of your body in contact with the cold cruel earth, a hoof is the way to do it. Two legs, but hooves.
Also – on Schlock Mercenary there are TWO upgrades I swiped – one, those people with one huge eye on top – what a GREAT camera! and two, the people with the four arms and very sensitive fingers.
Those are off the top of my head. Thing is, when is there one adaption too many, and they’re not an upgraded human anymore, but a whole new species?
I guess it should be a new species, when they can’t crossbreed anymore.. It will only take one or two generations to test out and can go without dissecting their body.
Yeah indeed, two thumbs would be better than one thumb and a pinkie finger…
Also…
Every time I solder little parts together, I wish I had 4 hands at some point while doing it. Clamping up 2 things or laying the heaviest part down isn’t just the same, once you need to turn and adjust stuff… Sure, it’s doable but man, imagine Dabbler soldering complicated small things together.
But the eyes… How about two human like eyes in the front of your head, viewing forward, for precision and estimating distances (btw. does anybody remember this British (I think) SF series about police in space where most aliens had wide heads with eyes on each end? That would give you more advantage that 4 eyes, I’d guess), but then also two simpler eyes at the sides of your head and maybe another pair at the back of your head, so you couldn’t get surprised from behind. Wouldn’t help much against snipers, but in a jungle of beasts…
We already have ways of detecting things sneaking up behind us – they’re called “ears”. They even work when whatever it is has total cover.
What about when it is raining, or windy, or when someone is wearing ‘phones?
And what about when it’s dark, or too bright, or someone is wearing a blindfold or a VR headset?
They have these things, called ‘glasses’, that help you see in the dark, they also help you see when it is too bright
If they are wearing a blindfold, then they have more important problems, like, who put the blindfold on them in the first place and why
As for the VR headset, that would fall under the same category as wearing ‘phones, now wouldn’t it?
If we had a greater number of hands then we’d probably come up with new jobs which still needed more hands than that</i<…
There actually are people with 6 fingers, and per the research on them, yeah, it actually does make them quite a bit more dexterous. We might even evolve in that direction… if they weren’t viewed as creepy enough looking that they usually get the extra fingers surgically removed soon after birth.
Technically speaking, whatever genetic quirk gave someone three fingers would still be active in their code. Injuries don’t transfer in genetic, which is why someone who loses a foot or a hand or entire limb and still play a part in procreating fully functional four limbed bipedal apes.
Though I admit I think your statement was moreso that having six fingers tends to lower one’s chance of finding a potential mate due to seeming undesirable in our current society, and removing the finger only just breaks even to someone with five fingers, so there is no real lean towards six fingered people reproducing at a greater rate than five fingered, yes?
Yeah indeed, two thumbs would be better than one thumb and a pinkie finger…
Ah, another human realizes that Neosapiens truly are the superior species!
Congratulations, you just invented ‘evolution.’ :)
Hoofs are highly un-nimble for two-leggers. Folks who walk around without foot protection develop horny callouses on the bottom of their feet… basically leather armor… which works just as well. It’s only those nancy boys who wear shoes that have soft feet.
As far as I can tell, never in earth history has there been a bipedal ungulate. Every bipedal animal has feet or toes that extend forwards, and sometimes also backwards. Unless your hoof is similarly extended, you end up having to keep your center of gravity in a much smaller area forwards to backwards while standing still, which is doable but takes more effort from both the brain and the muscles.
I saw an article once about how the extended foot allows the center of gravity to be shifted farther forward with every step, making it more efficient for walking while being somewhat more awkward for running.
There might be some mix possible, with a hoof at the toe as well as having some sort of heel, hoofed or not. The heel can be used for standing and walking, but is lifted off the ground while running. IIRC humans are actually built to have most of the weight put on the front of the foot while running, but this tends to be forgotten because now we have shoes with padded heels that make it harder to rotate the ankle.
The thing about tool-building is that is shorts out the need to evolve new organs or systems (and starts making some of the existing ones redundant sometimes).
Need to see farther? Spyglass/binoculars/telescope/Hubble/interconnected web of radio telescopes.
Need to see out of line-of-sight? Angled mirrors/cameras/drones/probes.
Need to go faster? Domesticated animals/wheeled vehicles/paved roads/flight/spaceflight/FTL.
If bio-science goes far enough, it may get to a point where recreational body mods include things like gills, extra eyes or sensory organs of exotic sorts, etc. But technological aids tend to make biological developments unnecessary.
Existing evolution gets sidetracked by technology, too. The prevalence of shoes, for instance, may be accelerating the atrophy of toes. There’s little to no advantage to prehensile toes, so they don’t give an advantage in acquiring a mate or living long enough to breed, in most cultures.
Likewise, medical aids make things like sleep apnea, bad eyesight, deafness, albinism, etc. not inherently limiting to breeding chances or lifespan, so they stop getting selected against as well.
Tl;dr: Once you start modifying the environment, the environment stops modifying you.
Environment influences a lot. Legs become an unnecessary cost in zero-g, eyes become unnecessary in a dark environment and so on. What’s harder to think about is what might be more effective in environments that are extraterrestrial, since we have poor/no examples to go on. Feathery moth antenna like filters a mile wide to scrub delicious zorks out of the accretion disk?
Having tendinitis in both feet that greatly limit their ability to adapt to uneven surfaces, I can attest to the fact that hoofs on a biped is a bad idea.
Actually that is a better summary of Darwins rules then “fittest”.
People often asume “fittest” means “most complex”. But it means “best adapted to the scenario”. Most fitting might be a good 3rd option
Really, it means “Good enough to not die”. The ‘best’ tiger would have a Kangaroo’s spring-tendons to aid its pounce, and a bat’s echolocation to distinguish shapes without being distracted by camoflauge, and have venom glands in its claws and teeth so even a single bite or scratch would bring down the prey. But they don’t. They have what they need to survive in their niche, and no more.
Which is why changing habitats are so dangerous to species survival.
Darwin called it “survival of the fittest” because he didn’t quite get it and that sounds slightly more palatable than “elimination of the unfit” which is more how the process of selection works.
Best fitting to what? Evolution has no direction, no end purpose.
Well… it can be argued that evolution CAN have a goal if humans actually interfere with it.
For example – Dogs. Bananas. Corn. All are the subject of human interference with the organisms’ structure through selective breeding to change the organism into a different organism through later offspring.
In fact, if I remember correctly, if man suddenly no longer existed, bananas would no longer exist in under 5 years. :)
yep, domestic bananas are seedless, grown through cuttings, not sure about the 5 years bit, but they’d never reproduce so once the current trees die off they’d be gone.
same with domestic turkeys, bred too fat can’t breed naturally anymore.
working theory is most dog breeds would “die off” or rather interbreed into something closer to a lab or sheppard, although the UK could have smaller dogs go feral due to a lack of larger predators.
Life After People, was an interesting series; although I think some of the building collapse times are only rough estimates on that series as we know of abandoned buildings that have “miracously stayed up” and disasters take out others.
but back on animals they theorized cows would actually get thinner (more deer like) while pigs would all go boar like,
also just to note it, evolution does have a goal (propagation), while debatable on how conscious that is, life has made it a pretty big goal, even at the individual expense of an organism (so many examples from a tiny marsupial whose males melt to mate to the classic mantis example) to pass on its genes. So surviving to do that is important, and the environment pressures the life forms into niches to do just that.
I love the Life after People series. That’s where I found out about the bananas info :) And I remember the one about dogs too.
Didn’t they also mention something about aurochs with respect to cows?
I’m mainly just repeating what I saw on Life After People in regards to bananas. I’m a lawyer, not a pomologist :).
Nobody cares about planets without intelligent life.
There are somewhere between “future colony site” and “nuke it from orbit”.
They are “evolutionary dead ends” or “need a few more million years”.
Since the question was about similarities between intelligent species, that stated goal makes perfect sense.
Off-Topic Topic of the Day:
Next, Dabbler needs to explain the evolutionary efficiency of having big breasts.
“They’re useful for distracting or motivating males of thousands of species.”
“… and even some females. Including species that don’t have mammaries of their own”
That one should be rather obvious I think. Long and thick hair for almost all females on the other hand is harder to explain.
Keeps heat in the body more efficiently for the gender that has less muscle mass perhaps? Or more likely a cultural thing that is not universal. Case in point – Fabio:)
Fabio isn’t a Dirt Monkey
Big breasts, of course creates more milk. Then it became an aesthetic thing, evolving them bigger than is practical because men bred with them more. As for the hair thing, pure selective breeding. Less hair on the face allows for easier socialization as you can see facial features better, so we bred less and less hairy women, affecting men’s body hair along the way. Hair on top of the head, though, is appealing. It’s like how birds often have feathered crests. You breed with what you find attractive.
Actually, bigger doesn’t mean more milk, it’s way more about the tissue composition. Larger size can actually be detrimental by creating feeding issues (for both mother and infant).
Source: married to a certified lactation consultant, plus some reproductive specialists in the family. Larger circle also includes various scientific and theological training – we can take the fun out of any topic. Although after you get past the downer of “not as magic as you’d have thought”, the science of everyday things gets cooler the deeper you go.
Oh that’s easy to explain. The males of the species will want to mate with the female that has the most hypnotic boobs. The flat chested woman meanwhile has less opportunities to mate, and often has to settle for a weaker male as her partner. Big boobs means more offspring and with better DNA. Rinse and repeat for thousands of generations and the big boobs will be thoroughly embedded into the species’ genetic makeup.
Now do the survival benefits of having huge boobs slowing you down when its time to run away from the nearby predator… Its not like they produce more milk, but they DO require more calories to grow/maintain.
My understanding is that in ancient tribal cultures the men went out and took most of the risks involved with hunting, and possibly being hunted. The females remained largely back in the safe areas where the children were being brought up. The two sexes developed characteristics appropriate for those different roles. Men have more muscle, narrow hips suited for running and jumping, and little in the way of boobs because they face the threats from outside the tribe. Women developed the wider hips necessary for birthing and the mammaries that the most reproductively desirable males would be drawn to. There had to be some advantage to the big boobs or they wouldn’t have persisted through the generations.
The answer can simply be that men are attracted to them. Like a peacocks tail feathers, certain features exist purely because they’re sexy. It’s probable that they started as some signal of good health or somesuch, then when survival pressures drop due to a lack of predation out other pressures, evolution can take those modestly desirable traits and start exaggerating them.
In humans, big boobage is also related to the use of growth hormones in meat we eat.
Boobs are from estrogen and progesterone, growth hormones only make you taller and with bigger and longer bones.
Human’s are the only mammals with permanently enlarged breasts. Other mammals’ breasts do swell up, but only when they are nursing. So yeah money is on it essentially being the equivalent of a peacock feather where it was a trait arbitrarily chosen to be a sexual trait. One of the things I would like to point out with the division of labor is that while it might be based in risk, it is not based in actual effort. Doing the myriad homekeeping tasks up to the industrious age was strenuous and exhausting as shit and it required even more effort back in the past. In contrast, hunting was mostly following a mammoth or such at at most a power walk until it either collapsed from exhaustion or was chased into a trap. Not so much the epic struggle and fight for life as it gets glorified as, just somewhat risky and requiring being away from camp/home for a week to few weeks at a time.
I agree with you 100% about human breasts being the equivalent of a peacock feather. They’re meant to simulate the buttocks – a sexual characteristic our ancestors were already conditioned by evolution to desire. Two big, round, full, firm globes. A sign of health and ideal mating stock – a full, well fed, well muscled rump. But bipeds require a sexual characteristic that’s on the front and near the face… i.e. cleavage. Big, round, full, and firm. Hell, this is why implants are generally seen as less attractive, especially if the woman has a skinny frame (i.e. big tits and a flat ass), because of the lack of symmetry; it clearly looks out of place, unnatural. Which… is why breast implants have been followed by butt implants.
(It should be noted that the male buttocks are ALSO considered a primary sexual characteristic. Women tend to be drawn towards a strong, well muscled ass. As well as thick, muscular arms. In both cases, they indicate a strong, ideal mate to bond one’s DNA with)
But as far as the division of labor being uneven… not quite true. First of all, nobody did pursuit predation of a mammoth. Elephants won’t run away from little hominids with spears. Elephants run AT little hominids with spears and turn them into hominid jelly. Mammoth hunting, much like bear hunting, would have consisted of a guy throwing a single spear at the target, then turning around and running VERY fast and in large circles, while his buddies perched in trees or on cliffs and hurled more spears until the target finally dropped.
Pursuit predation mostly gets used with animals that respond to danger by fleeing (deer, antelope, caribou, etc). You can find videos on the subject on Youtube… it’s not just a power walk, the hunters literally run until the animal drops, and then they take the foaming drool oozing from the animal (after finally spearing it) and rub it into their leg muscles… which are in agony.
By contrast, homemaking was relatively rudimentary until there were actual homes to make. At which point the amount of labor being performed by males had also spiked – when medieval wives were milking livestock, gathering eggs, making cheese and bread and bacon, etc, their husbands were toiling in the fields, working in mines, chopping trees, etc. During hunter-gatherer conditions, the females would have been more focused on childrearing, basic food preparation, and maintaining the lore (i.e. the body of hard won, carefully hoarded knowledge of things that will keep their precious loved ones alive for a little bit longer). Neither gender has it easy under primitive conditions; the main reason they were all so healthy is that those who weren’t died in childhood.
I think I actually saw this on a National Geographic special or something about early man. Early man sometimes would hunt mammoths with a form of pursuit predation while using the environment or traps (mainly because they’re not going to be able to bring the animal down on their own in the event they ever actually CAUGHT up with it) – like causing a stampede of the mammoths, and they’d run off a cliff (there are cave paintings showing this).
But most of the time they hunted by what’s called ‘persistance predation.’ It’s similar to pursuit predation in that you basically hunt the animal until it drops from exhaustion, but over a much longer period of time. Humans are not the fastest animals, but we do have some of the highest endurance levels, especially among predators.
They’d use their spears, cause a little damage, run away from the charging animal, then the animal would run away or lumber off, the humans would follow, and attack with spears again then run away again while the animal lumbered off again. Eventually, the animal would have so much injury and be so exhausted from continually running away that it would stop running away and be killed by the spears.
Humans have evolved EXTREMELY well for persistence hunting. We cannot run that fast in short bursts like the big cats can, but we can run for a much longer time than most predators at a more even pace. We can also go without sleep for a lot longer than most predators.
The only other animal on the planet nearly on our level for persistance predation are wolves. Which sort of is why they were earliest domesticated animals. They practically self-domesticated because they’d always hunt alongside humans doing the same type of hunting that they did.
The !Kung people in the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa still practice this method of hunting, I think. (!Kung is pronounced (click of the tongue then Kung).
Yup, makes more sense that women were the hunters and the men staid at home to protect from predators or rival tribes
Sounds like a pride of lions rather than a family of humans when you say it that way.
Breast became a stand in for asses. That and given our reproductive rate and year round fertility cycle, having only two with both located in proximity to fatty tissue became a bonus for nursing one or two infants. Sorry but this was old news.
Sorry if I covered the nect page of web comics
Well think about it this way: boobs contain the mammary glands in humans. Up to half the boob’s volume is dedicated to milk production. Bigger Boobs implies better milk output equals babies getting better fed. Therefore it it evolutionarally advantageous for primitive man to seek out big tittied primative woman. In the modern age it’s not a concern anymore, but deep in the code is the same logic. Big boobs = Good. We, the modern man, can ascend beyond this.
Sanity finally prevails over salaciousness.
There is a cart, and there is a horse.
More milk producing mammaries are a survival characteristic. Male attraction them evolved to be a norm because more babies survive to adulthood when their nutrition is better.
Not the other way around.
Though permanently enlarged breasts are not present in any other mammal, which would suggest it isn’t just a simple “big boobs are logically better”. More likely it has to do with bipedal gait, (humans are also pretty unique in having the only true bipedal gait, even apes use their knuckles a lot) and such. Though due realize that the judges are still debating what the exact reason is, so while there are a fair amount of proposals, none of them go beyond proposals.
There is a theory out there that humans went through a period of amphibious development relatively recently in evolutionary terms – explaining things like bipedal posture, relative hairlessness, and the large flotation devices on women.
It’s not something the scientific community has taken seriously, but it’s also not something they’ve come up with arguments or evidence against either. From a cursory check, it seems that what little related research has been done has failed to impact consensus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis
I was reading a fascinating book no more than a few days ago – “The Descent of Woman” – that dealt with the “aquatic ape” theory in great detail. I recommend it.
Why would only the women have the flotation devices? o_O
There’s another factor I see a lot of people have missed with the bipedal = permanently enlarged breasts bit: we mate differently too. There are other bipedal, or mostly bipedal, mammals, such as chimps, but their females still remain flat chested when not nursing. Flip side, if we look at Bonobos, a close chimp relative, their females have slightly enlarged breasts similar to ours, if smaller. The key difference is that bonobos, like humans, frequently mate face to face, chimps do not. So it’s not just that we started standing up and males needed something to look at from the front, it’s that if we’re gonna bang face to face, everybody needs appealing traits that are still visible from that angle. Which, I would argue, probably also attests to human males having body shapes that are bigger up top too, more for a female to grab on to.
simple: bigger breasts (natural ones, not silicon variant) can have bigger milk storage which is useful for baby breeding
Bigger breasts 100% do not have more milk storage. They aren’t like… empty tanks. They don’t fill up, usually, until you’re pregnant, which is why women tend to get bigger breasts when they are expecting, even if they had big breasts already. Breast tissue is mostly just fat, with only slightly more mammary tissue than males have (cuz males have mammary glands too, they just usually don’t work). So, I still stand by big boobs being a bird plumage thing, we have them because they attract mates.
One theory says that when we started to walk upright, the previous turn on – the butt – moved out of sight.
So through selective breeding something closer to eye level became pronounced.
Of coruse again, there are diminishing returns. You have to lug those big “jugs” around and they are a pain for the back. So again, nothing is without tradeoff.
I see a lot of people read prison school. Human anatomy is mirrored and that’s a bit like claiming that fingers evolved to look like toes to please foot fetishists.
Big relative to what?
In general, enhanced breasts in humans are a secondary sexual characteristic to signal maturity. But, that’s just big to the point of being fairly visible.
I”m not sure it’s been established that large breasts, per se, are a human preference. The only global human preference that I know of is waist to hips ratio about 2/3.
Thanks for featuring the Landmaster. It’s one of my favourite Sci-Fi vehicles, despite its origin.
It took me a moment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster
Oh. For a moment, I thought he was making a Star Fox reference.
https://starfox.fandom.com/wiki/Landmaster
If there is one movie that could genuinely benefit from a modern remake, it’s Damnation Alley. The Landmaster was the star, let down by the sfx, which didn’t survive comparison with those in the original Star Wars, its contemporary.
Or that they changed the protagonist from being the last of the Hells Angels (and definite model for Snake Plissken [The book was written in 1969, and thus predates Escape from New York]) to being a gung-ho army recruit. Or the whole “the earth has shifted on its axis” thing for why nothing could fly (and that this fixed itself for no explainable reason in the ending scenes). Oh, let’s just cut short an otherwise tediously long post and say that the movie of Damnation Alley is far removed and a lesser entity than the book. But yeah, the Landmasters were one of the only bits of the book that translated correctly to the movie. Except of course, in the book they all broke down before the end and Tanner was forced to deliver the vaccine on a stolen motorbike.
Since they already have the truck, (the construction of which ate up roughly a third of the movie’s budget) maybe this time they could pay for a screenplay that follows the novel a bit more closely. Not verbatim, as the book hasn’t aged all that well either, but there were some interesting parts to it that couldn’t be filmed then as practical effects. They’d be easy via CGI today, and could illustrate why a trip through the alley was something only the desperate would sign up for.
Just read up about the movie, and a lot of the budget actually went on the SFX (namely the ‘radioactive skies’)
Oh, and they did end the journey in the movie on a motorbike, butt nothing about a vaccine
Thanks! It’s been a while since I’d seen the movie and must have forgotten that part (Lord knows the movie has a lot that deserves to be forgotten). In the book the whole reason for Tanner and co to travel the radioactive mutated hellscape of Damnation alley was to deliver vaccine from Los Angeles to Boston to combat a virulent plague outbreak. It’s considered a suicide mission and Tanner only agrees to go as he’ll be given a full pardon in the unlikely chance he succeeds (and seeing he’s on death row, it’s still a better chance at surviving).
In the movie, he was stationed at one of the military silo bases, after the war, they kept hearing radio signals from New York state
Okay, recognized the vehicle, butt not sure ever saw “Damnation Alley”, was thinking it was from “Lost In Space!” or something :(
Man I hadn’t seen that movie since I was like…8…10 years old?
Really? I thought it was Ark II
http://space1970.blogspot.com/2009/11/ark-ii-1976.html
Okay, fairly sure saw that show as a kid
Arc II had a single axle at the front and a dual axle at the rear, both conventional. The vehicle shown here is definitely based on the Landmaster: four identical trinary wheelsets.
Ark II. Bah!
I barely remember it from my youth, and even then, nothing about the movie itself, just the 3 wheeled axles. Though I always thought it’d make more sense if only one wheel was on the ground, that way if you have a blowout, you have two spares built in. I have a vague recollection that the axles would rotate for different terrain types, like sand/mud/rocky, but maybe I made that part up in my head.
The axle would rotate if the leading wheel hit an obstacle or fell down a hole and just roll around/over the obstacle/hole with little loss in speed. I remember that from the Hot Rod Magazine article on the vehicle used in the movie which for some reason was fully functional and not just a prop.
I had a sack truck\dolly with wheels like that – Alas lost in the divorce.
The wheel system was developed by Lockheed for an amphibious/all terrain vehicle. It worked quite well, though their prototype lacked the hinge in the middle of Landmaster and was skid steer. The wheels and hubs rotate independently, you can lock the wheel brakes and rotate only the hubs and the vehicle will “walk” over obstacles or dog paddle if it’s in water. They held a patent on the whole concept, #3348518A.
The idea that one of those insects from Starship Troopers would need such comically small scissors wielded by two arms… Gah.
Dabbler will takw on a whole barrage of questions……!
Yes, ‘questions’… ;)
Burn the heretic!
Convergent evolution is well known subject.
She’s explaining why there’s an apparent lack of divergent evolution. Lotsa different body shapes have horns (even fish!), but she’s explaining how big brains push out options like one-eyed flying purple centauroid scorpions. or scorpiod centaurs.
Yeah… it still sounds like convergent evolution to me (or perhaps parallel evolution). The scale is broader than we typically discuss, but it’s the same idea. Certain configurations are advantageous for life forms and separate evolutionary paths will independently find these configurations. She is just going through some details of a particular type of convergent evolution.
Nice one on the 40K Chaos Marine in Terminator Armour! Especially considering which Daemon God is his boss.
As for the whole evolution thing, it would be nice if Dabbler gave a shout-out to both Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin. (It used to be called ‘The Wallace-Darwin Theory Of Natural Selection’ & Dabbler being as super-smart as she is would know that.)
There’s another explanation: There IS a God and Atheism is for IDIOTS!!!
But seriously there is evidence in Physics and Biology to back up the idea of a Creator:
The Mystery at the Bottom of Physics
Was It Designed?
No such evidence exists.
I take it you didn’t check out the links…
Jordan Peterson has some excellent speeches and debates on this. I definitely recommend the Jordan Peterson/Sam Harris. The second debate. The first one, both get tied up in a lot of minutiae.
Jordan “Lobsters” Peterson?
I’ll pass: I read his book and am not up for seeing more.
The lobster reference was about how hierarchies are deeply ingrained in our evolution, to the point where we are hard-wired for it in how seratonin works. He used lobsters as one of the earliest examples of seratonin working on a brain to promote hierarchies, mainly because it disproves the idea that hierarchies are purely socially constructed by capitalist governments, which tends to be the postmodernist marxist philosophy about hierarchies.
Yeah, I know what it’s in refrence to. I just said I read his dumb book.
“which tends to be the postmodernist marxist philosophy about hierarchies.”
Oh man, if I were a Marxist that’d be more realvent than not at all.
It’s sold pretty well for a dumb book :). Especially for what is basically a self-help book. Like 3 million copies I think.
Also you really should read and watch things that are slightly outside your normal frame of reference. It would make you better at debate if you understand the arguments of the other side and spot any weakness in your own arguments that are open to attack and refutation.
Nuh uh!
Yuh huh!
Sez you!
Nyaaah!
I would look at literally any other atheist source other than Jordan Peterson. At least Dawkins is a competent scientist, even if he is incredibly unpleasant person.
Sam Harris, who Dawkins respects quite a bit, himself has tremendous respect for Jordan Peterson.
Also if you only study one side of a debate, you are putting yourself at a massive disadvantage when you try to argue with someone who has a different stance. Being in a bubble of only likewise beliefs stagnates the skill of arguing effectively. Less effective to convincing the other side of your points, and more importantly less effective at convincing third parties watching the debate who have not yet formed a fully developed opinion.
I should also mention Jordan Peterson is one of the most published and best clinical psychologists on the planet today with 30 years of experience in his scientific field of study. He’s most definitely a competent scientist.
So what you’re saying is, that women are styupid, and should be steamed and served with butter and lemon…
The Cathy Newman interview was a journalistic fail of epic proportions :) But oh did it ever give us some phenomenal memes.
In case anyone does not understand Dal’s joke, there was an interview that Jordan Peterson had with a Canadian journalist named Cathy Newman, where every time Jordan Peterson made a statement of fact, Cathy Newman would say ‘So what you’re saying is….’ then proceeded to make a ridiculous strawman assertion that was in no way related to what Jordan Peterson had stated. So Jordan Peterson kept having to explain to Cathy Newman his sentences, over and over again, to the point where it started getting hilarious on how often Newman was missing the point of Peterson’s sentences. Eventually, she told him ‘Why should you have a right to say something that is offensive to someone else?’ To which Peterson said ‘because being able to think means having to risk being offended. Look at us. You seem to not have any problems with offending me? Look out our interview. It’s been rather uncomfortable for me. But you’re asking questions to try to find out what’s going on, and I’m giving answers.’
Then Cathy Newman tried to respond with “Yes but I…. um…” and she was speechless and couldn’t come up with a response to that. So Jordan Peterson said ‘Gotcha.’ And she had to admit that yes, he had ‘gotten her.’
The interview was pretty epic. And so were the memes that came out of it.
Au contraire – thouse are the evidences against the idea of a/the Creator, perverted and misused by scumbags and/or idiots to gain power over gullible and desperate.
How so?
Neither an unsubstantiated YouTube video nor a website maintained by a religious cult can be considered unbiased.
The video goes through the Math and Physics in incredible detail, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are not a cult cause they never ask for money and the members have the right to say “no” or leave at any time
Members leaving the cult may end up being shunned by their family(who’s still in the cult).
That alone stamps it as a cult to me.
Just reading something written by someone who left the cult, or trying to interpret the Bible differently than the official way is considered reason enough to be Shunned.
You are NOT ALLOWED to have your own opinion on religious matters.
Yup, cult.
Pastafarians are more rational and with a saner worldview than the average Wintesses…
As for YTt videos.
Unless I see a list of references for the maths and physics, I don’t bother to watch the video.
(and I expect ALL the links to be ‘complete’, no URS shorteners. )
I want to be able to read the background material first, before watching the video.
Remember, ANYONE can make a YT video. No matter how barmy or mentally challenged. Even I’ve uploaded a few…
Only people kicked out of the Faith for unrepentantly breaking the rules are shunned, and any group would be upset at someone in their group bearing False Witness, but if you come to a different interpretation you can discuss it with the Elders to sort out the discrepancy
And the YouTube video clearly states what Formulas it’s using and what parts of Physics it’s talking about, so everything can be verified
I’m sorry to let you know, but the word cult does have a standardized definition within the field of religious studies, which is my field, and the JW most certainly qualify.
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/jennifer.rycenga/courses/gsr/s1/Vocabulary_Sheets_GSR07.pdf
You usually can not get members of a cult to realize they are in one.
And they do take offense of anyone saying anything about what they are actually doing, not what they are preaching.
I have family members that has been in groups like that, AND frozen out because they leave or want to leave.
You can usually not reason with em, feelings, dogma, rules, group pressure and such rule more then common sense.
Eh, still make the effort so they have a chance to realize
It also fits with the traditional Christian churches
The distinction here is that even very fundamentalist christian congregations typically don’t attempt to limit contact with people outside the congregation. The typical JW’s social circle is composed only of other Witnesses.
Umm, no, no it isn’t
“without interacting with the larger society.” – required part of “cult” by that definition.
How does that apply to the Witnesses? They interact with the ‘larger society’ everyday
The only time a member gets shunned (excommunicated) is if they do something that breaks one of the Commandments (with Adultery being the biggie), and family members still in the Congregation are not obligated to shun them (they usually do because it’s Adultery), and if they can show true repentance they are welcomed back
They are Bible Scholars, which means they are open to new interpretations
If any Congregation does do any of those things you claim, then that particular Congregation is corrupt and has become cultish, not the entire Organisation
That makes the Democratic party a cult. And the Republican Party. And labor unions…. and and and
Strawmanning will not get you anywhere…
Watch Tower Society publications assert that members of the group are not compelled to remain part of the congregation.[185] However, Jehovah’s Witness doctrines provide no method for baptized members to leave on good terms.[186] Those who choose to depart and announce their decision to terminate their membership are regarded as abandoning God’s organization and protection and voluntarily entering the world of Satan,[186][187] becoming part of the antichrist.[188] Watch Tower publications define such individuals as being “more reprehensible than those in the world”[188] and direct that they are to be shunned by other Witnesses, including close relatives, with no social or religious contact and no greeting given.
All numbers are references and if you check the wikipedia article I nicked it from they’re all references to specific editions of Watchtower. In other words, they’re official doctrine.
You’re NOT ALLOWED to leave on good terms.
Please disprove this.
Thank you.
Which Wikipedia article did you get this from? Cause I’ve looked all over and I couldn’t find it. The least you could’ve done is provide a link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_beliefs
since you apparently dont know how to use google. It was the only result that came up.
Half the references in that article are from an explicitly anti-Jehovah’s Witness book: “Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement” by Andrew Holden, and the rest are from an article published in the 80’s, and there’s been a policy change since then
Have you actually talked, personally, with a Witness? o_O
I for one have, several times. They are nice and friendly, one can talk to them and even discuss things with them. Provided one is nice enough for a serious conversation among adults. I was hanging out with one for some time.
Why the question? Because of the conditions to leave? From what I gathered, there seems to be a bit of truth about the shunning thing, but it might as well be that having a fall-out with the religion causes some difficulties on a personal level with friends and relatives who are still in.
Currently living with a member, and they have no problems talking about things in a pleasant manner (including non-religious things)
The question was basically in regard to everything they are saying about Witnesses
While your points might be accurate, using wikipedia as you source for something other than entertainment does not lend it any sort credence.
You calling the Bible Scholars a ‘cult’? Would it help knowing the first Witness was Jesus Himself? o_O
No.
‘No’ to which part?
Where does it say that Jesus was the first Witness?
As far as I know he was Jewish.
According to Muslim faith he was just another Prophet.
Yes, you are correct, he wasn’t the first, Noah and Abraham and Sara came before Jesus, butt those others were isolated (except for their families), Jesus was not isolated and had people willing to follow and listen to him (the Disciples)
Yes, Jesus was Jewish, his followers are not, they are those who bear Witness to the Words of Their Lord, Jehovah (which is, incidentally, where they get their name from), and they are also, oddly enough, not technically Christians, they are Jehovian’s as they do not follow the Son, they follow, and worship, the Father
Both the Jewish and Christian religions both acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, and regard Mohammad as ‘just another Prophet’
This is just so wrong that I am having a hard time that you believe how any of the religions work.
While there might be a few Judaic sects which believe Jesus to be the son of god, the main bulk of Judaism would consider such a concept as blasphemous. Both Judaism and Islam are pretty big on the singularity of god so the concept of Jesus as the son of god goes against both of them.
Judaism very much does not regard Jesus as the son of god and until modern times regarded him as a false messiah, only recently getting a more positive view of him and some seriously postulating him as a (though not the) messiah.
Judaism very and Christianity both very much do not regard Mohammad as a prophet in any way shape or form, with even the earliest christian view of him decrying him as a false prophet. Seriously the first google result for “Christianity’s view of Mohammad” decries him as an evil false prophet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism%27s_view_of_Jesus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_Islam
That’s the thing, he is the son of God, not God Himself, which is why Witnesses are not Christians
You statement falls flat because Jehovah’s Witnesses agree that Jesus is the Son of God, not God himself
Umm, you have literally quoted me, did you mean to type something else? o_O
As for Mohammad, there have been many Prophets, and he is just one of them, not ‘evil’ or ‘false’
I am reported standard christianity’s and judaism’s stances on the son of god and muhammad thing. These are not my personal opinions, just pointing out how blatantly false to the point of being stupid your statement was
“Both the Jewish and Christian religions both acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, and regard Mohammad as ‘just another Prophet’”
Yeah, admit was wrong about that, and should not have used those religions (realised almost as soon as posted it, butt was too late :( )
Checked to make sure, the Jehovah’s witnesses are a doomsday cult started in 1870 that don’t even preach their founding doctrine any more. So yeah probably not a respectable source. Also again, founded in 1870. Secondly, It is a really deceitful thing to try to say that someone or something was a member of a group even though they/it existed/was born and died long before the founding of a group. To make a hyperbolic example to show this, Aristotle is totally the founding member of my math club, he just hasn’t showed up for the meetings for a while.
Also, please realize that the ability to leave a cult or the cult not asking for money doesn’t mean that they are not a cult. To clarify, the connotation/definition of cult that I am going with is “a group that indoctrinates members to put the group/participation in the group above everything else to an unreasonable/unhealthy degree” and a lot of what I have heard about Jehovah’s witnesses is that while you technically can leave the group, afterwards you will be totally socially cut off which means cutting off social relationships with most of your friends and family (on likelihood that they are also members) and at the point of exiling a family member just because they left the church you worship (and this happening on a wide scale of it being predominant in the stories that I can find), I would have to make my judgement that they are pretty cultish.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses openly admit to changing their teachings to match-up with their deepened understanding of the Bible
And by your definition of cults, basically any & all groups count as a cult, depending on how high or low you think “an unreasonable/unhealthy degree” is
Yeah by my definition nationalism, certain businesses, and 100% of what people think of when the word cult is thrown around are all cults. In my opinion, this is much better than the official definition of cult which includes literally all religions.
Also note, “reasonable” is a standard for most of business and law. Trying to argue that it is meaningless and arbitrary would get your case thrown out pretty quick. If a “normal, reasonable” person would think that something is unreasonable, then legally it is unreasonable. Total social excommunication of even direct family members is pretty damn unreasonable.
So refusing to speak to a sibling who unrepentantly abuses drugs and you’re worried about how that might affect you or your kids is unreasonable.
Just an example but you get the point
Personally, deliberately cutting off all contact with someone because they abuse drugs is unreasonable as you should try to help them; and legally, the treatment of drug addiction is shifting to be seen and treated as a disease and not a character fault (which so far is working leagues better) so a fair case could be made that cutting off all contact with someone because they are sick is unreasonable.
Personal philosophy is that anyone can and should be redeemed, though there are some obvious “in the more extreme cases, it can be exceptionally hard to be redeemed and redemption can possibly come only after death” (note, not suicide, but example of at x years old did ridiculously terrible thing and later came to truly repent and atone for it, with actual redemption coming only after a literal lifetime was spent seeking it). So yeah, my personal philosophy cutting off all communication and refusing to give people a chance to improve in pretty much any situation is unreasonable (again, exceptions exist in my philosophy, such as in the case of that they tried to murder/rape/seriously assault you and continued contact with them is actively dangerous).
The book “The Truth” by Terry Pratchett (note, not religious or political, about the founding of the newspaper in a fantasy land with some Aesops about racism and learning to change when you had been brought up to be racist and the constant effort that might be required) had a pretty good point about redemption towards the end of it. Towards the end, two pretty evil people died and were confronted by Death. The first one realizes in the prefect memory and clarity of being dead that blind faith alone (his guiding philosophy before this was a half remembered “everything will turn out all right as long as you’ve got a potato”) will not grant redemption/salvation as he realizes the enormity of his crimes. Death also helps by providing him a perspective of his life through the eyes of everyone else.
His decision as he now knew the full severeness of his crimes (which included a lot of murder) was to spend the eternal timelessness of purgatory learning how to repent before being reincarnated/moving on.
The OTHER one on the other hand, pulled a “no atheist in a foxhole” and when he was confronted with the enormity of his crimes (actually a few hours before his death) and upon learning of his partner’s belief, immediately killed his partner and stole his potato, then ran up to Death claiming to be sorry about everything.
MR. PIN? AH. THE OTHER ONE. I HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU.
“That’s me! And I’ve got my potato, look, and I’m very sorry about everything!” Mr. Pin was
feeling quite calm now. The mountains of madness have many little plateaus of sanity.
Death stared into the madly smiling face.
YOU ARE VERY SORRY?
“Oh, yes!”
ABOUT EVERYTHING?
“Yep!”
AT THIS TIME? IN THIS PLACE? YOU DECLARE YOU ARE *SORRY*?
“That’s right. You got it. You’re bright. So if you’ll just show me how to get back—”
YOU WOULD NOT LIKE TO RECONSIDER?
“No arguing, I want what’s due,” said Mr. Pin
Heck it isn’t as if the one who truly repented escaped his punishment, being reincarnated as a woodworm, but he has an actual chance of it. Though the wood he ate before the book ended was noted to be pretty good. Pin on the other hand will probably suffer eternally, with the punishment being ironically based on what he kept repeating before he died “I wasn’t born to fry”. He was reincarnated as a kind of potato only good for making fries and chips.
Random tangent about my beliefs/philosophy on the matter of redemption
Chance of being forgiven/successfully atoning/achieving redemption*
(paragraph after the dialogue)
TempoDiValse – Your personal morality regarding how you think one should treat a drug addict fly in the face of common sense and experience.
I can tell you from four decades of experience, your first duty in dealing with active drug addicts is to protect yourself and your children, and anyone else you care about, from them. Depending on the combination of addictions, they are usually dangerous to your property and often to your person.
That means establishing clear boundaries that they do not have the ability to get past… such as making sure they cannot walk into your house under any circumstances, except during such times as you have the ability to supervise them continuously.
It’s just a fact.
Talking about social communication and such dude.
“not ghosting someone who is in a hard place” doesnt fdiscount being cautious about it.
So, you are basing you opinion on hearsay, stories you have heard, not fact, gotcha
The only bit that is hearsay was the bit about excommunication and that is already supported by what Anthony posted. Excuse me if it is pretty hard calling in witness testimonies on a webcomic comment section.
If it is hard to call in witness testimonies (or any other testimonies) to back up your claims, then don’t bring them up or you may find someone who can to refute your claims
So you’re a Jehovah’s Witness (that would officially be the least surprising thing I could’ve learned about you, given the attitude you project in these comment pages)? And you’re criticizing someone else for “basing you opinion on hearsay, stories you have heard, not fact” . . . without any sense of irony, or any self-awareness of the relative hue of his kettle and your pot?
Gotcha.
Actually, not a Witness, or religious at all
My posts seems to have not posted… I checked to make sure, but the Jehovah’s witnesses are a doomsday cult that don’t even follow their founding doctrine anymore. Definition/connotation of cult I am using is that it indoctrinates the members to put the group/participation in the group above everything else to an unreasonable/healthy degree, and the stories i’ve mainly found about leaving the jehovah’s witnesses is people being totally socially exiled by the other members. At the point of people refusing to even look or talk to a friend/family member just because they chose to stop worshiping at your church, i have to make my judgement at them being pretty damn cultish.
Also, just because a cult doesn’t ask for money or technically allows the choice to leave doesn’t mean that it isn’t a cult.
That’s why I didn’t read them. Superstition. Belief is NOT proof.
All of these cults, Christianity explicitly included, only survived this long because of their indoctrination of their kids. Back in times where a hailstorm could end a tribe by destroying their food (just 1 example) and hailstorms seemed to be all random, they could do nothing but pray to a being that they hoped having control over the weather and could save them. When they survived, their beliefs were strengthened. If they didn’t survived, it didn’t matter what they believed.
See? Your God is a product of Evolution
A question for you: Was the Bible designed? As in, who exactly wrote the Bible, and why?
So your response is to attack religion and belittle one’s Faith? Clearly you’ve never studied religious doctrine. Did you know that the Book of Job contains the earliest description of the Water Cycle?
To be fair, your OP was to call all atheists idiots.
True, but the following sentence makes it clear that that was just a joke, an attempt at humour
My response was an attempt at humor, too.
Seriously, who would believe all this nonsense of a Creator *snicker* when all of the universe, from the very beginning on until now and into the future, including how it works, is explained by science. :D
The first link I gave explains just how little we actually know and understand using science
Also, you gave nothing to indicate that you were been Humourous, thus one would automatically conclude that you were serious
And you can’t be both at the same time
Dude he is pretty clearly mocking you for when you originally mocked people’s religious believe’s and tried to pass it off as being a joke.
To be fair, the main things people look to in a religion is *both* an explanation for things they don’t understand and an afterlife. The alternative to not believing in an afterlife, even if it is a thing that you logically know doesn’t have any real proof and more of just something you really hope actually exists, is just pretty depressing and nihilistic.
Both of those things you mention (‘an explanation for things they don’t understand’ and ‘an afterlife’) are found with the Witnesses
Dude. Are you serious? You are trying to peddle your religion at every even tangential opportunity? In a discussion in which im trying to state that, even though an explanation for the unknown is an obsolete reason for being religious, people can find solace in religion about the apparent uncaring nature of the universe, YOU ARE TRYING TO PROSELYTIZE? When it is very clear that one of us doesn’t care at all for religion and the other already follows a religion? You do realize that the constant proselytizing is the main reason people don’t like your religion right? Do you realize that doing it now is now just uncalled for but in plain bad taste.
Personally don’t believe in any of that crap
So, it’s okay for one non-believer to spout bullshit about a religion they don’t believe in, butt it’s not okay for another non-believer to counter that ignorant bullshit? o_O
The thing I was saying was in bad taste was you trying to proselytize during the debate as soon as I say something in favor of religion. Hell, trying to proselytize in general is bad taste.
Have no idea what ‘proselytise’ means
Okay, looked that word up and, what? You trying to claim me attempting to convert you to what? Atheism? Agnosticism? Haven’t been doing anything except countering your bullshit
It means ‘trying to convert’ – usually to a different religion.
“Both of those things you mention (‘an explanation for things they don’t understand’ and ‘an afterlife’) are found with the Witnesses” – found, yes. You can “find” (= being told of) lots of explanations for things you don’t understand from lots of random sources. Why should I consider this one to be more trustworthy than all the others who may give other explanations? It is pretty much well-known that the world was not created in 6 days and that the earth is not a disc and what about the dinosaurs? So it is known that some explanations are wrong. If I only ask for things I really don’t understand just now, accept a random explanation like “God made it so” for the time being and drop it for another explanation as soon as I do understand the thing in question – what’s the worth of said first explanation? It holds no credibility.
Never mentioned anything about the credibility or accuracy of the explanations, it was a counter statement to TempoDiValse
Counter to what? I was saying a thing in favor of religion and you immediately tried to take the positive thing I said about religion in general and force it to be about specifically JW.
Because OPie specifically called out the JW’s
“pretty depressing and nihilistic” – indeed it is. But (just imagining that one day you come to the conclusion that that’s the truth, as happened to me) would you rather cling to a lie, fully knowing that it is a lie?
Also, if you need some kind of afterlife, try Buddhism. The Buddha was not a god, made clear that he was not a god and never wanted to be considered as a god. His idea about an “afterlife” (which is: Rebirth <- very short version) makes at least as much sense as any other religion’s that I know of and has the advantage that you don’t need to make up a higher being that otherwise has not given any proof of its existence.
As for what the Witnesses believe about an ‘afterlife’: they believe when you die, it’s like when you turn off a computer, it stays off until it gets turned back on again
Buddhism does not have a Creator god, but does have deities (devas) in the religion, such as Mahabrahma, Baka Brahmā, Brahmā Sanatkumāra, Subrahmā and Suddhāvāsa (who converse with the Buddha), and Brahma Sahampati (the deva/god that first appeared before the Buddha and convinced him to teach his method of enlightenment with the world). The reason Buddhism does not have a Creator deity (and I am not buddhist, but this is what I gathered from researching buddhism) is because buddhists believe that nothing is fixed or permanent, so therefore nothing is ‘created from nothing – things just change.
But don’t go thinking buddhists don’t believe in the existence of gods and higher beings. They do have ‘higher beings’ in the religion (Brahma), and the Buddha did not want to be considered a god because he spoke to gods (devas) and had a frame of reference between what made a god and what made a human, and he was an enlightened human, but not a god (deva).
I logically know that it is pretty depressing and nihilistic, i just have a persistent hope that it *isn’t* and there there is a fair afterlife.
No dice, it was not set up as being humorous and was just instead insulting. “but seriously” might indicate that you found insulting people funny, but that alone is not enough to make something a joke, instead it at most indicated that it wasn’t your main argument.
It wasn’t really coming off as a joke at all. It just seemed like an insult.
Oh I have. By reading the bible I became an Atheist.
Do you know a commandment that goes “Thou shalt not kill” or let it be “Thou shalt not murder”?
Then what about Jericho: Murdering innocent children is murder even in a war.
So your God gace commandments and then commanded his followers to break them.
What kind of god is this.
This should help clear things up: https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/wp20151101/war-in-the-bible/
That explains nothing.
Looks like you didn’t get the problem:
Your God gave commandments, including “Though shalt not murder” and then ordered his followers to murder, thus to break an explicit commandment!
He could have done the murdering himself, instead he ordered the Israelites to do it. He ordered them to commit a deadly sin.
I have talked to JW members, no one could explain this. Since you came up with a link that explains nothing, I know you can’t explain it, too.
To be honest, it’s not a question we’re asked that much. So most of us are caught unprepared and that’s on us. I did a bit of further digging and got this article that directly addresses your point: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200003134
That’s much better, bit still.
You seem to be serious about it, but I feel that this is not the place to discuss such a theme in full width, so do you know a place where such a discussion would be more on-topic? I’d be interested and I can promise: No name-calling from my side, but I will challenge & question any so-called “faith”.
Part of the problem is your failure to understand the definition of “murder”.
It is to kill a human without sanction.
If there is a war going on, it’s not murder.
If God tells you to do it, it’s not murder.
Given the ethos of the time, it just wasn’t an issue.
It took all the intervening events to get humans to the point where they think that killing civilian populations *is* murder, and that you don’t have to kill innocent things to take away your sin, and that you don’t have to give live innocent animals to priests for that purpose.
That took a major reversal caused by Jesus of Nazareth, and his resurrection– or by the stories of such propagated by his cult, as you will. Whether or not Jesus was divine, the historical cultural change wrought by his crucifixion is astonishing.
Without that change, the Enlightenment would have fought against a hundred gods instead of one, and gone who knows where. (We are come full circle, actually, and have a thousand little gods again…)
But, in any case, now we believe that killing the children of our enemies is bad. That change happened because of propagation of the book that had that story in it.
It may not seem to make sense, but it’s a direct result.
Actually God does not tell his disciples to murder. Thou Shalt Not Kill was meant, in the original text, as Thou Shalt Not Murder, and in ancient times (just as in modern law) there is a difference between murder and killing. All murder is killing, but all killing is not murder. Murder means unlawful killing.
I’m not saying there is not a lot of contradictory messaging in the Bible, but that particular thing you pointed out was not contradictory. God did not order his people to break one of his commandments.
If you’re claiming that you pointed the supposed contradiction to actual Jehovah’s Witnesses and they could not answer it, then either you spoke to JW’s that did not know a lot about their own religion (I guess possible), they did and you did not acknowledge their answer, or you did not actually speak to any JWs.
Oh hey that thing, that is more of a lost in translation thing of the connotation of “murder”. Key difference between killing and murdering, murdering is unlawful. Executing a criminal guilty of high crimes, not murder. Killing the person down the street who keeps letting their dog piss on your house, totally murder. Probably not a make it or break it thing for you, but something that i can at least provide an explanation for.
There is a pretty good reason why the only people (Jewish people) who pay actual attention to the old testament do so through extensive notation and debating. The other abrahamic religions tend to just pick a line that supports their point at the time, or even just a particular mistranslated line and run with it without actually reading into it.
Some favorite examples: pretty much all of leviticus would be outright blasphemous to follow if you are christian or otherwise believe that the martyrdom of christ absolved humanity of sin (fundamental sinful nature/the first sin/other) as all of leviticus is essentially purification rites.
Hospitality was a pretty huge goddamn deal in ancient times and the sin of sodom and gamora wasn’t that they tried to rape *men* but that they tried to rape *guests* (new testament jesus also pretty clearly calls them out as being uncharitable being their main sin)
Also random fun fact about Christianity. Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name. It is a title which means “anointed”.
Yes, that thing.
> Executing a criminal guilty of high crimes, not murder.
> Killing the person down the street who keeps letting their dog piss on your house, totally murder.
How about going war with another nation, killing all the opposite soldiers in a fight – not murder, right?
Then after having won, invading the country and eradication all women, children and babies – murder now?
And “lawful” doesn’t mean much, we know (or should know) that it is “lawful” in some country to throw gay men from high buildings. If you want to interpret “Thou shalt not kill” as “kill as much as you want as long as it is lawful” within the volatility of laws of different countries and different times, then this commandment is basically meaningless. It was supposed to come from God, which law did God mean, without specifying it?
(But really, shouldn’t we move this discussion to some other place?)
There is no commandment that says “Thou shalt not kill”. That is a mistranslation. And, obviously, the law involved is the entire book of law that the commandment is in. You knew that.
In that world, war often meant genocide. Failure to do a proper eradication of your enemies generally resulted in *you* being eradicated.
History is a foreign country. Learn the language, and don’t try to enforce your out-morals from the rich safety of your far flung living room.
Thou Shalt Not Kill, in the original language, literally meant ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’ and Murder was considered different than Killing.
You’re reading the Commandment as a translation of a translation of a translation. The Bible clearly does seem to have multiple places where it’s okay to kill, but not okay to murder. Like the whole Cain and Abel story. Abel kills a goat or something as a sacrifice for God – that was killing, but not murder. And that’s apparently okay. Cain kills Abel. That’s murder, not just killing. And that’s bad.
We pretty much use the same definition for murder in modern law – the definition being ‘When one human being unlawfully kills another human being.’
And yes, soldiers killing other soldiers was not considered murder, either in ancient or modern times, and it seems to be the same cross-culture for that one.
The notion of ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ is basically an ancient version of how we have a modern penal code. The modern penal code is necessary, and the way we determine the gradations of unlawful killing has evolved as our culture has evolved.
Tempo is not the one defining Thou Shalt Not Kill as ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill Unlawfully/Murder’ – he’s saying what the original commandment was actually saying before all the bad translations over a couple of millenia.
I’m a follower of Sithrak: https://www.deviantart.com/viking-heart/art/Sithrak-605599750
If you must know.
By your definition not a cult also. And His teaching makes sense.
Use to read Oglaf regularly, until it started having issues with the “Are you an Adult?” button not working :(
Eh, I personally disagree. Blaming all your problems on someone else is not a healthy mindset
I mean his early teaching. The one about unconditional torture. So you ought to stay alive as long as you can, by all means. Which IMHO also includes to avoid killing as much as possible and not giving anybody else any reason to harm you. I like that.
People who claim there is evidence of a creator have no idea what constitutes evidence.
That said, in any work of fiction, be it fantasy, hard or soft Sci-fi, or any religious text, anything goes. As Dabbler mentioned, there is evidence within some races of tampering or outright creation, but nothing so far points to a single point of origin.
Well… no single point of origin for the universe except for the Big Bang Theory, since before, I believe 1 x 10 to the -38th power seconds after the big bang, they claim that the laws of physics themselves break down and physicists are not sure what happens before that point. :)
Anyway, in the Jordan Peterson/Sam Harris debate on religion vs atheism, I think they bring that up as a point that actually did stump Harris (which is quite the challenge since he’s one of the four most notable atheists along with Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennet). Peterson also stumped him on another area involving where morality would come from if religion was not necessary, since most forms of basic morality does not appear to be all that efficient from an evolutionary stance in the wild for the survival of a person. The idea Peterson presented was that even an atheist will generally act in a moral manner, because they are basing their morality on a civilization that formed from a religious dogma setting morality standards, and even if you discard the dogma later on, you’re still using the basic tenets of morality standards set up by the dogma. But Peterson tends to debate religion from a psychological evolutionary standpoint, which is what make his ideas rather effective when debating atheists.
https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/philosophy/facts-and-values-science-and-religion-notes-on-the-sam-harris-discussions-part-i/
Peterson also has argued, multiple times, that even atheists tend to posit some parts of their belief in science on faith. He brought up the big bang theory as one example. He brought up how even in atheist nations, they tend to have a placeholder for religion by making the State essentially a religion, or the leader of the society the ‘stand-in deity.’
I think the guy’s pretty brilliant and his arguments are extremely well thought out, and that’s impressive to me since I’m agnostic when it comes to religion.
“they claim that the laws of physics themselves break down and physicists are not sure what happens before that point. :)”
Yep, that’s how science has worked for a while now. We gradually figured out things we didn’t previously understand.
“Anyway, in the Jordan Peterson/Sam Harris debate on religion vs atheism, I think they bring that up as a point that actually did stump Harris (which is quite the challenge since he’s one of the four most notable atheists along with Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennet).”
Sam Harris is not a physicist, so if he claimed that science had the entire nature and origin of the universe already figured out, then that’s just bad debating on his part.
” Peterson also stumped him on another area involving where morality would come from if religion was not necessary”
Because it isn’t.
There’s a reason Christians tend to not act upon the literal text of the bible these days; otherwise they’d be doing a lot of heinous and illegal shit.(And I’m not just talking about the old testament.)
He’s not a physicist, but he has a degree in cognitive neuroscience. He doesn’t need a degree in physics to be able to read papers written by physicists and be able to understand what they’re saying. He’s a pretty bright guy, after all.
Plus if you want, Max Planck was a physicist. And he was actually very religious even though he came up with the Planck Scale and Planck Constant, the smallest measurable distance, as well as Planck Time, the smallest unit of time possible (1 x 10 to the -43rd seconds), which other physicists use when trying to figure out what happened right after the Big Bang as part of their equations, as well as being used in the discovery of the Higgs Boson (sometimes referred to as the ‘god particle’).
You definitely cannot get a sufficient understanding of high-level physics by just reading a few papers. Not even if the person was very smart.
It’d be like a rocket scientist saying she could understand heart surgery just by viewing a few diagrams.
What you and I likely know about the Big Bang is a very dumbed down version of what scientist actually theorized.
***
As to the second part of your comment; What does any of that matter?
There are religious physicists and certain scientific terminology are based on religious terms. So what?(It’s not like the Higgs Boson has a cross on it or anything.)
You can state facts and provide anecdotes, but they to come to an actual, you know, point.
“You definitely cannot get a sufficient understanding of high-level physics by just reading a few papers. Not even if the person was very smart.”
Well it’s a good thing that they’ve read decades worth of high-level scientific journals then. Also, yes you can get a sufficient understanding by reading someone else’s work. You have a brain. You can read other people’s work and come to an understanding of what the person writing the study said.
“It’d be like a rocket scientist saying she could understand heart surgery just by viewing a few diagrams.”
Yes sure. Because Sam Harris only glances at a few pictures before going into a debate, right? No, he… actually studies the arguments being presented before him. I don’t think you’ve ever been in an actual formal debate before. You do not just talk about the stuff that is on your ‘side.’ You study the other side’s arguments in advance as well, usually in quite a bit of detail. I’m a lawyer who tends to deal in intellectual property cases. That means I deal in a lot of cases involving engineering, chemistry, and medicine, despite not being an engineer or a doctor (technically I have a degree in biology and 2 other degrees, but not in chemistry, although I took chemistry in college as part of a pre-med sequence). I do not need a degree in each of those fields in order to argue in court. I just need to read up on the patents and the science behind those patents to understand how the patent works, and if it’s novel, non-obvious, and useful to merit the patent, generally.
“What you and I likely know about the Big Bang is a very dumbed down version of what scientist actually theorized.”
What actual physicists know about the Big Bang is likely a very dumbed down version of what actually happened as well. Michio Kaku tends to try to explain it in as much detail as he does to other scientists. Just not with all the same math involved. And you really should think more of your capabilities and rely less on arguments from authority as the be-all and end-all of a debate.
“As to the second part of your comment; What does any of that matter?”
Because you seem ignorant of how debates work, or the work that goes into making a good debating argument. You also seem very dismissive of people who argue if they happen to be religious, despite the fact that quite a few scientists are also simultaneously very religious, including some of the fathers of modern physics, like Max Planck.
“There are religious physicists and certain scientific terminology are based on religious terms. ”
The reason it’s often nicknamed the God Particle (aside from the book that first described it being called ‘The God Particle’ (but I’m guessing that you haven’t read the book) is because it’s involved in breaking the electroweak symmetry, and needs to be understood to understand how the four fundamendal forces broke from each other (which is the theory behind the Big Bang).
Wow, I just explained the basics of the Big Bang without being a physicist.
“You can state facts and provide anecdotes, but they to come to an actual, you know, point.”
I’ve been stating facts. You’ve been stating anecdotes (and opinions). :) And facts are usually involved in the points that I make. :)
Well, except sometimes when in a thread with you since you tend to go down a lot of tangents that have nothing to do with the original point. Not an insult (tangents can be fun too sometimes), just an observation I’ve noticed.
So what was the point of you mentioning one religious physicist and that the Higgs Boson is called the “God Particle”?
That isn’t a refutation of anything I’ve stated. So I don’t get it.
“Wow, I just explained the basics of the Big Bang without being a physicist.”
That wasn’t even the basics.
There’s a lot more to even the fundamentals of what scientist theorized happened.
“So what was the point of you mentioning one religious physicist and that the Higgs Boson is called the “God Particle”?”
Because you’re acting as if people who are religious are incapable of understanding science and physics, or that they automatically ignore their religion if they do get involved in high level physics.
And the reason I brought up the name ‘The God Particle’ is because certain physicists compared the state of reality in the very beginning of the Big Bang and the malleability of quantum physics with the concept of a deity, in that both operate outside the realm of conventional physics.
“That wasn’t even the basics.”
Um…. actually yes it is. The basics is that in the beginning, the four fundamental forces were combined. Then something broke the electroweak symmetry, and gravity separated from the other 3 fundamental forces and … big bang happened. But hey that’s just what Michio Kaku said when he was explaining the basics of the Big Bang on Nova. But I did not have a degree in physics when I watched it, so I could not possibly have understood that.
“There’s a lot more to even the fundamentals of what scientist theorized happened.”
Yes, which is why that would not be called ‘the basics’ if I went beyond describing the barest fundamentals. Or is there a certain amount of ‘the basics’ which will fit your qualification of ‘the basics?’ Have I not been writing enough in my posts? :)
“Because you’re acting as if people who are religious are incapable of understanding science and physics, or that they automatically ignore their religion if they do get involved in high level physics.”
The most I’ve claimed, from the beginning of this conversation, is that Christian don’t take the Bible literally otherwise they’d be doing incredibly fucked up things and that admitting that you don’t know something shouldn’t “stump” any scientist.
If you took that to mean that religious people can’t understand science, then that’s on you.
“The most I’ve claimed, from the beginning of this conversation, is that Christian don’t take the Bible literally otherwise they’d be doing incredibly fucked up things and that admitting that you don’t know something shouldn’t “stump” any scientist.”
Except science alone does not give a good rationale for how ‘morality’ can come to be without the religious stories that create the archetypes for society though. Which is the Peterson’s point in the Peterson/Harris debate, which Harris actually did not have a great answer to, if you watch the debate. At one point in an earlier debate, in fact, a woman from the audience in a Q&A asked Harris a question about how she can relate certain morals to her child, and the answer was basically ‘lie to the child.’
“If you took that to mean that religious people can’t understand science, then that’s on you.”
Might be a bit on you, since you’re the speaker using imprecise speech, where I had to respond to it. But hey, at least we now see that we both agree that religious people can still be scientific while still holding to the stories and morality archetypes. :)
“Except science alone does not give a good rationale for how ‘morality’ can come to be without the religious stories that create the archetypes for society though.”
Sociologists can answer that question quite easily; By humans making a religion which they then use to promote and spread what they think is moral.
^There’s nothing unscientific about it.
Most sociologists agree that morality comes to be from the cultural norms. And there are no cultural norms that do not have some sort of religious dogma involved in the underpinnings of those civilizations.
Jordan Peterson, for example, who is a scientist – a clinical psychologist and recognized as one of the foremost experts in his field with over 10,000 published works in peer-reviewed academic journals and magazines. Have a sociologist who can tell you about a culture which did not have any sort of religious dogma involved in that civilization’s foundation and I’d grant your claim. But you won’t find any.
Yeah, religious dogma is covered under cultural norms.
People made them.
Hitchens, Harris and the like have never been remotely confused about the origins of morality. Literally anyone who isn’t a psychopath understands that if they don’t like being beaten and murdered, then probably others don’t like it either. Intrinsic empathy is an obvious evolutionary necessity for any species that is going to rise to the point of having civilizations. If humans all evolved as psychopaths, we’d be far to busy beating everyone else’s head in to invent integrated circuits. Or… you know, farming.
The only thing confusing me is why people think morality needs to have been handed down to humans from a divine source, especially when the bible is littered with examples of psychopathic behavior. Like the time when some people were teased by youths, then the person being teased prayed to god to avenge his pride I guess, and god sent a bear to FUCKING MURDER 40 CHILDREN. (4 Kings 2:23-24) The bible is littered with shit like that. I would hardly call it a source of moral inspiration.
I like it when people say stuff like “even and atheist will act in a moral manner…” cause it exposes them as the kind of person who really thinks that atheists are all slavering monsters who aren’t all out raping everyone’s daughters and pets only because they’re too busy masturbating and worshiping false idols.
Your referencing the 2nd Book of Kings, a worshiper of false idols would be a pagan, not an atheist, and there is historical documentation of how depraved a lot of Pagan Faiths can be.
Also, the kids were repeatedly call Elisha “baldhead” which was a grave insult, practically a slur back then, the modern day equivalent of something like “nigger”. But what made it really bad really bad was that Elisha had just been made the new Head Prophet, and the kids would’ve been able to tell that from the robe he was wearing, so they were intentionally disrespecting Jehovah and his choices, and this was not the first time the people of Israel had done so, and those kids would’ve also been aware of what had happened in those previous instances yet still chose to mock the Prophet.
Also, we don’t even know for certain exactly what Elisha said, only that it was a call for punishment.
” and there is historical documentation of how depraved a lot of Pagan Faiths can be.”
As well as Christianity. Both in ancient times and current generations.
I don’t think any religion, aside from the really obscure ones, are free of the sin of people in power using “X Religion” as an excuse to act depraved and cruel towards the public.
I don’t think most things in human history are devoid of any sort of bastardization of it for depraved and cruel uses, religious or not.
For example, more people have died in the 20th century under atheistic governments of people like Mao Zedong, Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot than died in every religious war combined, since the beginning of civilization (including the entirety of the Spanish Inquisition (which actually lasted 350 YEARS), the French Wars of Religion, all the wars listed in the New Testament, Old Testament, and Quran combined, all of the Crusades combined (including the Albigensian Crusade), every trial of ‘witches’ and ‘witchcraft’ (in Christianity and non-christian religions combined) from 1400 onward, and every terrorist or religious war in modern times from each major religion…. it would not equal to the death toll of those four people. Religion has had a very bloody and LONG death toll, but what atheism lacks in length, it made up several times over in quantity.
The number of deaths from Christianity alone, btw is between 9 million and 28 million. Even the largest estimate every posited was 56 million (although that number has been debunked). The number of people killed from communism alone in the 20th century was estimated between 85 million and 105 million people.
Okay, so?
I was responding to Titan’s post about how “depraved” non-christians religions are by pointing out the fact that, historically speaking and even in the modern day, Christians were no less depraved or cruel than their religious peers.
The death tolls from the various dictators you just listed doesn’t change any of that.
So I’m saying that just because something has been used for evil, it doesn’t remove that it has positive merits as well. Just like the fact that atheism has caused more deaths when implemented in government than religion when implemented in government, it doesn’t mean atheism is not a positive thing. Most philosophical structures that humans make wind up being used for both good and evil purposes. For pagan religions, for Judeo-Christian religions, for eastern religions, etc.
But I agree, Titan seems to be ignoring Christianity’s faults as well when he’s criticizing others. I’m just trying to come at this from a more generalized perspective.
“I’m just trying to come at this from a more generalized perspective.”
Why?
I didn’t say that religion has no positive merits whatsoever or that atheists have never done anything wrong. So what’s the point of trying to cram a more “generalized perspective” in this debate?
What I am saying isn’t even all that extreme, it’s something you could find out using a high-school level history book.
“Why?”
Because I’m trying to take Titan’s post in the most positive way so to have a constructive argument?
“I didn’t say that religion has no positive merits whatsoever or that atheists have never done anything wrong. So what’s the point of trying to cram a more “generalized perspective” in this debate?”
Because what you’re doing is called ‘what about-ism.’ Titan makes a statement that you find offensive, but you cannot actually dispute the fact or opinion which he is presenting. So instead, you say ‘yeah but what about .’ You didn’t bother responding to Titan’s actual claim…. you just sidestep it to say that some other group did something similar, mainly because Titan is a proponent of that other group. Sort of the ‘dirty hands’ argument in a negligence case. The idea you’re trying to use is ‘Christianity has blood on its hands as well, so someone who is a Christian therefore has no right to make a comment about a different group, even if true.’
I was trying to have a more generalized perspective on it because then you can say ‘yes, both groups have a lot of baggage’, and then discuss that baggage in general.
“Because I’m trying to take Titan’s post in the most positive way so to have a constructive argument?”
But you’re. You are just providing vague statements about how religion isn’t inherently evil. Something nobody here is disputing.
“Because what you’re doing is called ‘what about-ism.’ Titan makes a statement that you find offensive”
He said that “Pagan”/non-Christian religions are known for their depravity compared to Christianity. I just pointed out how that isn’t actually true from a historical perspective.
“You are just providing vague statements about how religion isn’t inherently evil.”
You have a very odd idea of ‘vague statements’ considering how much I’ve been writing.
“Something nobody here is disputing.”
I don’t know… you seem to be pretty aggressive about saying how, because Titan brought up that pagan religions have some pretty violent and barbaric practices, that pointing out that Christianity has as well (which it has), it somehow is an argument against what Titan said. Admittedly, Titan seems to ignore that Christianity has a pretty violent history as well, and has had stories about human sacrifice in the old testament as well (well, attempted human sacrifice anyway, in the story of Abraham and Isaac, although it was considered a test of his loyalty to God), but it doesn’t invalidate his post.
“He said that “Pagan”/non-Christian religions are known for their depravity compared to Christianity. I just pointed out how that isn’t actually true from a historical perspective.”
Actually you said also ‘in the modern age.’ As if there hasnt been any reformations in the religion. Probably would have been more effective if you instead pointed out that pagan religions have also gone through their own reformations (like new age religions like Wicca are not remotely similar to ancient pagan religions, and do not have human sacrifice involved in it).
“I don’t know”
Me pointing out that Christians did bad things in the past doesn’t mean I think they’re evil anymore than your legitimate points about Stalin means you think atheists are evil.
“Actually you said also ‘in the modern age.’”
I make a habit of mentioning that because people often like to make the excuse that since it happened in the past, those people were simply interpreting the holy book wrong.
“Me pointing out that Christians did bad things in the past doesn’t mean I think they’re evil anymore than your legitimate points about Stalin means you think atheists are evil.”
Glad to see we agree on both of those things.
“I make a habit of mentioning that because people often like to make the excuse that since it happened in the past, those people were simply interpreting the holy book wrong.”
Sometimes people do interpret their holy books wrong. But christianity does not engage in human sacrifice in modern times, and I’m actually not sure anywhere in the New Testament either (although I am not a biblical scholar and I don’t know chapter and verse from it – I’m not even Christian – my mother is jewish, my father was buddhist, and I’m agnostic – I just read a lot).
The closest I can see to anything resembling human sacrifice in post-Old Testament would be maybe Salem Witch Trials or the Spanish Inquisition, although the former was not ‘sacrifice’ and the latter was rather political in how it started, and was also not ‘sacrifice.’ – in both cases they were more about punishment for what were insane (and false) charges, in Salem because of some girls who were lying, and in the Spanish Inquisition to force conversions or the Church, under Torquemada, to steal money from those who were killed (which included falsely-charged christians and non-christians alike)
In either case, there’s no ‘modern times’ in which human sacrifice happens in Christianity, and comparing modern christianity practices to ancient pagan practices makes no sense. Even the most woefully ignorant but not-insane person in modern times who is a Christian hasn’t been sacrificing human beings to God for God’s favor. Insane people? Yeah okay insane people would do that. But that’s because they’re insane, not because the Church or Christianity is telling them to do so.
What I meant was that a lot of pagan faiths have involved things like child sacrifice
Wasn’t some guy in the Bible ordered to sacrifice his son? o_O
Yes, Abraham was told to sacrifice his son, and he was going to do it no questions (his son was saved because a goat happened to wander by just at that moment)
Isaac was 25 when Abraham was ordered to sacrificed him and never had him go through with it, giving Anraham a ram to sacrifice instead. Also as Hebrews 11: 17-19 says:
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, as good as offered up Isaac—the man who had gladly received the promises attempted to offer up his only-begotten son— although it had been said to him: “What will be called your offspring will be through Isaac.” But he reasoned that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, and he did receive him from there in an illustrative way.
The point is: he was going to do it simply because his God told him he would be rewarded!
How is that any different to the ‘pagans’ doing the same thing?
Isaac could have been fifty, and still Abrahams child
He did it cause God told him to, Abraham was not expecting any reward. And God explicitly stopped Abraham before he actually did it cause it was merely a Test of Faith, and even then Abraham believed that if he did it God would bring Isaac back to life.
One way to look at it was as for a precursor for what was to come, when God allowed his only-begotten Son to be sacrificed to save humanity from it’s sins.
Again: “how is that different to when ‘pagans’ do it?”
He was told that he was going be the ‘father of millions’ before he was told to sacrifice his son. Certainly sounds like a reward to me…
What makes it different is that God never asked him to sacrifice his Son in order to become “the father of millions”, and he was told he would way before Isaac was even born, all Abraham was asked to do was to remain loyal to Jehovah God.
With pagan gods it’s like “oh you want this wind to stop, kill your youngest child in my name, then, and only then, will I stop it”
Not this old chestnut again, it is so well known that it has a name, The Atheist Atrocities Fallacy. Those people were not killed in the name of atheism, and on top of that, Stalin was not an atheist, neither was Hitler, for the record. What all those people had in common, was that they were communists, who dislike religion as they see it as a threat to their control of the masses. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who has been killed in the name of atheism.
First off, you seem to be implying that Hitler was a communist. To my knowledge, he was at the FAR other end of the political spectrum.
Secondly, am pretty sure them being dictators had more to do with them disliking religion. Also wouldn’t a populace being excessively religious make them easier to control? Well I guess people who thought in the divine right of king’s (emperors in those cases) might’ve not liked them because of their religion.
Technically, Hitler was at least partially a socialist, not a communist, since he did allow some private industry, but would regularly have the state take over private industry if they wanted to do so. The nazi manifesto literally states that they are socialists. There are two axis when it comes to politics – the left/right axis and the authoritarian/libertarian axis. Nazis, Communists, and Socialists all fall on the Authoritarian and Left side of the spectrums, although Fascism can fall on either Left or Right while also always being on the Authoritarian axis. In general, racial identitarianism falls on the left side of the axis, whether it’s about ‘black lives matter’ or an aryan philosophy. The skin color of the identitarian movement does not change the fact that it’s an identitarian movement. Oddly enough, the whole ‘hippie beatnik’ mentality falls on the left/libertarian axis, but once it gets too large, it tends to shift to the left/authoritarian axis in order to enforce its rules.
Something like OCP from Robocop, or Pinochet’s fascist government, would fall under Right/Authoritarian. Standard american libertarianism tends to be either left/libertarian or right/libertarian, usually close to the center. Same for classic liberalism, although that usually goes more left-of-center. Anarcho-capitalism tends to be right/libertarianism when small, but like with hippies, when it gets big, it usually shifts to right/authortarian. Also, pure anarchy is a right/libertarian extreme axis.
Most of this has nothing to do with religion though, except that religions tend to fall under a poltiical axis as well when it comes to left/right and libertarian/authoritarian. You just need to separate any inherent bias on ‘left/right’ from the groups. Just think ‘left means collective, right means individual’ – the more you want people working with each other in a collective, the more to the left you are. The more you are into rugged individualism and being left alone to your own means, the more to the right you are.
But nowadays, people want to treat terms like ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ as slurs, rather than what they’re actually supposed to mean.
Actually yes, people killed under Stalin were killed because of living in an atheistic nation which put the State in place of a religious deity. In effect, the state WAS God. Mao WAS God. Kim Jon Il, as far as it matters to the civilian masses, is to be treated like a god, despite no religion. Because a lack of religion does not mean a lack of dogma, and it’s the dogma that tends to cause all the problems (while simultaneously creating most of the heroic archetype stories), not religion in general.
Also yes, Stalin was an atheist, as was Mao Zedong. They openly declared so quite publicly, actually – Stalin did from his youth onward. It’s in their own writing that they are.
Hitler was not necessarily an atheist, nor was he Christian – he was definitely an occultist though. There’s nothing specific on whether he was even religious or not, although he had some religious people in his council, and some atheists as well. Hitler’s atrocities are more easily explained by him being on the socialist side of the political spectrum. But you will note I did not mention Hitler when I mentioned ‘atheist nations with blood on their hands.’
I’ll save Hitler for when I’m talking about socialism and fascism instead. There’s overlap there with Stalin and Mussolini. But that has nothing to do with atheism vs religion. Although quite a few nazi scientists were lapsed catholics (I believe Catholicism itself was not allowed in Nazi Germany under the aryan regime) and atheists, like Joseph Mengele. But I didnt mention the nazis because religion definitely played a part in the antisemitism, at least on how the German people were so easily goaded into blaming the jewish people, although socialism played a part as well in making the jews a scapegoat for the economy of the Germans leading up to WW2.
So yes, Mao Zedong and Stalin were both atheists, and ruled their nations as atheist nations. And they wound up murdering 85 million to 100 milion people and made religion itself illegal and a death-sentence offense because you were putting God before the State. I’m agnostic, but I’m not going to lie about the idea that agnosticism and atheism do not have any more of a pretty history than religion has.
I’m not entirely sure how that ties into what I was saying….
I didnt say confused. I said Harris was stumped with a way to counter what Peterson was suggesting in the second debate, and he wound up admitting he had no answer for it. You really would find it interesting. Both Harris and Peterson are geniuses, and both come at the debate from a very scientific perspective.
Morality actually does seem to require some sort of dogmatic story in order to perpetuate itself, at least during all of human history. Even atheists wind up using morality structure which themselves were only developed because the culture in which they come up had them, which is because of a religious dogma that was set into place at some point in the past. The dogma then gets removed, but the morality structure remains in place. There has yet to be a human society where humans have ever developed a morality structure without first developing some sort of religious dogma to propogate that structure.
Also, I am not Christian (and even before I was agnostic, I was not Christian), but you should not equate some stories in the Bible with the concept that a religious dogma and morality are tied together, at least in a foundational sense. Especially since even the most horrific stories in the Bible do not remove that there are morality codes that are also formed from the dogma. Especially in the west. For example, the legal concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ ( and ‘Better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer’ (which came out of the whole story of Sodom and Gamorrah). Other religions have come up with other stories to come to the same morality conclusions, which do not seem to exist ABSENT of that dogma having existed at some point in the culture’s past.
Also, we should not equate some evil that’s in a story with meaning the entire concept of religion is unnecessary for a society. Let’s not forget that a lot of horrific things have also been done in the name of science. People find a way to create nearly limitless energy – they use it to create atomic weapons. Diseases are discovered – and then weaponized. Plants are discovered to have medicinal effects. Then some of them are used to create poisons to assassinate others. People being tortured, in the name of science just as they’ve been in the name of religion. It does not make science no longer useful, just as religion is still useful for a society.
In any case, I think you’d really enjoy the debate between Harris and Peterson.
Yeah, no shit no society has existed without some form of religion or mysticism.
Humans always, and I mean always, make up stories to explain things we don’t understand and then tie a moral to it.(Up to and including a story about a man holding up the entire planet.)
“but you should not equate some stories in the Bible with the concept that a religious dogma and morality are tied together”
I’m against strictly considering looking towards religion for general morality in modern day because most texts were written centuries ago by people with less than stellar views about things like slavery, torture, women, gay people, etc etc.
That’s not say that no stories from any religion hold up to modern standards, but a lot are backwards and fucked up because, well, so were the people that wrote those passages long ago.
“Also, we should not equate some evil that’s in a story with meaning the entire concept of religion is unnecessary for a society.”
Good thing I won’t and haven’t?
I said religion isn’t necessary to be a good/moral person.
“I said religion isn’t necessary to be a good/moral person.”
That’s literally not the point. The point is you cannot actually separate being a moral person with being a person that was raised in a culture, in which religion had a part in forming that morality.
Can you prove otherwise? Because you already agreed that no society has ever exited without some form of religion or mysticism which has made up the cultural foundation of later civilizations.
If, within the entire length of history of human civilization, there has never been a civilization, no matter where in the world, and even in the two extinct variants of humans (neanderthalis and erectus, both of whom have anthropological evidence of proto-religious worship, including human ceremonial burial and totemism) have had religion, would you not agree that it might be the default of humans to need to have a culture which had religion as part of the foundation of that culture in order to have concepts like good and evil?
In other words, a person does not need to be religious to be good.
But since we cannot find a culture anywhere on the planet where religion was not incorporated in creating the culture’s notions of morality, even if the person has since done away with the religious aspect of the culture and just kept the ‘morality’ aspect, there doesn’t seem to be a way to escape that if you were born into a human culture, religion was involved in you knowing that there’s even such a thing as morality.
If you’d like to refute it, you’d need to find a human culture where there was never any religion involved from its inception, and never any stories that were in any way passed down to become incorporated into the culture.
Also you bring up slavery, and try to blame it on religion.
Slavery also was ENDED on religious grounds in the Western culture. Something that existed for all of human civilization. Now, it’s justifiably reviled as an affront to human dignity and considered evil.
Same for torture, actually. All these terrible things you’re talking about, even though they were occuring during times of religion and times of no religion in government, were only finally ENDED by a culture that had a basis of religion in its cultural framework.
That’s not something that can actually be argued. It’s part of our history.
The Constitution itself was based on the idea of a religious framework for morality. The whole concept of ‘inalienable rights’ means rights that you have just for existing, not rights which any government can give TO you – just rights which no government can take FROM you. These rights, in the days of the Founding Fathers, were considered to be inalienable and ‘God-Given’ rights. And because they did not believe that the law of man should be able to override the law of a divine creator, they held those natural rights up as sacrosanct and inviolable, and even though they didnt immediately do away with slavery, they made sure that it would happen in the Federalist papers and, when writing the Constitution, they made sure to ban the slave trade itself by 1800. Abolitionists were also instrumental in ending slavery as a practice PERIOD, and they were also doing so for religious reasons.
existed, not exited. Wish I could edit.
“religion was involved in you knowing that there’s even such a thing as morality.”
That depends on someone’s view of religion.
If you’re an athiest and/or agnostic,(which I happen to be) religion was just a very primitive way for people to convey morals they thought of. Something which is now replaced by processes of government that don’t require interpretation of divine scripture.
“Slavery also was ENDED”
The existence of religion doesn’t get to take credit for something started by it’s own scripture in the first place.
Especially when you consider that slavery wasn’t stopped by God handing down a divine message decrying it, it was slowly ended over decades by groups of people motivated by survival/anger/altruism.
Both, pro and anti slavery, were heavily religious and often believed in the same scripture. Religion quite evidently wasn’t the deciding factor in that social movement.
“Supported” not “started”.
“If you’re an athiest and/or agnostic,(which I happen to be) religion was just a very primitive way for people to convey morals they thought of. Something which is now replaced by processes of government that don’t require interpretation of divine scripture.”
Actually the earliest governments were only formed because of the existence of religion. That’s why there was always a priest/priestess or shaman or pharoah or something similar at the top of the social hierarchy. And yes, religion was formed to convey the concept of morality. Which is my point. In a pure nature setting, morality is not a particularly important thing in every day life – it’s more a survival of the fittest mentality. Nature is not very ‘fair.’ Fairness is an aspect specifically for morality.
Also, I would not want the government being in charge of what is and is not moral. You’re giving people waaaay too much control over your own personal behavior when you do that. That sort of stuff leads to Stalin or Mao and 100 million people being killed by their own governments for wrongthink.
“The existence of religion doesn’t get to take credit for something started by it’s own scripture in the first place.”
Religion did not start slavery. Economics started slavery. Religion just ended slavery. Slavery happened both in religious societies AND atheistic societies. Gulags did not magically disappear under Stalin. They formed under Stalin. The Gulag Archipelago is necessary reading for anyone who wants to talk about slavery and human suffering. The point is, while slavery occured, regardless of the level of religion prevalent in a society, the cessation of religion happened specifically because of people who thought that human slavery was an affront to God, and an inherently immoral act. All the abolitionists were extremely religious, and stated their reasons for the abolitionist movement in writing many times over.
Feel free to show me an example of one abolitionist movement that was not based on religion or involved religious people doing the work. Go on. I’ll wait.
Religion/stories meant to convey morals are, as a result of being thought of by humans, natural. It smacks of semantics to state morals aren’t natural when humans thought of morals by themselves without outside interference.
“Also, I would not want the government being in charge of what is and is not moral.”
They basically do. That’s essentially the social contract you agree to by following their laws.
That is not to say no laws are unjust though.
“Religion did not start slavery.”
There is religious scripture, in all kinds of religions, that actively endorses slavery. Even Christianity.
“Feel free to show me an example of one abolitionist movement that was not based on religion or involved religious people doing the work. Go on. I’ll wait.”
The same is true of the other side. They thought it was just and good in the eyes of the Lord for them to own slaves.
“Religion/stories meant to convey morals are, as a result of being thought of by humans, natural. It smacks of semantics to state morals aren’t natural when humans thought of morals by themselves without outside interference.”
Uh… no it really doesn’t. In a pure state of nature, there’s no evolutionary advantage to things like compassion, ‘turning the other cheek,’ and mercy. Nature rarely results in a ‘justice-based result.’ There’s not a whole lot of advantage in trust either, although that often happens in sex (but the sex drive often overrides survival instinct).
Most of these things are because or religious morality that has been infused into the cultures as part of that culture’s underpinning, usually through archetypical stories. You can’t easily separate the morality norms of what is good and what is evil by pretending that religion had nothing to do with its formation. It’s like building a house with a foundation, then ignoring the fact that the foundation exists in the first place. When societies do try to do that, they usually wind up trying to replace the foundation with some other foundation that isn’t quite as sturdy (ie, replacing a deity with the state, like what happened in Stalin or Lenin’s Russia or in Mao Zedong’s China or Kim Jong Il’s Korea). That does not mean that you need to be religious to be a good person. Dershowitz once had an excellent debate with Keyes about this – an atheist is just as capable of being good and moral as anyone else. But if you don’t acknowledge that the concepts of what is good and what is evil is shaped by the culture in which you were raised, even if you’re an atheist, then you’re just ignoring the past that created that morality which you follow, religion or no religion.
“They basically do. That’s essentially the social contract you agree to by following their laws.”
COMPLETELY wrong. No. The Constitution is not about ‘positive laws’ – ie, the government does not GIVE you rights. The Constitution is about ‘negative rights’ – ie, you have rights as part of simply existing, and it’s the government’s duty to prevent people, and from the government itself, from TAKING THOSE RIGHTS AWAY FROM YOU.
The government is not supposed to grant you stuff that you would not otherwise have if not for the existence of government. That’s not what ‘inalienable’ means.
“There is religious scripture, in all kinds of religions, that actively endorses slavery. Even Christianity.”
Endorses. But it didnt start slavery. Slavery had already existed, for economic reasons. One people conquers another people, then enslaves them. Or one person owes another person, so sells their child into slavery for the debt. Religions have had slavery. Atheist regimes have… had slavery (well, Gulags and indentured servitude). It it was religious people within the judeo-christian religion who finally ended slavery, or at least made it so morally unpalatable that it’s looked at as a great evil throughout the world, and people from the nations which have abolished slavery look at places that still have it and can point out ‘this is a bad thing – this must end.’
“The same is true of the other side.”
Actually no it’s not true of the other side. There were no atheists in the abolitionist movement.
“They thought it was just and good in the eyes of the Lord for them to own slaves.”
Yes. That doesn’t change that ONLY religious people were responsible for the ending of slavery in the nations where it was made illegal.
Again, tell me one abolitionist who was not a deeply religious person. I will wait for you to answer.
“Uh… no it really doesn’t. In a pure state of nature, there’s no evolutionary advantage to things like compassion, ‘turning the other cheek,’ and mercy.”
There evidently is since humans developed and flourished with them in nature.
You keep saying, “Religion brought about humanity”, but keep forgetting what created religion and the morals behind it.
“Endorses. But it didnt start slavery.”
Religion is ancient and fundamental enough to human society to be responsible for the very concept of morals, but not slavery?
There were abolitionist atheists:
https://secularplanet.blogspot.com/2007/02/ftu-abolitionist-atheists.html
There just weren’t a lot of athiests back then.
Even if we didn’t have these letters, where do you get off claiming there were no atheists a part of the isolationist movement out-of-hand?
“You keep saying, “Religion brought about humanity”, but keep forgetting what created religion and the morals behind it.”
No, I keep saying religion brought about the concept of MORALITY. Not ‘religion brought about humanity.’ Don’t strawman my arguments by claiming I said things different than what I actually said. :)
“Religion is ancient and fundamental enough to human society to be responsible for the very concept of morals, but not slavery?”
Religion has been a minor part of the reasoning for people who would enslave others, but the primary motivating factor for slavery has always been economics. Religion tended to be an excusing principle, not the motivating factor. As I mentioned to Tempo, I think. On the other hand, the primary motivating factor to make slavery illegal has always been religion, rather than economics.
“There were abolitionist atheists”
I read your link, and it literally did not give the name of any atheist abolitionists. It just kept repeating the same claim – churches cause slavery, etc. Attacking religious institutions by claiming they had a part in slavery does not an abolitionist make. Also, the one name they actually gave who they claimed was an atheist, William Wilberforce, was in fact very religious, and has many written works on the importance of religion and morality as the focal reason for slavery needing to be ended. Sort of amazed at the lack of research the writer of that blog did.
“Even if we didn’t have these letters, where do you get off claiming there were no atheists a part of the isolationist movement out-of-hand?”
Because every abolitionist of note in history has a rather long and public accounting of being religious and exclaiming, often quite publicly and loudly, the immorality of slavery based on it being an affront to God for man to enslave his fellow man. That’s where I get off saying there were no atheist abolitionists. In the same way that I say there were no eskimos who were knights in England, or that there were no women who landed on the moon. It’s a matter of historical fact, based on all available evidence. Until you can present facts that show there were abolitionists who were atheists, you have to accept the facts at hand. And yes, there were not a lot of atheists back then. Moot point. In fact, it gives even more credence to the fact that there were no atheist abolitionists. And moreover, that all abolitionists seemed to be particularly religious, not even just passingly so.
That was a miss-type, and you’re side stepping the point:
You keep saying, “Religion brought about morals”, but keep forgetting what created religion and the morals behind it.
“Religion has been a minor part of the reasoning for people who would enslave others, but the primary motivating factor for slavery has always been economics. Religion tended to be an excusing principle, not the motivating factor.”
You got any proof of that?
I feel the need to ask at this point since there are various bible passages that actively endorses slavery.
Ephesians 6:5
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ,”
****
How could you not see the names listed?
They were in the third paragraph, the only way to miss them would be if you didn’t read past the title:
“Perhaps he forgets that slavery was abolished in France in 1791, not by the church, but by the atheistic founders of the revolution. In the United States, the early critics of slavery – Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams – were all either atheists or deists. Later, the abolitionist cause was taken up by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister turned atheist; William Lloyd Garrison, an atheist; and Robert Ingersoll, the “Great Agnostic.” Indeed, the “Great Emancipator” himself, Abraham Lincoln, never acknowledged being a Christian and was (at the very least) thought to be a freethinker in matters of religion. In England, atheists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were leading abolitionists.”
“It’s a matter of historical fact, based on all available evidence”
We don’t have an account of every single person who was a part of the abolitionist movement, so no it isn’t a definitive fact.
It’s an incorrect assumption your part.
“And yes, there were not a lot of atheists back then.”
In what reality?
Atheist, even *today*, are still a minority while the vast majority of people are religious:
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
And the further you go back, the smaller of a minority they become.
The founding father’s were mostly deists and specifically did not include the phrase “god given” rights because they believed them to be intrinsic rather than something bestowed.
secondly, pretty sure there is a logical failing in trying to state that because something was in anyway influenced by religion, then it is religious. It is pretty easy in creating a moral system that isn’t religious, you just don’t base it in “because x deity says so”.
Yeah pretty sure I figured out what seemed wrong with your thing, you are essentially talking about a chicken or the egg issue, “which came first, morality or religion” with religion being the thing that most early cultures used for justifying moral laws and conveying moralities to next generations. Though religion’s moral nature could only have begun after there was morality to justify and convey.
Though ultimately, if you are wanting an example of morality with absolutely no religious influences, just look at social animals. Religion may be a human concept, but morality isn’t, or at least, it is debatable whether or not it is. Social animals behave in a moral manner, with trust and cooperation, and yet no discernible religion.
Though there is also the matter of what you are defining as a religion.
And what you consider to be more prominent in creating slavery as it existed, the economic incentive or the religious justification for it.
The economic incentive was more prominent. When the economics of slavery no longer made sense (it stifles innovation, which was clear from how the North was VASTLY technologically superior, and creates a dangerous situation of being outnumbered by people who have good reason to rebel), you’ll notice that the religious impetus AGAINST slavery had a lot more prominence.
Slavery in the South was never a particularly economically viable concept (less than 5% of Southerners actually owned slaves), and even the Founding Fathers acknowledged that slavery was a morally bankrupt practice against God’s will in the debates of the first Continental Congress.
Thomas Jefferson, along with James Madison and Patrick Henry, had tried to have the Virginia Assembly figure out how to stop the importation of slaves in 1772, but King George III stopped the Assembly from taking action.
“The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason those passages which conveyed censure on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under these censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. ” – Thomas Jefferson originally put this in the Declaration of Independence, but it was removed because delegates from two colonies in the South (Georgia and South Carolina) would not agree to the revolution if it had been left in.
Also said by Jefferson, who tried twice to bring emancipation for slaves because of religious reasons, said:
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.”
and
“As it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”
Also, with respect to the ‘chicken or the egg’ question, it’s not really a ‘chicken or the egg’ question from what I’ve been saying, since I’m saying that religion did come first, in order to instill in societies different moral codes that could not be instilled through outright force with the same level of ease.
First religion. Then civilization, built based on societies that had different religions. Moral codes which were infused into the culture to the point that even if you are not religious and do not accept the actual dogma of the foundational religion, you still wind up accepting the moral codes, as long as you accept the culture itself.
Heck. Even if you don’t accept your own culture and rebel against it and go to some other culture, you’re not abandoning morality codes – you’re just exchanging one set of morality codes, from one religious underpinning, with another set of morality codes from another culture with religious underpinning.
And if you wind up going back far enough, to a state of nature, you’re eventually going to find that people did not have ‘morality codes’ but they still had proto-religions (which go as far back as before homo sapiens, with homo neanderthalis’ totemic worship and ritual burial). It tends to all be a matter of finding out what the most primitive hierarchical structures are for man that we can find in anthropology, and see if those societies had or did not have any sort of religion or proto-religion. If it did (which they did have quite a long time ago), the idea that morality is divorced from religion is slim to none.
As for what I consider religion, religion is any belief in and worship of a superhuman or otherworldly power which controls or influences the world, people in the world, or aspects of the world. Although more broadly, it could be interpreted as an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules which defy rational, evolutionary natural selection and basic logic.
That and association doesn’t equal causation. Religion may justify and convey a system of morality, but that doesn’t mean that it originally created the system of morality. Though honestly we are getting into “you cant not be a philosopher” territory.
“That and association doesn’t equal causation”
Explain what you mean by that please, because I don’t think I said anything that would use that as a response.
“Religion may justify and convey a system of morality, but that doesn’t mean that it originally created the system of morality”
Except… religion literally did create the systems of morality for cultures – even for cultures that have people who are not religious, but still nevertheless adopt the cultural norms of what is good and evil of that culture.
Btw, I’m not even saying a ‘divine source’ is necessary, but the stories behind it seem to be QUITE necessary from an cultural evolutionary perspective, and this was actually the point which Harris did not have an answer for. It seems inherentely tied into how cultures form and adapt to not be, as you’ve put it, a bunch of psychopaths… by our modern day cultural standards.
Here’s the Vancouver debate between Peterson and Harris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtkwF5qA6uE
The stories can be necessary to propagate morality though an illiterate population where every day is a struggle to survive, but you could do the same thing with Aesop’s fables and the Boy Who Cried Wolf and stuff like that. The religious aspect is just an unnecessary complication.
I don’t know. Religion is just another way of expressing archetypes. Just like modern day comic books. Spider-Man and ‘With Great Power comes Great Responsibility’ for example. I’m not sure it’s an unnecessary complication insomuch as it’s a necessary step that cultures take when forming their cultural rules that is difficult to simply skip. I’m just saying that religion does serve a purpose in society, even if only for the stories. Even with Aesop, he would have grown up in the Greek culture, which was heavily influenced by Greek religions, just like all greek myths were. Plus it’s pretty likely that Aesop was not actually a single person, but a collection of different people telling different stories that were just presented as ‘Aesop’s Fables’ by historians like Herodotus and Aristophanes, as well as Plato and Aristotle. Aesop, if he existed, could not have made -all- the stories himself, because many of the fables he had retold were based on earlier fables, some of which even predate Greek civilization, and go back to ancient Sumeria (they’ve found stone tablets that show fables).
Heck, many of of Aesop’s fables that we know today aren’t even remotely similar to how they were written in his time. They have been adapted to different times and different religions (including Christianity)… again, to teach morality lessons. But it still incorporated religion. Which religion depended on the culture that the fables were being interpreted for.
I could definitely see Spider-Man being a religious figure if people 1000 years from now dug up some books on him that were still readable. Maybe Infinity Crusade. They’d probably consider him some sort of messianic figure (or at least a totemic figure), since he’s telling a very basic code of religious morality that he sticks to very staunchly (except in One More Day, which sucks and is generally a hated storyline, where he literally makes a deal with the devil in a very un-Peter Parker way).
And also, when I say ‘even atheists act in a moral manner’ – I am not saying atheists are slavering monster. Mainly since I am one also (well… agnostic at least). I am saying that EVERYONE’S moral foundations are not produced out of a vacuum – they are produced from the culture in which they were raised, and those cultures invariably stem from some set of religious dogmatic rules on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ which guides the progression of that culture, Dave.
Also, note I never mentioned a Creator. I’m just saying that religious people’s use of faith to try to describe something for which they have no frame of reference to understand, in a situation where the laws of physics seem to break down and not make sense, does not seem that far removed to the state of the universe in the miniscule amount of time before the four fundamental forces of Gravity, the Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces, and Electromagnetism first separated (at approximately 1 x 10 to the -38th power seconds after the start of the universe). Scientists can not find either an empirical or a mathematically derived way to explain it, which is why they theorize that before that point in time, physics itself breaks down.
What would you call a state of being which is beyond physics and physical laws of space and time? I don’t know, but even atheists, if they’re going to bother to say there is an answer, would be relying on an act of faith that an answer actually exists, I would think?
“Also, note I never mentioned a Creator. I’m just saying that religious people’s use of faith to try to describe something for which they have no frame of reference to understand, in a situation where the laws of physics seem to break down and not make sense”
We’ve been through this song and dance literally hundreds of times in the past.
People used faith to, inaccurately, figure out; the shape of the earth, earth’s place in the solar system, why stars move, diseases, mental illness, race, sexuality, etc etc.
You could say that their current understanding of how the world worked back then fell apart as well when they encountered those issues.
“What would you call a state of being which is beyond physics and physical laws of space and time? I don’t know, but even atheists, if they’re going to bother to say there is an answer, would be relying on an act of faith that an answer actually exists, I would think?”
The honest answer to that question is; “I don’t know what you would call such a state of being.”
But it’s a little scary to admit and accept your own ignorance instead of falling back on faith.
I doubt we’ve been through this hundreds of times in the past. And again you’re responding to a post with stuff that has nothing to do with the post. But you’re strawmanning, using something I did not say to try to argue with my statements, by arguing with the point that you strawmanned, instead of what I wrote.
But here, I’ll bring you back on track to the point I was making. Based on what you just posted, in order words, people use faith when there is an absence of empirical evidence to figure something out. You know what else does that? Science. In an absence of information on what happened during the first 10 to the -38th seconds after the Big Bang, they just make a guess that SOMETHING happened. They make up possible ideas, because it’s based on an inherent faith that something had to have happened.
Another example – dark energy and dark matter. They were created in science because otherwise, all the formula and theories on the state of the universe literally don’t work. Because the formulas used require extra mass in order to explain how basic physics manages to work. So they added extra numbers, and call the numbers ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark matter.’ It’s not actual invisible matter. It’s matter that they assume must exist and we just don’t see it or know where it is, because they have faith in the validity of the formulas that they’re using.
And like I keep bringing up, Max Planck relied on basic concepts of faith when he came up with the Planck length, Planck time, the Planck postulate, and Planck theory. And his theories and concepts form the BASICS upon which almost all quantum physics is based. So…. physics (especially quantum physics) is based on some level of faith.
And the fact that you’d admit that such a thing exists that exists OUTSIDE of the laws of space, time, and physics, even if you cannot say what you’d call that, means you have faith that SOMETHING exists within that category. You don’t know. Because you have faith that there is something, even if you don’t know what it is. Eventually, you find something that you can’t figure out, and that physics itself is incapable of figuring out, to the point where the physicist admits that ‘physics literally breaks down and ceases to work (ie, the initial points during and right after the big bang, to 10 to the negative 38th power seconds after the Big Bang). If physics ceases to work, then science ceases to work, since science deals with the natural laws of the universe, and there is at least some point in the lifespan of the natural universe that seems, even according to scientists, to be unregulated by scientific laws of physics.
“You know what else does that? Science.”
Science doesn’t tout their theory’s that don’t have empirical evidence as divine/unequivocal fact though.
They’re very transparent about the fact that they could very well be wrong, while religions… aren’t so honest.
“And the fact that you’d admit that such a thing exists that exists OUTSIDE of the laws of space, time, and physics, even if you cannot say what you’d call that, means you have faith that SOMETHING exists within that category.”
I said that I honestly don’t know, not that something existed for sure.
Maybe it was really nothing, God or otherwise, and we’ll never find out.
“Science doesn’t tout their theory’s that don’t have empirical evidence as divine/unequivocal fact though”
Actually it does. Dark Matter. Dark Energy. Any theories from before 10 to the -38th power seconds after the Big Bang. Quantum Foam. None of these have any scientific basis beyond it, aside from ‘if we don’t make this up as a placeholder then our theories don’t work at all.’ And yet they do ‘tout’ it as the fundamental basis for quantum physics.
“They’re very transparent about the fact that they could very well be wrong, while religions… aren’t so honest.”
First off, there are quite a few scientists loathe to change their theories when it doesn’t add up – read up on Leonard Susskind and how nearly impossible it was to convince the scientific community that he was right and Stephen Hawkings was wrong.
Second, even if religion tends to not be ‘honest’ about transparency, which is obvious since the core element of religion is faith, while the core element of science is empirical evidence (but seriously, you seem to be letting a bias you have against one particular sect of religious belief stereotype all religions when you make these broad accusatory statements), it still would not change the fact that science, at least in certain specific areas, rely upon a leap of faith to make the theories possibly work, especially when you get into the realm of quantum physics.
“I said that I honestly don’t know, not that something existed for sure.
Maybe it was really nothing, God or otherwise, and we’ll never find out.”
Possibly. But that seems like a pretty nihilistic view to say ‘we will never find out, so what’s the point in even asking.’ Science tends to ask anyway. So does religion. And in a FEW areas, science’s basis of belief is just as based on faith as religion is with most of its dogma. Most scientists seem pretty sure that there was something in that first instance after the Big Bang though. Makes sense for them to think that too, even though they have no proof and, even by their own admission, it seems to be a point in time where physics itself breaks down and ceases to work. If there’s a point in time where physical law of science ceases to work, from which all things are suddenly formed out of what, before the Big Bang, would have been arguably nothing, I can understand how people could compare that to a divine spark. Just not necessarily in the form that guys from thousands of years ago imagined up as their answer to ‘what created everything.’
“And yet they do ‘tout’ it as the fundamental basis for quantum physics.”
No they don’t. You can tell a scientist that things like dark matter don’t have empirical evidence of it’s existence yet; They will nod their head and say that you’re right instead of calling you a heretic or blasphemer.
“read up on Leonard Susskind and how nearly impossible it was to convince the scientific community that he was right and Stephen Hawkings was wrong.”
Not long at all after he properly formulated his theory then published it. Leonard may have been right from the beginning, but he still needed to form a theory and prove it like anyone else making such a claim.
“it still would not change the fact that science, at least in certain specific areas, rely upon a leap of faith to make the theories possibly work, especially when you get into the realm of quantum physics.”
It’s not really faith if they’re willing to change their mind on it based on evidence.
“Possibly. But that seems like a pretty nihilistic view to say ‘we will never find out, so what’s the point in even asking.’ Science tends to ask anyway.”
I included the word “maybe” in there for a reason. And it’s hardly nihilistic, it’s completely, scientifically possible that there are somethings humanity simply can’t figure out.
This is more of fun fact territory, but some of what string theory is is the idea that of 10 or dimensions, only a few expanded infinitely, with some of the forces like electromagnetism being able to be unified with gravity, just acting in a dimension that is so small as to seem nonexistent. Essentially picture some flatworld peeps trying to figure out why a sphere rolls downhill, with it just seeming like a normal circle in a normal plane. Scientists are trying to find proof of this by looking at ridiculously small scales and trying to find evidence of things acting in concordance with a 10 dimensional universe. Pretty sure this would also go a ways towards unifying general and special relativity, because in this case of course they would be different, tiny small scale happens in 10 dimensions while large scale happens in effectively 3/4 dimensions.
So to reiterate, the pre seperation of the forces would be before the universe was large enough to have expanded past the 10 dimensions which didn’t expand along with the rest.
Possible. Scientists are still doing their funky science at the problem until it is deader than the proverbial dead horse.
I thought string theory suggested 11 dimensions, not 10. But yeah I’ve heard the theory that there was a 0th dimension (I think it’s hilarious that it’s called a 0th dimension, when it’s actually 1 dimensional) in which gravity did not separate from the other 3 fundamental forces.
Everything you’re saying, btw, sounds fascinating, and makes me want to watch more Nova and listen to Michio Kaku lectures.
This part of the debate was particularly good:
https://youtu.be/BtkwF5qA6uE?t=5105
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
You left of one of the end bits that I really like
YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS IN AREN’T TRUE, HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
On a related note, Good Omens was thoroughly enjoyable, and a great modern adaptation that stayed true to the feel of older Pratchett miniseries I’ve seen.
Really glad that Amazon didn’t cancel it in spite of the religious petition. On the one hand, I get the instinctive concern about normalizing the occult (though I think satire isn’t that serious); on the other hand, people will try to ban anything you can get them worked up about.
I love Good Omens. Amazingly good mini-series. The people who wanted it banned clearly do not understand the concept of satire.
It’s literally one of the main points that Jordan Peterson tends to make in his lectures on religious stories and religion in general. :)
Eh, it is more about believing in ideals rather than religions. While religions can provide a framework for the ideals, they can exist independently thereof.
I don’t think they can exist without there having been a culture that would have promoted those ideals. At the very least, I can’t think of an example of someone who had non-self-interested ideals with those ideals completely divorced from the culture. What are ideals if not something bigger than oneself? And I’m not sure how that doesn’t tend to describe the point of religion in general. Looking at some sort of extra-natural ideal that is bigger than oneself and ones own limited comprehension of things.
I know that might sound a bit objectivist – that ideals don’t exist separated from culture unless there’s some sort of self-interest involved, but I’m not an Objectivist. Really, I’m not.
I do think people can be altruistic – people are altruistic all the time. People have been altruistic to me. And I’ve been altruistic to other people, even total strangers.
I just don’t think the altruism springs from nowhere – it springs from a moral code infused by a culture or authority figure that influenced that person.
It’s because religion is so ingrained into the very foundation of modern society, people, even those espousing atheism, can’t get away from it
Even if someone’s parents brought them up to be atheist, their ideals had to have come, somewhere down (or is it up?) the line from a religious foundation: maybe their parents or grandparents were religious
True that was a good line too. Should have included it. Terry Pratchett is a great author.
Morality might not be effective for the evolutionary and survival potential of a single individual, but it works wonders for the survival of the group as a whole.
Equate to being poisonous. An animal being poisonous does nothing to keep it from being killed and eaten, but it works wonders in keeping other members of its species from being killed and eaten as the other animals see/remember that something that looks like that animal is deadly to eat.
Does it though? How often does being compassionate wind up biting a society in the butt big-time? If you see a bear in the woods, and you go to pet it with kindness, it will more likely than not attack you. Possibly kill you. Showing mercy to ones enemies (or just to anything potentially dangerous) can very often end up with those enemies seeing it as a sign of weakness, or the danger still hurting/killing you. Compassion and trust can work for a species SOMETIMES, but just as often, if not far more often, it does not. Usually there needs to be some underpinning of the society to encourage compassion and mutual trust – this underpinning tends to be rules set up, almost always, by religion of one form or another.
There’s a great game called The Walking Dead (by Telltale games, based on the comic book and TV show). In the game, there’s a DLC called 400 Days, and it executes an example of this rather well. There is a group of people that have taken over a diner, creating a safe spot against the zombie hordes. One day, a stranger breaks into the diner to try to steal some food, and the stranger is caught. You, as the player, wind up being the deciding vote on whether to kill the stranger or let the stranger go. Considering that the world is one with a very ‘survival of the fittest, show no weakness, weakness = death’ mentality, your younger sister, who grew up in this world, votes to kill the stranger. She does not understand the idea of compassion for an outsider who tried to steal from the group. The older sister, who you play, remembers what it was like before the world went to crap, and is torn between the compassionate choice and the ruthless (but more survivor-oriented) choice.
The compassionate choice is to let the stranger go free. If you do that, though, what happens is the stranger comes back later with friends, and they attack the diner, and several of your group are killed as a result. Compassion is not always the evolutionarily smart choice, but people are still compassionate to one another, usually because of some form of morality that came because of living in a world that was influenced by certain religious concepts.
Prisoner’s dilemma and such, mutual trust and cooperation benefits both sides the most, whereas selfishness will result in a loss for both after the initial gains. The *group* which benefits the most is the one with mutual trust, and therefore the traits and social behaviors of that group are the most likely to propagate.
Walking up and petting a bear is not showing kindness, it is being a bloody idiot. An actual example (one that actually happened and even demonstrates my point) would be sharing food and such with wolves and domesticating them.
A group or species which gets to the point where “showing weakness” is a cause for concern isn’t doing well at all. That sort of infighting wastes energy, resources, and is pointless risk; which is why actual group dynamics in humans or in nature is explicitly not constant dominance maintenance, and an individual which does try to do that will usually just get kicked out of the group for being an ass.
And still, in group dynamics, morality and cooperation best benefit the group/species. A group which has infighting and such will suffer in comparison to group which don’t.
Prisoner’s Dilemma actually goes COMPLETELY against mutual trust and compassion in practice. That’s sort of the point of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. That it would actually be in both people’s benefit to not turn on each other and accuse each other, but it’s the least likely scenario to occur because it’s the most unnatural scenario for people to do in a natural state.
“Walking up and petting a bear is not showing kindness, it is being a bloody idiot.”
The bloody idiot doesn’t know that. He or she thinks he or she is being kind to the bear.
“An actual example (one that actually happened and even demonstrates my point) would be sharing food and such with wolves and domesticating them.”
Technically speaking, wolves pretty much self-domesticated themselves according to the anthropological and archaeological records :). But I’m also thinking that before they started hunting with humans, there were probably more than a few examples of a human being trying to pet or feed a wolf, and being made into the wolf’s dinner as a result.
“A group or species which gets to the point where “showing weakness” is a cause for concern isn’t doing well at all.”
Well… then the world in general is not doing very well at all and you should be very, very concerned.
“That sort of infighting wastes energy, resources, and is pointless risk;”
You do realize it happens though, right? All the time. Look, lets take a legal case as an example, since I’m a lawyer and I can think of legal scenarios which would fit pretty easily.
When you’re negotiating a settlement, you do not start with the sweetheart deal. It’s a stupid idea to do so, because the other side will almost never take it. You start with the most hardball idea, then compromise to a better deal that they might accept. The more hardball you are about it, the better your deal will be. Whether you’re a prosecutor doing a plea deal, or a litigator for a credit company trying to get someone who owes a debt to pay a certain amount now rather than go through the expense of a trial (the latter is something I’ve done, since I’ve sometimes worked in debt negotiation when I did per diem cases for larger firms). The point being, if you act soft, you get taken advantage of, or they refuse to deal with you when you don’t let them take advantage of you, because they’ll think they can force a better deal at trial if you are as weak-looking before a judge as you were in the settlement negotiations.
Showing weakness is not a good thing, either in nature, or (usually) in settlements. Insert joke about lawyers having no morality here.
“which is why actual group dynamics in humans or in nature is explicitly not constant dominance maintenance,”
Not sure why you don’t think that actual group dynamics in humans or in nature are not constantly about dominance maintenance. If you really think that, you might simply not ever have been in a dominant position that you want to maintain on any sort of large scale. Hey, that would include me too though – I’m not nearly sociopathic enough to be a partner in a large law firm, so I run my own small one and sometimes do per diem work for the larger ones.
Human hierarchies, as well as animal hierarchies are ALL about dominant maintenance, because there’s usually a much smaller group of people that can be at the top than at the bottom. Usually because whoever is at the top is hyper-vigilant about keeping or attaining their dominance. Animal hierarchies MUCH moreso than human hierarchies though, because human hierarchies have morality norms embedded into their structure, as I’ve been saying this entire time. Animal hierarchies don’t, although admittedly certain chimpanzee camps might. Most chimpanzee camps don’t though, and chimpanzee and gorilla hierarchies are horribly bloody and aggressive compared to human ones.
“an individual which does try to do that will usually just get kicked out of the group for being an ass.”
I really don’t want to get into politics again, but I could and it would quickly defeat that sentence that you just said :)
But lets talk business instead. The most successful businesspeople are the ones who, very often, are jerks. I know. I’ve met some of them. They’re usually jerks.
Bill Gates? He’s a great philanthropist. But he also ripped off both Steve Wozniak and Xerox with Windows, and laughed about it later when he got sued by Apple and won. Steve was all “I trusted you, and you’re stealing from us!” Bill Gates was quoted as saying, “Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”
Lets face it, that’s a pretty jerky thing to say, even if true.
Steve Jobs was a jerk as well. So was Mark Zuckerberg, and continues to be. You think Zuckerberg screwing over his partner didn’t work out well for him? It sure seems to have, given Zuck is now a billionaire, and he hasnt exactly ceased on being…. unfair (that’s a charitable word if any applies), whether towards his friends, his customers, or his country. In any of these social dynamics, he has not been what you’d call a moral person, and that’s only served to benefit him.
You name a CEO, chances are he (or she) is a jerk and probably a bit of a sociopath. There might be a few that are not, but they’d be the outliers. Morality and cooperation are unfortunately not nearly as effective as stabbing your best friend in the back and making sure you get all the spoils. Fortunately, most people have some basic compassion and sense of morality. Just…. not usually at the top.
Regarding this long, long, LONG debate… that completely ignored Titan’s original statement about there being evidence for a creator… I read a book a long while ago titled “Darwin’s Black Box: the biochemical challenge to Evolution,” by Michael Behe. He makes some very interesting points. And of course people have challenged his theories… and this is where it gets interesting.
There’s been a lot of attacking of Behe, and of the book… mostly of Behe. His detractors don’t attack his arguments; they attack HIM. When they do make counterpoints, they’re interspersed with ad hominem attacks. “He said this. Here’s another example disproving everything he says as the words of a stupid Creationist poopyhead.” And he keeps having to point out: he’s NOT a Creationist. He pays no credence to the ridiculous notion that an english translation of a greek translation of ancient hebrew legends is the literal word of G-d. I’ve even read reviews that claim that Behe’s arguments “completely fall apart” in the last third of the book, when he fails to provide a viable alternative theory to unguided Evolution. The last third of the book is when he says, “I DON’T have a viable alternative theory, neither does anyone else. Here’s a number of wildly crazy theories, any of them might be right, but the point is that we DON’T know, so let’s try to find out.” (Also known as “doing actual science”)
Behe is a completely discredited religious apologist, and a bit of a loon. Anyone trying to use him to support their argument automatically has lost any credibility.
Without examples of what the biochemical barriers you are talking about, I can only really say that scientists are still figuring it out. They are have made good progress in figuring out how animo acids were mass produced, how proteins were folded without enzymes (that one turned out to be simple thermodynamics, a folded protein is at it’s stable/lowest energy point, so it would naturally get folded over time), how simple traits can not just gradually shift but combine to become more complex traits, and more. That and the anthropic principal. It might be 1/googol that life ever develops anywhere, but we are only able to make note of that because it did happen.
Are you seriously proposing a Jehovah’s Witnesses blog and a YouTube whackadoodle as evidence? They are evidence of, in order, what JWs choose to believe and that any angry person with a point of view, a camera, and an internet connection can post videos on YouTube. Nothing more. If you choose to accept those points of view, that’s your problem. Nothing in either link you present is actually evidence of anything, except possibly that what is said there aligns with your own assumptions.
Well then it should be easy to disprove the statements if there’s no evidence to back up what they’re saying. How’s about you start making counterarguments or just say that you just personally disagree instead of attacking others beliefs
Because it’s easier to attack someone elses beliefs than it is to defend your own (or lack of)
I would suggest starting by reading some Bertrand Russell. His thought experiments still have to be adequately refuted by the religious. Then move on from there.
Only one I was able to find was the Teapot one, which stipulates that when something can’t proven or disproven, Occam’s Razor dictates that one should conclude that it doesn’t.
The “Was it Designed” series I linked to also makes use of Occam’s Razor by examining to complex designs found in Nature and how Humans have replicated or wish to replicate them, then posits the simple question: If a complex design is found that sentient beings wish to replicate, which is more likely? it coming about by random chance? or by design?
I could go on giving countless other examples of stuff found in Nature where Occam’s Razor would suggest some sort of Creator, such as DNA or Sequential Hermaphrodites.
But let me leave you with an interesting Scripture, Hebrews 3:4:
Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but the one who constructed all things is God.
Programmers and such have tried applying evolution to designs and algorithms, essentially getting it to design something that performs the task in the efficient way, designing it and redesigning it completely by chance. The results have been pretty extraordinary, such as a series of logic gates that, while it is essentially just a voice activated on off switch with 37 logic gates, uses 10x fewer logic gates than the minimum an actual human would be able to design. Also, 7 of the logic gates dont do anything, but if you remove them, then it doesnt work. As well as a weird shape for an antennae that somehow gets hemispherical reception.
So yeah, while methodologies are good for making steady progress, random chance can create something that sane though processes couldn’t deliberately arrive at in any reasonable time.
Heck, even Occam’s razor qualifies itself as “is *usually* correct. That and it is only for situations where both the simple explanation and the complex explanation are equally plausible.
Also, if using Occam’s razor, then evolution would be the simple explanation, requiring only processes that we have proven to exist, while creationism requires there being an entity that we have not and cannot scientifically document. Note, occam’s razor is whichever explanation requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct. Again, evolution just requires the assumption that processes that we have observed in the present were prevalent in the past (which itself is making progress towards not being an assumption, more of fun fact tidbit, but scientists are observing to see if we always had the same laws of physics. Currently, it is looking like we have for at least the past 13 billion years)
For such a program to work, there’d still need to be rules and a system in place in order to determine which design would actually work, and unlike the real world, if a design ends up been complete useless, it can just start over from scratch.
Something more applicable to the real world would be the House analogy given by the Bible, with another way to look at it been this:
If you got all the necessary materials for building a House, put them all in a pile, then stuck a bunch of dynamite in there and blew everything up, would you get a perfectly built house with working water, electricity, heating & plumbing?
I previously made mention of DNA and Sequential Hermaphrodites giving credence to the existence of a Creator when you use Occam’s Razor, allow to explain how:
DNA in it’s most basic form is still an incredibly complex chemical that is co-dependant on RNA and certain Proteins, themselves incredibly complex chemicals, for it’s existence, and they are also dependant on DNA and each other for their existence.
Basically, all Life is dependant on 3 incredibly complex chemicals that are all co-dependant for their existence or else they would instantly dissipate, meaning that they would have to form in the exact same spot at the exact same time and then have nothing happen to break them apart.
Scientist have attempted to replicate this in a lab in accordance with the Scientific Method, but the best that they’ve ever achieved is getting a few of the more basic proteins, which instantly dissipated cause there was DNA or RNA. This would mean that there’s either a Creator of some sort, or some unknown variable we are unaware of. However, there’s been no major development in Physics in over 100 years and even though the universe operates on constants, we seen no reoccurrence or DNA, RNA & the necessary Proteins forming at random.
Ergo, Occam’s Razor dictates that it’s more likely that there’s some form of Creator that’s smarter than we currently are
And with Sequential Hermaphrodites, which are organisms that can change gender at will, with the most common example been the Clownfish. There is currently no Scientific explanation for how they got that ability, especially given the fact that they use it to replace an absent gender amongst a pair, mean that if there were two Males, one would become Female, and if there were two Females, one would become Male.
In other words, they would either have to rapidly evolve that ability, which is not how Evolution works or else we’d been seeing all kinds of crazy mutations happen all the time, or slowly gain it over millions of years, but they’d more likely either go extinct or backtrack before gaining it. Meaning that our current understanding of Evolution is flawed.
Thus there is either some unknown variable we are unaware of, which is unlikely cause our understanding of Evolution has been rather consistent over the past half century, or there’s some form of Creator.
Now let’s apply Bertrand Russell’s Teapot Thought Experiment and Occam’s Razor to the Missing Link, the only evidence of it’s existence is that the Theory of Evolution states that there should be one. However despite 150 years of searching by Tens of Thousands of Researchers with Billions of Dollars of Funding, the best we ever got was fraudulent claims by fame & money hungry Scientists, and a couple of misidentifications.
Occam’s Razor thus dictates that it most likely does not exist
For such a program to work, there’d still need to be rules and a system in place in order to determine which design would actually work, and unlike the real world, if a design ends up been complete useless, it can just start over from scratch.
Why, there is such a system in the real world. The designs that don’t work, die – it’s literally dead simple. Don’t tell me that dying needs divine intervention.
Also, there is no need to start over from scratch sequentially, when you can test many, many designs in parallel.
If you got all the necessary materials for building a House, put them all in a pile, then stuck a bunch of dynamite in there and blew everything up, would you get a perfectly built house with working water, electricity, heating & plumbing?
Oy vey.
There are factors like gravity, thermodynamics, nuclear physics and others that make it essentially inevitable that planets, star systems and galaxies form out of matter and energy – and these factors themselves came to be from simpler phenomena interacting in complex ways. Chemistry (itself a product of quantum physics), random chance and an inconceivable amount of time created life on (at least) one of the many sextillions of planets in existence. What laws of nature will produce a house for you, except for intelligent life evolving in billions of years, one specimen eventually happening upon your mess, then deciding to build a house out of it?
DNA in it’s most basic form is still an incredibly complex chemical that is co-depend[e]nt on RNA and certain Proteins, themselves incredibly complex chemicals, for [its] existence, and they are also depend[e]nt on DNA and each other for their existence.
RNA viruses are completely fine without any DNA. Amino acids spontaneously form proteinoids in certain conditions. Recently, spontaneous synthesis of nucleotides has been observed in samples of pyrimidine frozen in ice and subjected to UV radiation, under similar conditions to that of outer space.
This would mean that there’s either a Creator of some sort, or some unknown variable we are unaware of. However, there’s been no major development in Physics in over 100 years and even though the universe operates on constants, we seen no reoccurrence [of] DNA, RNA & the necessary Proteins forming at random.
Why 100 years? Is there a deadline?
Also, the theory of relativity, nuclear fission, radioactivity, quantum mechanics, particle physics, and all of modern cosmology, including the Big Bang theory, don’t ring any bells?
Also also, what makes you even consider that a process that took half a billion years under Hadean conditions would not only spontaneously repeat itself in our time and drastically different climate, in a timeframe that is several millions of times shorter, but there would also be a human scientist there, armed with an electron microscope, to observe and document it (and somehow eliminate the possibility that it’s a product of a pre-existing organism)?
Ergo, Occam’s Razor dictates that it’s more likely that there’s some form of Creator that’s smarter than we currently are [than that there is something we’re unaware of]
Because a couple thousands of years should be enough for any intelligent species worthy of the name to learn absolutely everything about the universe and its workings. Time is up, people, this is all there is to know, everybody go home and take up yoga.
Occam’s Razor posits that “Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity”. It’s a philosophical principle, not a natural law, but even if it were, a universe – with all its laws – is less complex than a universe with all its laws and a creator entity with admittedly infinite complexity.
[…]they use it to replace an absent gender amongst a pair, mean that if there were two Males, one would become Female, and if there were two Females, one would become Male.
Wrong. All clownfish are born male; they form groups of 2-6, the largest in the group becomes female, the next largest its mate. If any of them is removed from the group, the rest moves up the hierarchy, morphing to female if needs be.
In other words, they would either have to rapidly evolve that ability, which is not how Evolution works or else we’d [be] seeing all kinds of crazy mutations happen all the time, or slowly gain it over millions of years, but they’d more likely either go extinct or backtrack before gaining it.
Or there was one mutant a very long time ago who could pass on this trait as dominant. Or every species had it, but the majority had lost it. Or all clownfish had a chance to be born hermaphroditic, and groups whose members had a bigger chance to change gender were more successful, until being hermaphroditic became the norm. Etc, etc.
We do see mutations happen all the time. Some are drastic, some are inconsequential, some are lethal, some are beneficial. I’m sure you can google some.
Meaning that our current understanding of Evolution is flawed.
No, that means that your understanding of evolution is flawed. Don’t speak for the whole of humanity unless you know everything about evolution that humanity knows. And I doubt you do.
[…]our understanding of Evolution has been rather consistent over the past half century[…]
Horizontal gene transfer, evolutionary development biology, epigenetics. And again with the arbitrary time interval.
[…]despite 150 years of searching by Tens of Thousands of Researchers with Billions of Dollars of Funding, the best we ever got was fraudulent claims by fame & money hungry Scientists, and a couple of misidentifications.
Firstly, the name “missing link” doesn’t refer to any one organism. It’s a term for any transitional form that is currently missing, that is, undiscovered. It’s kind of a no-brainer that anything that is undiscovered hasn’t been discovered yet, and the moment it is discovered, it ceases to be “missing”. Then some other form becomes the “missing link”.
Secondly, transitional forms themselves are “halfway points” between two known forms, meaning that however many they dig up, creationists can always demand more fossils that connect two known ones, since evolution is gradual.
Thirdly, again, there are hundreds of them, you just haven’t bothered to look them up and/or you believe that all researchers are frauds or mere puppets dancing on Big Evo’s strings.
The thing you wrote about the missing link made me think of this scene from Futurama :) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX6p5UwFhh4
Yes, that scene also makes me chuckle…
Dying would only work for a minor error, however if there was something that proved useful for a while, was built upon, but later became a hinderance, there’s no real way to start over and life would only continue if there were lifeforms that never developed what ever it was that became a hinderance. In other words, a certain type of lifeform would have become no more. But that’s never really happened, as there are still birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, etc & stuff like Mass Extinctions Events were the result of sudden changes caused by external factors, not the evolutionary process. And keep in mind, every species we’ve come across was perfectly suit for the conditions of it’s day, and everything it had possessed a purpose.
And what you said here:
There are factors like gravity, thermodynamics, nuclear physics and others that make it essentially inevitable that planets, star systems and galaxies form out of matter and energy – and these factors themselves came to be from simpler phenomena interacting in complex ways. Chemistry (itself a product of quantum physics), random chance and an inconceivable amount of time created life on (at least) one of the many sextillions of planets in existence. What laws of nature will produce a house for you, except for intelligent life evolving in billions of years, one specimen eventually happening upon your mess, then deciding to build a house out of it?
Depends entirely a pre-existing system to be in place, not any sort of random chance. Going back to my analogy, it doesn’t matter how many times you blow up and materials, you are never going to get a house. And we still don’t know the catalyst needed for the forming of DNA and such.
Also the RNA in those viruses are chemically unstable making them extremely dangerous and in need of a host that has DNA. And Proteins are made up of Amino Acids linking together, they’re are not spawned from the Amino Acids at random.
And I’m not setting any deadline, but if there’s no major change to our understanding of something for over a century than it’s relatively safe to conclude that we have a pretty firm grasp upon it, everything you listed was stuff already proposed via our prior understanding of physics, we were just confirming it. Like with that photo we got earlier this year of a Black Hole, we’d hypothesised them for decades as an explanation for why stars in certain areas of space were gravitating towards a single location, but with that photo we’d gotten definitive proof.
But with the links in my original post I was saying that we don’t know everything, cause even if we have a firm grasp on how things work, we don’t understand why they work the way they do or why things didn’t end up differently.
And while yes, Occam’s Razor is more of a philosophy, the Laws of Cause & Effect proposed by Isaac Newton is a Universal Law that has been repeatedly confirmed. So that posits the question: What caused the Big Bang?
Also what I meant by our understanding of Evolution remaining relatively consistent is that there’s been no major reform of the Theory in the past half century. And the “links” that have been found, are at most a couple dozen, and what we’re told they looked like are largely up to the artistic interpretations of the discoverer, in other words, they could look a lot more ape-like or human than we’ve been lead to believe, especially since they often work off massively incomplete fossils and are called a new “species” based off rather small differences.
To help put in into context, Native Americans generally have strong cheek bones, European generally have lean faces with strong jawlines & Asians generally have softer features with rounder faces, if humanity were to die out and an alien were to come along and find our bones, they could decide that each of these groups of people were “different species” based solely off these arbitrary differences, even though in reality we were the same species.
Another way too look at it would be that there are many breeds of Dog that each look vastly different from another, but they’re still the same species. While Wolves and Foxes look very similar, but Foxes are more closely related to Cats.
And I don’t think all researchers are frauds, but I believe that Scientific Community as a whole benefits greatly from the Theory of Evolution, as it gained them a large amount of independence from religious organisations that they previously relied upon for most of their funding, and for them to say it’s wrong or telling people that it isn’t as airtight as they’ve been lead to believe would greatly hurt them.
And they have been hesitant to admit they were wrong in the past, like how they were hesitant to admit Galen was wrong about Human Biology for decades after definite proof that he was had been discovered. And that’s not even getting into Scientist who had sabotaged or stole credit from one another, or the fact that a lot of prominent scientists who “defied” the Catholic Church in the “Name of Science” actually worked for and were supported by them, a major example been Copernicus
Of course, I’m not singling out any group, what I’m saying is that people in any group have lied or refused to admit to fault or being incorrect for the sake of gaining or maintaining influence, money, fame or power.
Well, yeah. That was the end of non-flying dinosaurs. And trilobites. And almost all anaerobic life. And probably many forms of proto-life when our current iteration got lucky and hogged all the resources to itself.
What a surprise, all the lifeforms that are alive today are alive today.
The evolutionary process is driven by external factors. No species will grow lungs or wings or brains out of boredom.
Snakes still have vestigial limbs. Whales too. All mammals have a laryngeal nerve that goes down and back up their neck for no good reason, including giraffes. None of these have purposes, only reasons. One might make the argument that life itself, in all its complexity, has no inherent purpose.
Species can only be “perfectly” acclimated to their environment if their environment (including other surrounding species) changes more slowly than they are able to adapt. Else, they die out.
In other words, “Nuh-uh!”. No reasoning, no evidence, no proof, just a repeat of your claim. I understood your analogy the first time around, it’s just a terrible analogy.
The fact that they need a host organism to reproduce is irrelevant. There are viruses that remain infectious for years outside a host.
Amino acids do link together on their own under certain conditions (like I said). Making a specific protein is just a matter of linking together in the right order.
I’m sure that there were many hundred-year periods in history while no significant progress was made in a particular field like, say, pathology or alchemy.
Show me where radioactivity, particle–wave duality, universal expansion or warping spacetime were proposed in the 19th century.
But even if this were true, a physical evidence confirming one hypothesis means that we can discard all other hypotheses that are incompatible with said evidence. It’s definitely an improvement of our understanding of the world.
Hypotheses of black holes sprang from the theory of general relativity, in the beginning of the 20th century. You just contradicted yourself.
This is another descending spiral. Every time scientists discover, prove or explain something, one can still ask “Why?”. That’s what keeps science moving and humanity progressing. Throwing up our hands and saying stuff like “goddidit” and “he moves in mysterious ways” would mark the limit of our curiosity – and of our progress too.
Newton’s Second Law is about action and an equal and opposite reaction. It has little to do with causality.
Anyway, the universal applicability of Newtonian physics has been supplanted by – surprise, surprise – relativity and quantum mechanics. The principle of causality as we understand it today states that causes are supposed to precede their effects in all reference frames; it doesn’t say that all events must have causes, nor that a cause that precedes its effects cannot also follow its effects in some kind of closed timelike curve.
What would you call a “major reform”? Evolutionary biologists discovering that instead of genetics and natural selection, evolution runs on creatures’ hopes and dreams, or a predetermined schedule, or some kind of periodical software update from a design team of invisible fairies? Everything short of that is absolute stagnation?
I would say that the idea that the genome is not the only factor in changing phenotypes, or the transfer of genetic material isn’t limited to parent–offspring relationships, are pretty important discoveries.
Okay, so we’ve jumped up from “none at all” to “couple dozens” (178 fossils by my count). These “rather small” differences include stuff like cranial volume, arc of spine, shape of feet, shape of hands, lack of chin, and arrangement of teeth, all of which can be readily identified on a skeleton.
Except for the fact these groups all lived at the same time and occurred all over the globe. The definition of species is something like “the largest group of organisms in which any two fertile individuals of the appropriate sexes are capable of producing offspring that is itself able to reproduce”. The question isn’t whether we would be able to successfully procreate with a human or prehuman ancestor were we to revive it somehow, but whether they progressively became more humanlike from apelike with time. And they did. If someone finds a modern Homo sapiens sapiens skeleton and they date it to be two million years old, that will be quite a shocker.
You apparently don’t understand taxonomy either. Wolves and jackals are more closely related than wolves and foxes, but wolves and foxes are equally distant relatives of cats. There is no sliding scale from dogs to cats.
Say you have a brother, a first cousin and a second cousin. You are more closely related to your brother than to your first cousin, but you, your brother and your first cousin are all second cousins to your second cousin; your first cousin is not “halfway” between your second cousin and you.
Saying that foxes and cats are “related” at all implies that they share a common ancestor from which they have both evolved, by the way.
Um. I don’t quite get why science would want to get independent from its one major source of funding (if it even was at that time). Who would fund it after? And didn’t that story with Galilei and company already sour the relationship of science and religion?
So, all of them who may have had made a discovery to disprove evolution have decided to just keep it to themselves… for money? Or fame?
First off, no major development in physics in over 100 years? What rock have you been living under for the entirety of the atomic age. in the 20th century we went from not even knowing atoms had nuclei to being able to produce antimatter and harnessing energy from atomic decay. We went from obscenely large bulky colorless tv to the freaking internet. An obscenely large amount of progress has been made and will continue to be made. The only stipulation to this is that the progress made will be refining ever more complex fields of physics which will not be immediately obvious to people who don’t pay attention to it. Heck in recent years, even how understanding of gravity is advancing in a way that may solve the dark matter issue.
Secondly, where are you getting that the proteins immediately decayed without dna and rna?
Thirdly, with your clownfish example, that isn’t how evolution works. The clownfish evolved that ability and it ended up being useful. They didn’t evolve in response to some need, some need weeded out the ones who hadn’t evolved that ability.
Yeah, that’s not a development, that’s just getting better at using what we know about physics, and did you skip the bit about it been more likely that Clownfishes would backtrack before fulling developing that ability to change genders
I don’t think Occam’s Razor is a particularly good method of disputing evolution (either of living beings or of the universe in general). If you look at DNA, it actually is chocked full of redundancies and ‘garbage information’ due to how evolution and natural selection works – DNA is designed rather poorly if you compare it to an optimized program, but works well for what it’s used to do. But it’s not always the easiest possible route to how to get something done – just what wound up being more efficient than other, even less efficient ways of getting things done. The more efficient method wins, but that does not mean the more efficient method is the MOST efficient method.
If Occam’s Razor is being used to prove the existence of a Creator, then it actually works against what you’re trying to prove, since it would show pretty disorganized method of how things actually work, and a flawless Creator would have streamlined things a lot better, one would think.
Geneticist John Mattick has disproven “Junk DNA”
Fair enough. I did not know about this. Instead of junk DNA, I’ll substitute it with ‘vestigal or superfluous organs’, like the the appendix, the coccyx, wisdom teeth, male nipples, or tonsils. The point still stands that Occam’s Razor is not a good method of proving something happened because of a divine creator, just because the answer being given is the most simplistic one. You also get a ‘God of the gaps’ problem in that way of thinking, where just because you don’t know how something happened, it does not make the assertion ‘Must have been God’ the correct answer.
I’m not so sure that having 4 eyes would improve depth perception at all if they were still spaced the same as our 2 eyes. You’d get better depth perception sticking with 2 eyes spaced further apart. Of course this might make focusing on very close items more difficult. You also wouldn’t want the eyes outside of the protection of the skull as increased vulnerability to damage is not an evolutionary advantage. Eyes on stalks are just too susceptible to damage to make any evolutionary sense. So greater depth perception would require a wider skull, with all the issues that would likely bring. Normal humanoid eye spacing is likely to be the best compromise between increased depth perception v/s eye vulnerability.
Depends on if the eyes on stalks can retract in times of danger like slugs and snails
I remember watching the BBC where they showed an example of one of the first animal that had eyes :)
https://youtu.be/-kYv_rbZVVc?t=206
Dabbler answering the real questions on this page
“Roughly 300 a day – not a LOT like Dabbler is saying, she’s emphasizing her point for a soundbite oriented press.”
Wow, that’s unexpectedly practical of her. You’ve made it apparent Dabbler is very smart, but Arianna seemed like the only real media person on the main cast.
Might not be a lot in total, but it’s a MAJOR chunk to go to any single organ.
Warnigns:
* wall-of-text;
* out of context quotations.
Now, let us begin:
…
‘Who told you that?!’ Flamentius burst out in anger.
‘Implosio. He’s the young student of biochemistry who –’
‘Young fool, you mean!’ snapped Flamentius. ‘Life from protein?! Living things from protein? Aren’t you ashamed to spout such nonsense in the presence of your teacher?! Here is the result of the ignorance and the arrogance that have spread so alarmingly of late! You know what they ought to do with that Implosio of yours? Give him a good watering down, that’s what!’
‘But Flamentius, sir,’ ventured Rodrillo’s friend, ‘why demand such severe punishment for Implosio? Couldn’t you tell us what beings on other planets might look like? Might they not stand erect and move on things called legs?’
‘Where did you hear that?’
Rodrillo said nothing, frightened.
‘From Implosio …’ whispered his friend.
‘Enough, for heaven’s sake, enough of this Implosio and his fabrications!’ shouted the scholar. ‘Legs! Really! As if I hadn’t only twenty-five Blazes ago proven mathematically that a two-footed being, as soon as one stood it up, would immediately fall flat on its face! I even constructed an appropriate model and diagrams, but what would you – sluggards – know of that? What do intelligent beings on other worlds look like? I’m not going to tell you straight out, think a little, learn to use your minds. First they’ll have to have organs to take in ammonia, right? And what can do this better than the twoons? And won’t they have to move through a medium as resistant and as warm as ours? Well, won’t they? Of course they will! And how can you do this if not with ambuses? Also they will probably form sense organs – opticules, nims, blulthbs. And of course they must be like us pentoids not merely in physical structure, but in the overall manner of living. Everyone knows, surely, that the pentex is the basic unit of our family life – try in your imagination to picture something different, exert your fancy as much as you wish, I promise you that you will fail! Yes, because in order to start a family, in order to produce progeny, one has to have a Tata, a Gaga, a Mama, a Fafa and a Haha. Mutual affection, plans, hopes and dreams, they are nothing if you lack a member of any one of these five genders – a situation which, unfortunately, does sometimes happen in life, we call it the tragic quadrangle, or unrequited love … And so you see, by reasoning without prejudice or preconceptions, by relying solely on the scientific facts, by employing the precise tool of logic, proceeding coldly and objectively, we reach the inescapable conclusion that every intelligent being must be similar to a pentoid … Yes. Well, now are you convinced?’
Accurate.
https://youtu.be/hTgPh6O3P-E
This comic reminds me of an SMBC comic which involved theorizing that centaurs have two brains. One of which is used for the rear half of the body in conjunction with the main brain which is located in the head :) I’m on my phone so it would be a pain to look it up right now but it’s funny the things I recollect sometimes :).
Ps – I really hope we get another Dabblers Science Corner soon :). Thiscomic reminds me of that, and that just fills me with joy.
Soooo, like they theorized some of the larger dinosaurs had a secondary “brain”? Interesting
interestingly enough – humans could be said have a secondary “brain” too, we just don’t tend to recognize that we have something about as smart as a dog running our gut O.o
Exactly like that :)
Anthony_Lion is no doubt ascribing to the viewpoint that a religion is a cult with seniority.
(ie. That there’s no hard line between “organized religion” and “cult” and that, if you look at a “religion” like catholicism from an objective viewpoint, you’ll see that it checks off all the same boxes as less distinguished institutions that people agree to be cults.)
Plus, any smart cult will let you leave… they’re just very good at making you not want to… just like religions, where you risk getting cut off from your entire social circle if you do.
Yes… and?
I have some standards for what I consider cult or Religion.
1. You must be allowed to leave on good terms.
2. There must be no indoctrination of the youngest. (Let the small children come to me, for they will believe anything that an adult tell them… really, really pisses me off… )
3. you better have a good reason for special dietary commandments. (Once upon a time, not eating pork or shellfish made sense. These days we know the issues and can avoid them)
4. acceptance that the world has changed in the last millenia or three…
5. That goes for medical sciences also. (Yes, vaccines. )
Sure, most religions fail on point 2. This is because religion has mostly been about building power bases, not about helping people.
Point 4… Did you know that the Bible still have info on the ownership of slaves?
(Exodus 21 is fun reading)
And point 5… If you’re anti-vax you may not necessarily be a cultist, but you’re a definite douchebag and should stay the H! away from me and those I care about.
Jehovahs Wintesses doesn’t LET you leave. It’s ether being thrown out(Shunned) or nothing. There’s no official way to leave on a good standing. This is a MAJOR DOUCHEBAG CULT warning. And also why there are so many support groups for ex-witnesses around the world.
This is my last post on the topic.
Bullshit! Witnesses do let you leave on good standings, there is just usually no reason to leave
So, to counter you claims regarding Witnesses as being a cult:
1. They can leave if they want
2. No indoctrinations of children
3. No dietary commandments (they can eat what they want, depending on personal conditions ie usual food allergies)
4. They accept the world has changed
5. The only thing medically on the no-no list, is blood transfusions (and even that is a personal choice), vaccines are fine as long as they don’t contain blood
Don’t start Witness bashing with someone who’s parent is a Witness
1 – Most religions do let you leave on good terms but a few don’t. Not sure that changes whether it’s a cult or religion though. Islam, for example, has as a tenet of the religion that you cannot leave the religion. At least, officially. But I’d still claim that Islam is a religion. Sp,e actual cults do let you leave voluntarily, but they tend to brainwash you in such a way that you don’t want to leave, like Hale-Bopp where they all eventually committed mass suicide.
2 – Most belief structures of any sort, religious or not, fail on point 2, mainly because children usually do not have the intelligence necessary to come to their own conclusions, and usually will accept what an adult says as the correct thing, even if they don’t understand the reasoning behind why the adult is correct. That makes sense, since adults tend to have more experience, and thus more knowledge, than a child. Also, most children tend to form their behavioral patterns from either their family, their friends, or their teachers. Some sort of authority figure in respect to themselves. You probably were part of a religion because your parents were part of that religion. Or, if your parents were atheists, it’s very likely that you are an atheist. If your parents are Republican or Democrat, it’s very likely that you will at least start off for several years after turning 18 as a Republican or Democrat (in the US). If your parents are big baseball fans, you’ll probably be a big baseball fan, at least at first. We tend to learn from our parents, as our parents are usually the first authority figures that we are around for a long period of time. Very often until we start going to school, in fact.
3 – Dietary restrictions are sometimes for medical reasons (like how eating kosher originally started, most likely, because of the difficulty in cooking pork without an accurate way of heating it, and no mixing milk and meat probably began because of the use of wooden and clay plates instead of ceramics and glass, which would transfer bacteria more easily in the days before pasteurization). But sometimes dietary restrictions are just about the concept of personal sacrifice. Or were originally about one thing, then become about personal sacrifice. Encouraging personal sacrifice isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it doesnt necessarily mean a cult vs a religion. Most religions have some form of dietary restrictions, including religions like jainism, which encourage vegetarian or vegan diets, since the entire religion is based on never doing any harm whatsoever to another living animal (the more extreme would be to minimize harm to any living thing, period). But they don’t encourage vegetarian lifestyles for any medical reason – just for morality-based reasons.
4 – Some very ancient religions, like Christianity and Judaism, have gone through multiple reformations, which mean they’ve accepted the world has changed. But not sure how that is able to separate it from a cult. Some cults are very new, for example. Like… under 50 years old. How much change will a new cult actually have between now and when it was formed? Not sure it’s a good way to determine a cult from a religion.
5 – Some religions do not allow blood transfusions or vaccines. For example, Islam (which is a religion) does not allow vaccines if the vaccine is derived from porcine products (which most are). Not sure of which cults do not allow blood transfusions or vaccines, but my point is it’s probably not a good desciptor of cult vs religion.
I think the main way to differentiate a cult from a religion is that cults tend to brainwash (extreme manipulation) to get followers, and tend to be very secretive of how the cult works. Beyond that, it’s a little difficult to make a lot of rules on ‘this is a cult, but this other thing is a religion.’
I know this is an excuse to draw human shaped people but I will risk being that guy and go full Diogenes and “behold a man” on this. Pangolins, theropod and basal dinosaurs, kangaroos, and pretty much every other two eyes, four limbed, bipedal creature in the history of earth has been nothing like the human form while meeting all the requirements for a minimally expensive body that can have dexterous hands. Or to put it another way Utahraptors with spears are valid.
*imagining Brittney Spears as a Utahraptor*
Probably have a better singing voice :P
Leave Britney alone.
Utahraptors have been known to use a sword on at least one occasion: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Dinobot_(BW)
See, I disagree that kangaroos are nothing like a human. Yeah, they’re covered in fur, their faces are longer and they have tails, but beyond that, they have bilateral symmetry, i.e. two eyes, ears, arms, legs, etc. All those things are placed in nearly the same spots. They have elbows that bend backwards and knees that bend forward. Their shoulders and hips are both ball joints, they have 1 heart, 2 lungs, liver, intestines, etc. They have 5 fingered hands, etc, etc, etc.
In a universe of possibilities that contains starfish and octopuses and stick insects, kangaroos are basically human, if not very nearly humanoid. In fact, speaking of ergonomics, if you had an intelligent kangaroo and you wanted him to fly your spaceship, you’d have to have a chair that accommodated his tail, and maybe move the flight stick forward a bit for his shorter arms, but that’s about it. Ok, he’d have to trim his nails and his fingers would be shorter, so you’d need a slightly smaller keyboard too.
When you take an anatomy course that includes it, you realize that, while they may be shaped differently, most species on Earth have most of their bones in the same places. That thing on a bird or a dog that makes it look like their knee is bending backwards? It’s not a knee, it’s the ANKLE.
Consider the chicken leg, specifically the drumstick. The meaty end of the drumstick is actually the knee joint, where it’s typically tucked up next to the body. The bony end of the drumstick is actually the ANKLE and everything below that takes the place of the foot on the human body. The same thing is true of the wing structures. The flat part of the bird’s wing is analogous to the radius and ulna of the human arm and the wingtip is the degenerate form of the hand.
Are kangaroos really purely bipedal though? I thought they need their tail so they literally don’t fall over plus move more efficiently. Basically, it acts like a third leg.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/02/kangaroo-tail-a-third-leg-that-gives-speed-not-just-balance-says-study
Here’s the slippery slope though, the second that tail is no longer touching the ground, and just a slight thinning of the lower body and suddenly it counts as humanoid (Titan A.E. has an alien like that),
-also could bring up what little difference there is between Rocket Raccoon and a regular raccoon.
but also consider Roger from American Dad qualifies as humanoid, but a penguin doesn’t. They are the same basic shape, only difference is Roger has hands. But so does a kangaroo.
but then they say, well Roger has a humanoid face, and we bring up werewolves…who are only different from kangaroos in general shape by the tail.
Humanoid is kind of a weird set of shifting parameters, kind of like “vampire” and “dragon” in a way.
Well, technically, when the kangaroo is in mid-hop, the tail AND the feet are all not touching the ground. But they’re all being used to make the kangaroo move.
We have such weird conversations on this comment forum sometimes. :) But usually I like it.
I’m not sure that Roger would actually qualify as humanoid, now that I think of it. He doesn’t actually walk insomuch as he waddles. He also does not have knees. He really is a lot more like a penguin, like you mentioned.
I’m also not sure he even has ears.
I didn’t come for 40k references, but I am happy to get them. A proper Slanesshi cultist would just have the scissors socketed into their third dick though, help with opening the mail.
Yes, the (chain)mail (bikini) :P
A Slaneeshi marine can’t have just any ordinary scissors. They need to be the latest fashion and match the rest of his outfit.
Is the shopkeep a Maliri? Aren’t their border stations mostly male? :)
Heh heh. I won’t say the color scheme wasn’t on my mind.
The real problem with making a pickup for a faerie (a pixup?) is you have to make the whole thing out of aluminum and carbon fiber. They just can’t be around that much death-metal without adverse effects.
Adverse effects? And there’s everyone thinking they just prefer Classical on aesthetic grounds…
Good to know that the Ruinous Powers exist in this universe. Good or bad? Who knows, something tells me that this is going.
Just.
As.
Planned!
I am totally here for a faerie tailgating party.
Why doesn’t she have a body in panels #1 and #3?
It’s a calback to Dabler’s Science Corner.
Economy of art, why draw a body that is going to be covered by wordballoons? Or mostly covered, even if some is going to be visible around the edges.
Yeah I could have put her head at the bottom along with some shoulders, with the word balloons above her, but, eh. Trying something new.
“Don’t forget that at one point, there was some catastrophe, probably disease or a bad crop or whatever, and humanity was down to about 1,000 individuals at some point in our distant past.”
Dave here is referring to the Toba catastrophe theory[1] which happen to be highly unlikely to have had such an impact on homo sapiens populations (and anyway the figure is more 10k individuals) that were already spread on a wide range of latitudes in Africa.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
It was roughly 12,000 individuals, not 1,000. It’s one of a few bottleneck points during human evolution.
I’m sorry, Dabbler’s little spiel about how the humanoid form is evolutionarily efficient is interesting and all, but can we get back to the fact that LORD SLANEESH (and likely Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzentch) EXISTS IN THIS COMIC’S CANON?!
I KNEW Smart Cars weren’t really designed for humans! They’re actually fairy SUVs!
Nah they’re mass transit vehicles.
Good one!!!!! *Giggle*
And Hummers are designed for ogres.
Thought Hummers were designed for bees who lost their voice :P
At least you didn’t make a sexual joke as a response :)
The scissors hanging from the ceiling in panel 2 look…challenging to use.
I see Heresy here. By the Emprah Slannesh. Extra Heresy
The thing that explains why most aliens are two-armed bipeds is we all evolved from tetrapods instead of hexapods, which goes back to the number of bony fins that first flopped out of the ocean to land. The fossil record doesn’t have many bony fish with bony fins, but almost all only had 4 or 2. Obviously when you’re flopping around trying to get away from predators in the water having 4 points of contact is better propulsion than 2. Six might be even better but there weren’t that many fish with 6 bony fins to begin with as there didn’t seem to be any advantage for 6 fins over 4, or at least not enough so that when fish started trying to get away from predators the majority had 6 bony fins capable of supporting the fish against the beach.
Evolution is not a forward-looking process, it takes what already exists and moves on from there. No matter how handy having 4 legs and 2 arms with hands would be, if 6 fins is not an advantage to the fish that eventually crawls on the beach, we only have 4 limbs to distribute arms and legs from.
One thing is for sure, bipedalism is such an advantage that it has evolved separately many many times, just look at all the bipedal dinosaur species that there are, not to mention birds (which may be evolved from bipedal dinos, there is still some disagreement on the subject, if only the circumstances for making fossils had been a little better right after the K-T boundary).
as per David Brin “Uplift” one eye can work just fine – if you’ve got a laser in it ;) otherwise for real depth perception you need 3 eyes, humans don’t have real depth perception, we’ve effectively got a “software” emulation that gives us the ability to tell distance based on light and shadow, it’s also why we suck at telling the distance to an object that’s significantly above the horizon line, or with an unknown size. It’s why all the nifty “magic” visual effects work, they screw with the “software”. Side note! compound eyes (ala insects) avoid the 1, 2 many question entirely, with so many visual receptors they they don’t have eye mobility – because they don’t need it. Enter the Dragon Fly – where the eye short cuts the brain and directly controls wing muscles – allowing for well over and 90% success rate in hunting “on the wing” which is crazy effective for a predator!
> humans don’t have real depth perception
Wait, what? I’d agree that the trick only works “two-dimensionally” (in horizontal direction) but that’s generally enough, except in special cases like the moon.
(Don’t know about you but if I close one eye, I loose the ability to tell how far away the laptop screen in front of me is within a second.)
In one of the Star Trek Universe paperbacks of decades ago a Romulan or Vulcan or whatever can’t get over how diverse Earth dogs are and be the same species.
“Look, a Chiwowow and a Dachshund and a Doberman. THAT’S the same species that, mechanics aside, they could interbreed?
That’s crazy! ”
Imagine humans beings so diverse!
The toilets would have to accomodate people 3 to 7 feet tall.
(And somewhere there’s a couple where people can’t figure out how they couple.)
Dogs are not that special. We basically just breed animals with specific genetic disorders.
A male dwarf and a female autist are still part of the human species.
Tallest man meets shortest woman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcizBI4v8T0
I read someplace that depth perception at long range isn’t really necessary, having one eye really doesn’t screw you when it comes to long range – it’s when you’re at arm’s reach that it becomes a problem. Hence using a scope to aim, because you don’t need depth, you just need to know you’re pointing at the target. But up close, having two eyes allows you to triangulate what you’re aiming for, which is necessary when you’re reaching for something. (The whole, missing-eye penalty for ranged attacks is stupid in RPGs).
I would think depth/distance would be vital at long ranges using any projectile that doesn’t move fast enough to reach it’s target before gravity affects it’s directionality. I mean, aiming a bow at a sufficiently long distance no longer means pointing the arrow at the target, but rather further and further above the target, so that it will fall onto the target instead of the ground. Same thing with catapults, slings, atlatls, etc. Pre-gunpowder projectile weapons pretty much all used arcs for aiming, and having an understanding of relative distances is pretty important to perform that calculation. Sure a sniper rifle shoots in a really straight line for a really long distance, but a long bow starts to require arcing for accuracy at a much earlier point (and actually, super long distance snipers, the kinda guys on lists of the best in the world, start to factor in arcing to make those nigh impossible shots that only they can make, I’m pretty sure). Using a momentum based propulsion like a sling, catapult, trebuchet, or the human arm pretty much have to arc based upon the mechanics of how they propel the projectile through the air.
All true, but I don’t think that’s the point Christopher was trying to make.
Binocular vision for depth perception usually relies on parallax, distinguishing the small differences in the position of the target object relative to a distant background due to the eyes’ slightly different viewing angles. But once you get beyond a certain range, the difference in apparent position gets too small to be reliable, and the other cues that can be used are less dependent on having two viewpoints. I’m not sure what that cutoff range is, and it almost certainly varies somewhat between people, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s similar to the range at which an early Human could throw a rock.
Eyes in the back of the head? Many spiders do that, those that do not have all 8 forward-facing. Two big eyes up front see images almost as well as we do, but without colour disernment. The other 6 eyes notice light level changes, which might be good at detecting of a predictor is swooping in for a meal, or could be used to determine movement when coordinated with other eyes. If somebody with a big brain was to have more eyes, then more of that brain would need to be dedicated to processing visual information than we have.
In a typical adult human, the brain is about 3 kg, which would be between 1% to 5% of the mass (the bigger you are, the smaller the percentage is your brain), but it uses approximately 20% of our energy needs, unless you are engaged in long-term athletic activity, like running a marathon, then other parts of your body will be using more energy and your brain’s energy percentage will be lower; the energy need will be about the same, but as an overall percentage, it is lower. A guy sitting around in an office all day needs about 2000 Calories per day. A soldier during Basic Training tends to need 6000 Calories per day. The brain is still using about 400 Calories either way.
Also, the brain is primarily using sugars for fuel, but not fat. The various fat reserves around your body only get used up by muscles, so you still have to exercise to use up that stuff.
Evolution doesn’t care what is efficient.
Mutation does not care what is efficient. Selection does.
Both together, are Evolution.
Right. what Christopher said :) I’d edit my post but I can’t, and it’s basically what this says.
Evolution doesn’t care about anything in particular, but there is a game theory element inherent in the statement that “it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”
What Dabbler is saying is that, over a long enough timeline, mutations whose benefits provide diminishing returns with respect to their costs will generally shuffle toward specific paradigms. For sapient, technologically adept organisms that develop on planets with similar celestial and terrestrial climates to Earth, there is a very high likelihood that they would develop either a humanoid (if land-based) or cetaceanoid (if water-based) morphology. Sizes and other details may differ depending on the specifics of the environment, but you would generally find an omnivorous predator with an internal skeleton, centralized nervous system, small number of paired eyes and ears, large brain, and prehensile forelimbs with at least three digits, at least one opposable, at the end of each.
Evolution definitely cares about what is efficient. I think that you mean mutation does not care what is efficient. Evolution is about survival of the fittest. In most cases, the more efficient mutation is going to give a slightly better chance of the organism’s survival, and that organism is going to be more likely to pass on the mutation to offspring, especially if it lives in an environment where it is in competition with other species’ that do not have the same advantageous mutation.
Important caveat on that: Evolution cares about what is more efficient relative to the major constraints in the context at the time, out of the semi-random shortlist that mutation presents. There are numerous cases of an adaptation being retained long after the context that favoured it has changed, including some where what was once an advantage has become a disadvantage. There are also cases of an inefficient feature being ‘chosen’ via evolution when an outside observer can see a more effective/efficient way to do it, for which we can only assume that for whatever reason the ‘better’ way wasn’t on the shortlist when the selecting context was active.
Plus the other caveat that ‘fitness’ is defined purely in terms of ‘things like this show up in the next few generations’. To take a quote completely out of context, “sometimes quantity has a quality all its own”.
One thing not mentioned is the firmware needed to run any extra parts.
Sure, add a fly-eye on the top of our head, but we would need a good bit of brain added to just run those eyes.
Add a tail? Tail needs calories, and extra brain firmware to use it.
A dog’s nose would be great but a dog is using 40x more brain capacity to use that nose over us.
Sometimes peoples solution for the “lean times” is to asume “maybe food is just more plentifull”. That ignores two things:
1) equilibrium Population
2) If food is plentfully, a intelligence will be even less worth the effort. Because it can not give you a competitive advantage equal to what it takes.
If food is plentiful, then species have more resources to spend in the first place. Thus, intelligence might not effectively have a cost compared to the situation where scarce times are possible.
There is a species of anemone, that is born with a brain. Looks for a spot to settle down – and then digests it’s brain.
As Dabbler said, brains are expensive. Give or take every “level” of Intelligence must be beneficial for the species, or that mutation is weeded out like everything else.
Dabbler’s argument sounds suspiciously like something I’ve been saying on the internet for years… She’s left out the part about how graspers will usually be the limbs closest to the head, and the head will usually be on top because it’s evolutionary convenient to have a higher point of view to see farther. So most technology bearing alien species are going to be fairly physically recognizable to humans and either be bipedal or brachiators.
Also, ocean bound technology bearing species are highly unlikely as it’s difficult to develop technology without the ability to smelt metals.
Recognizable and recognizably human are two every different things though.
Have a speculative evolution take of what a tool using biped from earth could have easily been on our own planet for a nice example.
https://www.deviantart.com/povorot/art/Bronze-Age-118833770
Unless I’m seeing the wing-claws incorrectly, that person forgot to take into account the usefulness of opposable thumbs in the development of second- and higher-level machines. But yes, I would still call those bird people reasonably humanoid. Bipedal predators with large heads, paired forward facing eyes, prehensile forelimbs, and a centralized nervous system.
I don’t see how such a species that species has anatomy necessary to to make complex machines… Just making leather clothes would be a seriously labor intensive chore.
Yeah, there’s a lot more she could get into to further her point, but I can really only hit the major bullet points without making the press conference 20 pages long.
So 40K is canon in Dave’s AU… Doesn’t that mean this Earth is not -the- Earth then?
That would mean that old Emp are still working under covered in this world. Perhaps we have already seen him in the comic… My money is on Deus.
Where did dabbler’s body go in the first two panels
Panel 5: I think you meant to write “though” not “through”
Dabbler is saying 3 through fifty or whatever. 3-50.