What is Digg?111 Comments
- Isidore, on 11/27/2008, -1/+15Although life and ***** sapiens sapiens have survived many traumas, most major climate changes in earth's history has led to mass extinctions with over 90% of species becoming extinct. We survived two World Wars - it doesn't mean we should have another.
Sea level rises/flooding and famine are no fun when you are poor. Most cities were built in the last 200 years along with national boundaries. People in Bangladesh cannot just travel to the US and start a new life because of flooding, because of passpost and visa restrictions.
Royal Society of England debunking of climate myths http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=6230
The Royal Society consists of the scientific academic elite.
- chmstar, on 11/28/2008, -1/+14No body is claiming we evolved from them. Any species not going extinct soon is a transitional. Evolution is science. Being so, predictions can be made and verified. What do creationists have to offer us? Jesus Christ is lord and Darwin sucks, that's about it.
- smotpoker, on 11/28/2008, -1/+13@saqer -
Like neanderthals? How about chimpanzees and bonobos? Or don't the ability to solve problems, use tools, read/understand glyphs and understand verbal communications qualify as 'semblance of human intelligence' in your book? - WordsnCollision, on 11/27/2008, -2/+14Too bad, if they had compasses they could've migrated north to tundra/polar regions.
- inactive, on 11/28/2008, -0/+11Except its from a genetics conference.
Well done. - positron, on 11/28/2008, -0/+7Not to mention there is no objective valuation of good or bad involved in evolution, only fit or unfit. While we might evolve to better suit the new environment it does not mean that we will become "better" as subjectively defined by current human standards. For example, we might evolve a more efficient temperature regulation system but also evolve a reduced level of brain activity to aid in that same purpose. Sure we'd be more fit to survive in a much hotter climate but our thought processes would be retarded as well. Doesn't sound like a great trade off to me personally, but then Mother Nature doesn't really care what I think.
- Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+8How do they go hand in hand? I don't see any consensus amongst evolutionary biologists that "races" are even proper classifications to apply to groups of human beings especially given the amount of interbreeding amongst supposedly "pure" individuals.
If idiots want to twist evolution into the ill metaphor of "survival of the anthropocentric fittest" and further twist that into some universal teleological ethic, that's their prerogative but it has nothing to do with the material substance of the theory itself.
and one more thing
"We are not piling up "facts" in constructing our scientific theories. Our "facts" are just as fickle as our theories. Today's facts are yesterday's science fiction and tomorrow's myths.---Michael J. Mahoney"
And maybe that's because the practice of science makes no claims to eternal "truths" in the face of ever-accumulating and new evidence. Unlike certain half-assed guesses that explain nothing and require magic beyond human comprehension despite the fact that the ones making those half-assed guesses are the sole perceivers of how this extra-human magic is responsible for certain conditions despite being contrary to a hundred plus years of solid data... - Trollbane, on 11/28/2008, -0/+6Didn't they breed and eventually merge with humans?
- Murdats, on 11/28/2008, -0/+6Jeez, they'll do anything to make it look like climate-change-is-a-giant-scam!!! argument.
even in conversations barely related to it, and of course while ignoring basic facts and science. next you will tell us the earths environment has never changed, you would have to believe that to not believe this. - Murdats, on 11/28/2008, -1/+7evolution occurs the fastest when there is high pressure on a species.
and by high pressure I mean lots of them are dying, anything that makes you not better then average at surviving the current situation means death, while this is good if you want the species to evolve, it also means for a species of our life span thousands of years of everyone you know dying and you having a very high chance of dying, not exactly the happiest of lives - smotpoker, on 11/28/2008, -0/+6Not if they didn't want to look like a moron. No one has ever said climate change doesn't occur naturally as part of an argument for human-influenced climate change..
- ll4991, on 11/27/2008, -1/+6links to a non-complete article from 2004
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18124311.600 ... - Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+6"Everything must succumb to human "comprehension" or it's not true."
If you express a proposition and aren't able to communicate the reasons why this proposition might be true or valid, then why the hell would you expect anyone to believe in this proposition in the first place?
"Deists and theists alike don't believe in magic."
Of course you do. You are party to a special divine knowledge, unbenkowst to the rest of us mortals, that this universe (god forbid you impose it on all of reality) was designed by an entity with a will that you are privy to and which excludes any naturalistic explanations of something as small-scale as the development of a networks of self-reproducing molecules and cybernetic systems on a single planet in a single solar system in a single galaxy in a universe of billions of galaxies.
Damn, this guy has his hands in everything.
"We just challenge this idea that everything had to come from a single celled organism."
I don't mind the challenge but unless you have some explosives of your own, don't try to stand up against the solid mountain of evidence collected over the past 150 years. - chmstar, on 11/28/2008, -1/+6There is much more to the story than just having similar DNA. For instance we have a broken gene in our DNA called MYH16 which gives primates large jaw muscles. There is no reason to believe that we just would have been created with a lousy non functioning gene. Given the fact that we probably would have needed a more ape like skull in order for the muscles to attach properly lends credence to the fact that our ancestors were in fact more ape like. I would also like to point out that we have useless DNA fragments known as endogenous retroviruses that correspond EXACTLY to the phylogenetic tree that was determined using the fossil record long before DNA sequencing was developed. If creationists actually gave a testable theory of how the biology of our planet came about I'd like to hear it. However most of what we get is 'evolution is false', which is no more than heckling in my book. Put up or shut up.
- inactive, on 11/28/2008, -3/+8Learn what science is before you criticize it.
- Murdats, on 11/28/2008, -0/+5and no species can affect the ozone layer either can they? or the oceans, or the largest rainforest in the world?
nope, no species can effect any of those, oh wait, we have destroyed large parts of all of them - Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+6What are you talking about? Darwin never endorsed Eugenics.
- carpespasm, on 11/28/2008, -0/+5From what I've seen about it there's good reason to suspect the two would have been capable of breeding, and since they both had language, tools, and no knowledge that they were considered two separate species by us :P they would probably have done at least some interbreeding, as well as likely warring and having ***** sapiens outbreed them and wipe them out over time. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
- smotpoker, on 11/28/2008, -0/+5That is one theory, though I think it was based primarily on fossil evidence that turned out to be a fraud.
- smotpoker, on 11/28/2008, -0/+5@chmstar
A two degree shift in the earth's axial is believed to be what turned the Sahara from a rainforest into a desert. The Ice Age lead to a global winter that lasted a centuries. It is not hard or stupid to imagine that at some point Israel was significantly cooler/frozen or that not all neaderthals lived in the icy-tundra climates as depicted in movies.
Neanderthals were supposedly nomadic wanderers like humans were, there is no telling wtf they could have wound up. - Paulorific, on 11/28/2008, -0/+4Since when do anti-science people care if they look like morons?
- Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+5"And just because you can't understand creationism or intelligent design doesn't mean it's not true."
Well to be honest I can't. And I'm more surprised that you alone are attuned to the motives and attentions and effects of a body that seems to elude all perceptual inquiry beyond the evocation of "GOD". And that this God would just inundate the Earth with evidence of explanations for the diversity of life on Earth that don't require its intervention but in fact it just put that evidence to test us.
"You test the world empirically and in no other way yet you were not in existence when it all happened"
And what a bleedin suprise, you're in the same situation as me and yet you'd lecture me about what would really have "all happened" whatever the bloody hell that's supposed to mean.
"abiogenesis is nothing more than an exploratory science. "
And I'm glad that abiogenesis isn't necessary at all for evolution beyond explaining where the first life form arose. Even if the first life form was designed intelligently (and odd how creationists never give any serious consideration to aliens and yet they'd believe in a magical sky father), evolutionary mechanisms could've still let it diverge into the multiplicity of organisms we are immersed in today.
"Also what if multiple explanations exist?"
Well if multiple explanations exist, you better give some damn evidence for those explanations or some way to test them or else they are, to quote 4chan, "epic fail"
"What if our minds cannot fathom what happened exactly?"
Well if our minds couldn't fanthom what happened, how would we be able to even come across any knowledge that'd tell us that our minds wouldn't be able to fanthom what happened forever and ever? Not merely at this current point in human history but for the entire future of civilization, however many billions of years that may be (god forbid nuclear or ecological catastrophes)? How the hell did you come across this knowledge?
"The whole field of evolution stands on shaky scientific ground seeing that it implicitly suggests that there was some intelligent workings on an underlying level."
Well if you bothered reading something other than People and Pandas, you'd come across evolution as the workings of blind and dumb mechanisms. That'd be like saying rocks embody some intelligent selective will when they crack open the heads of people and yet barely make a dent on trees. Both the people and the trees (as the attentional subjects of this scenario) interact with their environment and in the case of the flying rock, the person is less prepared to survive this environmental factor and thus spread the genes which would be manipulated by interactions with other mechanisms to create another body similar to that person. Now obviously there are more factors existing that could terminate, modify, mutate, or propogate a body but I hope you get a sense of the underlying point.
"How can something survive or want to survive with no apparent reason?"
Does metal want to resist our blows? By its dumb structure it resists being modified by our hands and if we put enough force we end up hurting ourselves by striking it. Did it "want" to hurt us?
"Are you telling me this mitochondrial eve had predisposed instructions to start living and propagating life all on its own?"
I have a feeling you didn't bother to read the article but the mitochondrial eve is simply a female individual ***** sapiens sapiens who happens to be the most recent common ancestor of all humans living today and up to the time this "Eve" lived. I have a feeling that humans have no trouble having sex whether its now or 140,000 something years ago...
"You are apparently spoon fed and to spite evolution you latch on firmly to your theoretical convictions. You ought to take your head out the ground and look up every once in a while you might discover a thing or two."
and by changing a single word I have made the above quote infinitely more accurate. - maz2331, on 11/28/2008, -0/+4I guess the beginning and the ending of ice ages is a real bitch.
- Murdats, on 11/28/2008, -0/+4or doesn't care if you think.
- Aguyinachair, on 11/28/2008, -3/+7Cells cooking? Well there's your problem!
- Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+5"Science is supposed to be about discovery of how things work. Unfortunately, science seems to be heading into the wrong direction. Some questions belong in the realm of metaphysics and religion rather than pure science."
Well I'm glad that genetics and DNA aren't merely metaphysical ideas or we sure would have a helluva time figuring out the subject of the article dontcha think?
"Micro evolution (change within species) is a fact accepted by most people. What not all of us accept is macro evolution (the change of own species into another distinct species)."
Considering that the very definition of a species is up in the air (how do you deal with animals that reproduce asexually?), the capacity for species of even the same breeding populations to express wildly different traits that usually prefigure our imaginations about what constitutes a qualitative difference between species should be made clear in animals like dogs which have undergone an artificial and hyper-compressed form of evolution in terms of the number of breeds that exist today. Hell, even a few of Darwin's finches have diverged into separate species (with their own breeding populations) since Darwin's time.
"Now these people may look similar and yet share no direct relation with each other."
Well they would share a greater similarity in terms of DNA which would be traceable to a single ancestor...
oh wait
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
"There is nothing wrong with questioning scientific theories. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a zealot who has lost their perspective on what science is supposed to be."
There is something wrong in hiding a clear creationist agenda under the cloak of open-mindedness. Especially when you attack the subject from a position of total ignorance of the entire body of evolutionary biology. - chmstar, on 11/28/2008, -1/+5@saqer
What is the problem with addressing the evidence for evolution? Is your position so weak that you cannot even attempt to re butt what science has brought forth the last 150 years? Is this what you call an argument for creationism? Is this all you've got? - Grin23, on 11/28/2008, -0/+4all you creationsits and intelligent designers above should lay off the crack and start reading books. you give your countries and religions a bad name!
- Grin23, on 11/28/2008, -0/+4now to think of it they didn't become extinct they are now creationists and intelligent designers.
- Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -0/+4"I don't expect you to believe in my proposition. You are the master of your own belief. If you expect God to just come out of the lurking shadows to make a point then you're in the wrong world. In this world God doesn't need you. He doesn't need your worship or your acknowledgment. You make a conscious choice when you choose to believe or reject Him. If your belief framework requires empirical evidence then let me say that the extent of your "mind" is as advanced as the primate at the zoo who relies solely on his tangible faculties to make sense of the world around him."
Well I suppose that speaks that much more worse for you if a monkey would make more sound conclusions about its world given the condition its in than you.
If you refute the empirical and the logical, you refute any grounds that your description of God transcends any egoistic tendencies, especially as expressed by your limitations of such an entity to an anthromorphic "Him".
I mean if I would refute the previous, than is not the following passage equally valid as the screed you put above?
"If you expect Invisible Magical Pink Unicorn to just come out of the lurking shadows to make a point then you're in the wrong world. In this world Invisible Magical Pink Unicorn doesn't need you. Invisible Magical Pink Unicorn doesn't need your worship or your acknowledgment. You make a conscious choice when you choose to believe or reject Her. If your belief framework requires empirical evidence then let me say that the extent of your "mind" is as advanced as the primate at the zoo who relies solely on his tangible faculties to make sense of the world around him. Yes, that's a direct assault on your intelligence. One who cannot bring himself to fathom a superior being is one, working hard to deny innate proclivities, two, raised to hate Invisible Magical Pink Unicorn; three, never had a proper magical unicorn figure so projects this anger against Invisible Magical Pink Unicorn by denying Her; four, rejects Invisible Magical Pink Unicorn because of haughtiness and arrogance."
And it's funny how your egoistic anthropomorphic projection of a father figure controlling all of Reality would neatly fit into Freudian and Lacanian psychology.
"If quantum physics was magic to us 100 years ago how does that make believing in God magic?"
Well to be honest I think Quantam Physics was (and still is too bizarre) to be thought up by anyone prior to experimental discovery. But there'd be no grounds for me to pontificate on the truth of Quantam Physics without the results that would prove it. Or else I could just spout any number of theories (Aristotle's four elements) about the composition and dynamics of the universe without any way of actually verifying their validity.
in the same way that your ego-God Reality Controller has to be weighed against an infinite number of other possibilities for Reality-Originators/Controllers ala Invisible Magical Pink Unicorn.
"can sit here and bash theory as much as I want because the scientific way allows for that."
Actually the scientific way would require that you have something to back up your theories beyond repeating words and linguistic idealism.
"You think that there must be a standing explanation at all times or what? The world will come to an end? Science will fail?"
Well if you're the one bashing evolutionary theory without displaying any sort of familiarity with its basic concepts and without any sort of contradictory evidence... - monoa, on 11/28/2008, -1/+5> Bury me for expressing a little scientific objectivity cowards.
I'm burying you because you're scientifically illiterate and driven by a fairy tale told by ignorant Bronze Age goat herders. - monoa, on 11/28/2008, -1/+5> You are the master of your own belief.
It's science, not belief. They are different things. Try researching them some time - it's amazing the effect knowledge can have. I quite like the side effect of not looking dumb. - Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+4"No the reason you can't understand creationism is because you're so goddamn arrogant to consider for a fleeting moment that perchance there's a source to all this order in the universe."
To be honest I have a leaning towards Spinoza's conception of the God/Substance/Nature-as-Zero but you seem to be struck with the naive assumption that this order has to be oriented around or sympathetic with anything that might be "human".
And speaking of arrogance...
"You believe that ultimate randomness evokes the inner workings of the universe. ...Things that just happened to occur out of the blue."
I don't believe in any of that. I just believe there is no room to speculate on matters in which we have evidence for non-intervention by external forces. And of course if the effects of these speculative "external forces" could be detected, they would be part of our theory...
"All of this on its own accord, on its own watch? "
Well do you have a better explanation without resorting to a sky-daddy?
"Then you dwell in scientific uncertainty and you yield that as a shield when asked to explain."
Would you expect me to say "Of course I totally understand" when I clearly do not? What kind of half-assed logic are you trying to pull here?
"Certainly, I am not at liberty to prove my convictions empirically, but you forget that faith is a valid way of knowing"
How is it a valid way of knowing? If I had faith that a cat in a box was dead and I opened it up to find that it was alive, was my faith more valid than my empirical observation?
"See for yourself in our history the greatest of scientific minds were many times the most religious. "
Can you name a few? And please don't say Issac Newton because he also believed in Alchemy. And Einstein didn't believe in the same type of God you believe in although he probably let some vestigial influence affect him when he refused to accept the implications of Quantam mechanics because the universe was supposed to be "rational".
oh it might be rational. hell I suspect its rational. I just don't think this form of "the rational" has to care about anything that might comfort human sensibilities.
"Again you are only ***** yourself and it's comical so watch as you try to push a red herring argument by equating evolution to metal. We are talking about organic material. Life. And you're over here talking about rocks and metal. Do you suffer from attention disorders? Do you not see what topics we are discussing?"
I'm afraid you share a far more grave blindness than that which you accuse me of. "organic material" is just anything bonded with carbon atoms which includes many metals. Of course if we discovered something synonymous with "life" that had a silicon-based chemistry, then organic might be expanded to include that. The point was that evolution is (apparently) the result of dumb and blind mechanisms reacting and causing and reacting and causing environmental factors which feed back into them ala cybernetics.
I don't even see how this even wipes out the possibility of a theistic God. Why couldn't such a being just keep its hands off said processes? Are you so arrogant as to presume the attentions of such a being?
"Infinitely more accurate about what? You think you can masquerade in absolutist thinking untouched and unscathed. O, how silly you are. How ignorant. How foolish. You are simply a byproduct of inhumanity. You are nothing more than neurons firing without any purpose. Nothing exists to protect your very existence except your own meandering babble."
To be honest, I'm living to understand. Not to be coddled and comforted by the vision of a transcendental anthro-daddy rocking me to sleep up in heaven. - gahaga, on 11/28/2008, -1/+4Holy Crap. The Neanderthals created global warming! The End is Near. And no, Neanderthals are a different species. By definition they could not breed with ***** Sapiens and are thought to be a divergent evolutionary branch.
- Grin23, on 11/28/2008, -0/+3We are not evolved from neanderthathalñs they were our very close cousins. we are in fact both descendants of ***** Erectus
- Bloodwine, on 11/28/2008, -0/+3and are now thought to be equal if not superior to ***** Sapiens on an individual basis. ***** Sapiens were just more social and worked in larger groups.
- dbzssj44676, on 11/28/2008, -1/+4What. The. *****.
Lots of factors spelled the demise for the neanderthals, but not this. I recall these people wore animal skins, you know where I'm going.
I'm tired of the Pseudo Enlightenment Period. - inactive, on 11/28/2008, -1/+4Their -cells- were pussies.
- monoa, on 11/28/2008, -1/+4> There is nothing wrong with questioning scientific theories.
You can question all you want, it has absolutely no impact on the reality of evolution by natural selection. Read and learn: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/index ...
P.S. Consider that the god you believe in is almost entirely dependent on when and where you were born. Your belief is not a matter of truth, simply an accident of time, geography and parentage.
If you were born in India today you might be worshipping Ganesha, in Texas you'd be grovelling for Jesus to save your sinful soul and in Iran you'd be head-butting a piece of carpet 5 times a day for Allah. If you were born 2000 years ago in Denmark, you'd think Odin was the real deal and 500BCE in Greece, you'd be worshipping Zeus and The Gang.
That's just a handful of the thousands of gods people have invented over the millennia.
It's not really a convincing scenario if there was one true god, or any gods. Wouldn't it be trivial for the creator of the universe to have all her little creations singing from the same book? Especially when most gods threaten dire punishment for choosing the wrong one. What sort of omnipotent, omniscient, 'merciful and loving' god would that be?!
This should be an enormous clue that gods are man-made. - chmstar, on 11/28/2008, -2/+5"Neanderthals in Israel
Israel and the rest of the Middle Eastern sites are critically important to the story of human evolution because they represent the zone of overlap between two evolving lineages: the Neanderthals and modern humans.
At the Mount Carmel cave of Tabun, the skeleton of a female and the partial remains of a male have been unearthed while at the neighbouring Skhul cave, several modern-looking humans have been found buried.
The Mount Carmel caves outside Haifa set the geographical limits for Neanderthal fossils. One skeleton found buried in the Kebara cave is so well preserved that it has provided the best data yet on Neanderthal anatomy and led scholars to reassess the function of the Neanderthal pelvis and linguistic capabilities, following the discovery of the hyoid bone in the throat."
A ***** idiot who knows how to use Google at least. - monoa, on 11/28/2008, -0/+2Nice copy / paste.
Unfortunately, completely devoid of science: Prison Planet, Jones Report and a couple of home made videos starring melon head nobodies. Are you serious? You're expecting to convince people with this drivel?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on ...
Provide evidence that they have all been wrong or lying and falsifying data for *decades*. - Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+3What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?
"My intent is not to convince you, go on living your life."
Well your intent was to disparage something as small-scale (considering you're appealing to ALL OF REALITY, something which you alone have exclusive knowledge to) as evolutionary theory and consequently that means trying to convince followers of evolutionary theory that its wrong in face of all the amazing findings you've carried out.
You dared to call my thoughts just "the meaningless firing of neurons" and yet you seem content into mindlessly imposing God onto everything without a second thought. It's as if the possibility of a universe without your God is too much for your mind to handle.
"At least those who believe in God believe that there's an entity. They might be wrong about Him, but they still believe."
And once again your dismissive arrogance comes to play. "Oh those silly chaps might be wrong but at least they still believe". As if those silly chaps might not come to more valid conceptions of God up to an infinitely more precise degree than you.
Once again, have the balls to back up your claims beyond discredited notions of innate ideas or just shut up since there is literally no point in debating someone who mindlessly insists on imposing claims without logical or empiricial reasoning to back them up. - Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -0/+2"Not all scientific endeavors are theories you ignorant fool."
I'm sorry, let me correct all the scientists and tell them that they don't need to verify their hypothesis or theories through evidence since one can clearly make bold claims to truth without such evidence.
I must express my shock that you have access to the total sum of past, present, and future knowledge that'd explain everything without having to continually verify it as one encounters new situations or problems. - Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -1/+3and you think you have any sort of clue how this "God" created it or keeps it running or how far back in the rabbit hole it goes.
Please tell me where you gained these stunning insights. I mean without a way to communicate how and why it acts, your statements about God come off as nothing more than the "meaningless firing of neurons" that happen to repeat "God" over and over as a first cause without explaining how those three letters are the first cause of everything. - gatorfree, on 11/28/2008, -1/+3Mmmmmmmmm Neader-licious.
- replaysMike, on 11/28/2008, -2/+4so, you're saying they were pussies?
- zerries, on 11/28/2008, -0/+2No, I just don't think you can compare mass extinctions to either of the World Wars as tragic as they were.
- chmstar, on 11/28/2008, -1/+3@saqer
Evolution does not tackle the consciousness. Evolution recognizes that we are a product of a cause and effect biological process. The conscious mind is not a tangible object, therefore the question of divinity of it cannot be addressed by such things. - Ultima2sucks, on 11/28/2008, -0/+2Once again, you're the one whose mindlessly insisting without bringing to the fore any evidence to the contrary. And if you can't express any such evidence, then your arguments literally come off as nothing more than babble to anyone but yourself.
and once again you make reference to beliefs and conceptions of "normal people", this vague category which I suspect does a disservice to the beliefs of over six billion human beings who inhabit this planet, spread throughout hundreds and thousands of differing cultures and attitudes towards the world.
Seriously, would you stop being such a spoiled child and just accept that you don't know everything or even have half a clue about the source of everything? - Paulorific, on 11/28/2008, -1/+3One could argue this is against the climate change fuss, since it could imply that climate change is not caused by humans.
...Which has been true in the past. -
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