Evolution II

[Moiraine]

The "Evolution" thread is getting huge, so here is the sequel. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Original initial post :
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Those of you who know me know that I have a passion for paleoanthropology. [img]smile.gif[/img] Well, I have spent most of the week-end buried in two books I bought about the latest discoveries.

I am not starting a debate about the validity of the evolution theory here - although if you want to discuss it here, suit yourselves - but I have a question.

What is it that seems to be so emotionally disturbing to humankind in sharing ancestors with apes ? [img]smile.gif[/img]

I am asking this from sheer curiosity - I can't find in myself any reluctance at all to share my heritage with simians, and although I am an agnostic, I come from a long line of Christians and live in a Christian-rooted culture - yet, all I feel is sheer enthusiasm and excitement.

No matter what I know or don't know about myself - and no matter what I decide or refuse to believe about myself - it doesn't change what I am.

You ? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 02-25-2003, 03:59 AM: Message edited by: Moiraine ]

[LordKathen]

Originally posted by esquire: Hey man! don't be such a pessimist! - We have mapped the human genome. - countless new drugs/treatments/vaccines are being researched/created. -as much as I detest genetically altered food, it is probably the only thing that will maintain the food levels we need to survive. - then there is space, the final frontier limitless planets and resources there for the taking, all we have to do is start building more spaceships. I think our mutual survival hinges on a race against the odds. If we can create new antibiotics to combat new infections, we can survive. If we can genetically alter ourselves to combat cancer, we can survive. If we can invent new technologies to be more efficient and environmentally friendly, then we will reduce the damage to the earth. ect...

Absolutly, I agree, there may be a chance, but it better happen quick! [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img]
Like I was aying before, the dino's lasted 250 million years. Probably bevouse they never beacme inteligent like we have. They only used the resources they adapted to and needed. We had better win the race, or we will suffer.

[esquire]

"What is it that seems to be so emotionally disturbing to humankind in sharing ancestors with apes ?"

Perhaps it is the prospect that one's belief system becomes threatened or put into question that is potentially so disturbing. If one has a world view that is not based on the secular notions of science, then a view based on other criteria causes conflict. If one is forced to question their core notions of reality, well I guess that can be a frustrating thing to do.

[ 02-25-2003, 04:15 AM: Message edited by: esquire ]

[The Hierophant]

Whew, you're right Moiraine, it was getting crowded in there!

One thing I need to say about evolution is that it doesn't have a set plan or preocedure per se. It's all pretty much random, BUT it does tend to work toward eccentuating 'favourable' characteristics to suit a certain time and place. What worked well 2,000,000 years ago on the European continent may not work so well there now. Having said that, some species do not change all that drastically at all over millions of years (cockroaches and crocodiles come to mind), others change to the point where they become almost unrecognizable. If a change occurs, and it stands the test of time (a loooooong time), then it may just become a permanent variation of the species' genetic structure. Otherwise, life keeps plodding along, just like it always does. There is no law, no plan, no great advancement foward. Life just lives and dies, morphs and stabilizes, over and over and over again. All the while it changes the face of the planet, sucking up resources like a sponge and redistributing them in wierd and wonderful ways. No real 'point' to it or anything, it just happens. It's a giant, crazy, happy-go-lucky chemical reaction. Have fun!

ps: The big conflict here seems to be between 'old earth' and 'young earth'. Creationists can't fathom the Earth being older than a few thousand years (a very human and natural approach I might add), whereas evolutionists are stubbornly unable to accept that the Earth is anything but billions of years old. All in all, there is absolutely nothing that can disprove the existance of the creator divinity, just as there is nothing that can actually prove it's existance either. All facts are based on faith in the senses, faith in reasoning, even faith in imagination. It's the need for faith that gives each of us in this debate a common bond.

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by LordKathen: We had better win the race, or we will suffer.

Don't worry about it Kathen. There is no race to be won. You don't need to assume that there is a purpose to life, because more likely than not, there isn't. That may be a little disheartening, but once you accept it and don't struggle with it for fear of having no sense of direction in your life you'll find it really makes for an uplifting feeling [img]smile.gif[/img] Everything is building up and falling apart, all at once, in different places at different times. Hey, one day the nutrients in your body might become part of a giant sea-creature's gut-lining, or become bark in giant oak tree [img]smile.gif[/img] You'll be doing your part for the eco-system long after your consciousness has blacked out and faded away [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[LordKathen]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: Whew, you're right Moiraine, it was getting crowded in there! One thing I need to say about evolution is that it doesn't have a set plan or preocedure per se. It's all pretty much random, BUT it does tend to work toward eccentuating 'favourable' characteristics to suit a certain time and place. What worked well 2,000,000 years ago on the European continent may not work so well there now. Having said that, some species do not change all that drastically at all over millions of years (cockroaches and crocodiles come to mind), others change to the point where they become almost unrecognizable. If a change occurs, and it stands the test of time (a loooooong time), then it may just become a permanent variation of the species' genetic structure. Otherwise, life keeps plodding along, just like it always does. There is no law, no plan, no great advancement foward. Life just lives and dies, morphs and stabilizes, over and over and over again. All the while it changes the face of the planet, sucking up resources like a sponge and redistributing them in wierd and wonderful ways. No real 'point' to it or anything, it just happens. It's a giant, crazy, happy-go-lucky chemical reaction. Have fun! ps: The big conflict here seems to be between 'old earth' and 'young earth'. Creationists can't fathom the Earth being older than a few thousand years (a very human and natural approach I might add), whereas evolutionists are stubbornly unable to accept that the Earth is anything but billions of years old. All in all, there is absolutely nothing that can disprove the existance of the creator divinity, just as there is nothing that can actually prove it's existance either. All facts are based on faith in the senses, faith in reasoning, even faith in imagination. It's the need for faith that gives each of us in this debate a common bond.

[img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img] Excellent post man! Very eloquent. [img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img]

[LordKathen]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: Quote: Originally posted by LordKathen: We had better win the race, or we will suffer.

Don't worry about it Kathen. There is no race to be won. You don't need to assume that there is a purpose to life, because more likely than not, there isn't. That may be a little disheartening, but once you accept it and don't struggle with it for fear of having no sense of direction in your life you'll find it really makes for an uplifting feeling [img]smile.gif[/img] Everything is building up and falling apart, all at once, in different places at different times. Hey, one day the nutrients in your body might become part of a giant sea-creature's gut-lining, or become bark in giant oak tree [img]smile.gif[/img] You'll be doing your part for the eco-system long after your consciousness has blacked out and faded away [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]Im not worried bro.
Once again you eloquently state exactly what I think.
IMHO, it is fear of the unknown that started this whole debate 100,000 years ago. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by LordKathen: IMHO, it is fear of the unknown that started this whole debate 100,000 years ago. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Indeed my good man
And it's when we stop fearing the unknown and merely start exploring it that life becomes alot more pleasant, and satisfying [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Moiraine]

According to the number of posts in the original thread, there sure is a lot of emotional involvment in dealing with the matter of evolution ! [img]smile.gif[/img]

From what I have heard and read, the inner reticences to the evolution theory are wider spread than only from creationists. Seems to me that what is extremely difficult - even by atheist scientists who are convinced of being free of preconceptions - is twofold : evolution is not centered about us humans, and it doesn't seem to show a purpose. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Survival of the fittest. The possibility of several different good answers to a specific problem can explain why different groups of a same specie can grow apart and given enough time apart become different species. Like for example two groups of humans set apart that respond to the increasing cold climate, one by having the stockiest members survive, the other by making a more imaginative use of their brain and inventing clothing. That is a scenario that can explain how the Homo Sapiens and the Homo Neanderthalensis could both survive and become different groups, both having developped an equally valid evolutionary response to life in cold climates. [img]smile.gif[/img]

About instincts. What is an instinct ? A trait that is inherent to a specie as a group, shared at different degrees by all its members - a trait that is a part of a specie's common gene pool. Every individu as a member of a specie derives his individual gene pool from the gene pool of the group. All individuals are slightly different from the others - an individual's genes are slightly (and randomly, as far as we know) modified from his parents' gene legacy. That is what scientists call an "exaptation" - which means a potential for the evolution of a gene that hasn't yet taken hold in the specie's common gene pool, and maybe never will. For example, humans have 32 teeth. My husband has only 30 teeth (no root for the other two) - he is fully human anyway and future humans born from us may or may not share this new gene. [img]smile.gif[/img] It is getting more and more evident, from observing apes communities, that the propension to socialize is an instinct shared by the apes and us - thus derived from the antique gene pool of our common ancestors. [img]smile.gif[/img]

What we humans 'instinctively' do, when confronted with new information, is attempting to classify it. Elaborate a scheme holding together all existing informations, and try to find the right place for the new information into this scheme - or elaborate a new scheme if the information can't fit into the previous one. Classifying is NOT, basically, the same as hierarchizing (spell ?). 'Different' is not the same as 'better' or 'worse'. People trying to deduce a hierarchy between the different branches of the evolution bush tree show a biased misconception of the classificating tool we use for our quest of knowledge.

When European people were first confronted with apes brought to Europe, and scientists began to tell them that themselves and those apes were related - well, at first they rejected the very idea. Of course they did - they had only external characteristics to base their observing on, they didn't know and could not imaginate what we now know from genetics.

When they were confronted with people of different coloring and slightly different bone structure - which are immediately spectacular, as well as insignificant, but they couldn't know that - their - our - natural tendancy to compare lead them to think of it in terms of 'natural hierarchy'. Now of course we know better. But do we ?

For three centuries, scientists have waited for a 'missing link' between humans and apes. They are only now realizing that they will never find such - because it does not exist. Evolution is a continuity, every generation is infinitesimally different from the preceding one - there is no such thing as an evolutionary gap between parents and children. So the question 'when did the first human appear' is moot. And apes are not 'less evolved' than us humans - and don't look more like our common ancestors than we ourselves do - they just evolved differently. And for those who would argue that we have evolved more than apes have - more evolutionary changes in the same duration : maybe so, but then, if the different species of apes have found a satisfying equilibrium that allow them to survive in good conditions, why should changes be needed ? Why change a tool that works ?

Now that raises a question. We know now that all humans on earth, no matter their differences in coloring and other slight differences, belong to the same specie. Now what about the Neanderthals ? Were they fully humans as we define being human ? They probably have diverged enough from their common ancestors with the Homo Sapiens of that time that they were most probably a different specie (int he scientific sense of the word, which is that they couldn't interbreed). And - did they not survive because they were in some way 'inferior' or because of otherwise bad luck ?

Depending on what our personal answer to that question is - we can apply the same line of thought all along down the evolutionary tree - back to the proto-apes, back to the first mammal, back to the first bacteria.

What evolution really tells us is a lesson in humility. No, we are not a special specie. No, we are not 'better' or even 'more evolved' than other species. No, we are not even an end result - just a bud on a tiny branch that, hopefully, will go on upward.

We have now become the superpredator on this planet. It is an ancestral survival trait that we favour our own survival over others' - and, because we are a socialized specie, that we favour the survival of our group over that of other species and possibly other groups of our own specie. But no other specie has ever reached a state where it can totally eradicate a specie - including our own. We have achieved that state frightfully fast in world history time - way too shorter to have developped internal mecanisms of defense from ourselves.

IMO, that is the challenge that evolution lays before us. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[LordKathen]

[img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img] Great post Moiraine.