Genetic bottle neck? Already mentioned a few pages back. Wikipedia or google 'Mount Toba' or the 'Toba catastrophe theory'.
But I do agree. A lot of what people seem to be saying and arguing in this page is too narrowly focused. Evolution occurs over a time scale which we cannot observe. We can hardly look back 50 years without having our vision blurred by the writers of the history, and their conjectures and perspectives. What comes with this elongation of time, is more variation than we can shake a stick at. And not only genetic variation or 'evolution'. Africa is called the 'cradle of civilization' or 'humanity'. It is certainly true that the oldest human remains and evidence of civilization lies there. It is a known fact that farming originated in the fertile crescent, or in what was then Mesopotamia. Neanderthals were a sub-species of the homo genus, they no longer exist today and what 'killed them off' or 'made them extinct' is unknown. Theories exist stating that they were primitive and warlike (despite having larger craniums). Other theories speculate that the migration of people from africa and the middle-east resulted in inter-breeding of the species and that a certain percentage (I think Polish/Ukranians have the highest likelihood) contain the slightest traces of what were typically considered 'neanderthal attributes'. Truth is, that it is impossible to know for certain. But it makes a hell of a lot more sense than saying God created the Earth and the Universe in 6 days, put Adam and Eve into a garden - but they sinned, and their offspring are responsible for the 6.5 billion of us on Earth today.
There was earlier mention - by rockz - of forced genetic mutation. This has been done as posted by someone afterwards (sorry it's late).. But we understand so little about genetic chemistry and genes in general, and to go around tinkering with genes is borderline on the 'playing god' argument that surrounds stem-cell research. A lot of research has just been completed on isolating the genetic sequence responsible for alzeimers and a new drug has been created which is absorbed through the blood and affects the brain directly. I think it is undergoing clinical trials sometime next year. So genetic research is more geared towards curing than prevention.
Someone earlier mentioned how humans are unable to create vitamin C. A valid point. You then went on to mention, mockingly, how God could allow such a travesty and that because of this inability to create vitamin C - God has unwittingly released the horror of scurvy upon our seafaring humans. Any creationist can argue back at you and say that 'God works in mysterious ways' or 'God removed our ability to create vitamin C because he promised Noah that the next Flood would end all humanity' etc. Truth is, maybe our ancestors liked these bright orange balls that hang from trees and started eating them and then our evolution kicked in and said 'shit, I don't need to spend so much energy converting those nutrients into Vitamin C since I'm getting plenty of it anywaysss'.
the reason I'd suggest that blacks do poorly on intelligence tests is largely due to the difficulty of differentiating upbringing from intelligence. We don't have a sizable black population that is raised in the same environment as a white population- the opportunities aren't the same and so the test results aren't indicative of anything natural. If there are differences, we're still far too race-oriented of a culture to tell.
I think it was FaZ- who said this. You are right to a certain extent. The truth is that it is extremely difficult to quantify intelligence. You should read into Alfred Binet, a French philosopher largely credited for the first "IQ test". I am of the viewpoint that you cannot measure intelligence. That's something like weighing an idea, or counting the length of a dream - utterly impossible. There are just too many ways to show intelligence for them all to be calculated together. Does musical ability and having perfect pitch constitute as intelligence? How about having superior tastebuds and being able to identify all the individual spices in a 'balti galda chingri makhani' (king prawn curry). Sure we attribute maths and pattern recognition, as well as ones' ability to express words and think abstractly as intelligence, but that is only a fraction of what are 'intelligible actions' - and it is supposedly 'intelligible actions' which set us apart as the children of God from mere animals and beasts.
Anways, it is late here. I might edit this post and put the quotes from the previous discussion in. B
But.. the point I was getting at... religion is a story and it is an opinion. A faith to fill the void where science did not yet exist. We do know for a fact that our planet is in the region of 4.5 billion years old (give or take 1%). To refute this is to be ignorant. Religious stories, I would argue, draw parallels between what happened in our past and then attribute these happenings to God(s). Noah's Flood for example? Maybe ancient stories passed down from our neolithic ancestors who witnessed the ending of an ice-age (and a lot of melt-water). There is a whole series right now on television (maybe CaptainWill has seen some of it), it's on BBC and is called "The Bibles Buried Secrets". It basically talks about the little less known, and older texts which were written but excluded from what is commonly viewed as todays modern bible. It just so happens that the scientific side of the coin throws more questions at the religious side than vice versa. Most new things that science turn up make religion seem more questionable. But it is faith and if you have it, it shouldn't be questionable. Neither science or religion can answer what the universe was like 4.6 billion years ago (give or take 1%). Theoretical physics alone creates more fields for research than religion could contemplate.
Anyways... Unless something really profound (or stupid) gets said in this thread I'll say my piece and be done with it.
Conclusion:
You cannot extricate evolution from religion since they are essentially the same thing. They are both theories, utterly unprovable and therefore entirely plausible. Evolution has the backing from the scientific community, and religion has the backing from the religious community. Much of modern science is built on the backings of Darwinian thought. And Darwin - as we know - is the founder of this idea of 'evolution', or rather, 'change through time'. However, the evolution theory he first put forward was suited to the imperial masters and bourgeoisie of the time because it effectively justified slavery, colonization and the exploitation of foreigners. Evolution theory effectively allowed the European colonist to say 'I have literature and music, flintlock pistols and cannons, fine silk cravats and pantaloons - you have muddy huts and loincloths - I am therefore superior, and you are therefore inferior.'
We now know (hopefully...) that this mode of thought is untrue. That the 'road to development' is not a road through which every human must be measured against. The barbaric does not give way to the hunter-gatherer who does not in turn step aside for the agriculturalists and sheep-herders. Society does not necessarily have to end up in what is deemed the 'developed world'. Sky scrapers and McDonalds, free enterprise and capitalism are not the benchmarks of society. Tribal communities such as the Azande or Zande were found to have legal and moral systems far more complicated and integrated than Western societies (for more on this see Clifford Geertz or E. E. Evans-Pritchard's ethnography 'Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande'). Humanity became where it is today because we started to think. We are human for the simple fact that we recognise that we are human. A monkey or a dog does not know that it is a monkey or a dog, it is content to simply sleep, eat and procreate.
The real debate surrounding evolution is
why, when and how did humans become self-aware? When did our ancestors first truly begin to think? Who was the first human who decided to use a stone attached to a stick to kill the mammoth? And how have we come so far in such a relatively short (geologically speaking) timescale to now know the power of the atom? The mysteries of genetics? How is it that I can now be on a laptop typing words onto an electronic forum which will be transmitted at near-to the speed of light for anyone to read in the world? When a relatively short time (geologically speaking) ago I would have been sleeping by a fire in a cave, or a bit further back in time, I'd be running wild - supposedly.
These are the questions which evolution theorists and philosphers want to know.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 31 2011, 1:22 am by Cardinal.
None.