Re: Life as a law of physics?

Reading from news:talk.origins,
nick_keighley_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx posted:

On 27 Apr, 18:09, Damaeus <no-m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
nick_keighley_nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx posted:
On 25 Apr, 01:52, Damaeus <no-m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
nick_keighley_nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx posted:
On 22 Apr, 18:09, Damaeus <no-m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
nick_keighley_nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx posted:
On 22 Apr, 02:29, Damaeus <no-m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Lets assume you meant "can you see an obvious difference between
chimps and humans". Again the answer is "yes". But I still see no trend.

we are beginning to repeat ourselves. I don't accept "ladder of being"
arguments without any evidence. So just assume every time you mention
"progress" or "trend" or "advancement" I disagree.

Then how do you explain the fact that we no longer look like Cro Magnon
man?

If there is a particular varient I may mark them <LOB>

What are you lobbing at me?

You can't see the trend in the appearance difference between chimps and
humans?

I don't understand what "trend in the appearance difference" means.
Humans and chimps have different appearences. But ther eis no "trend"
or "ladder" or "more evolved" form.

As I understand it, at one point in our past, if we could trace our family
trees back down, our (great grrr...eaattt great) grandparents looked just
like gorillas do today. +AKA-

no. Gorillas evolved to. Also gorillas are not our nearest living
relative,
chimps are. Chimps are a *lot* closer.

Okay, whatever.

So when we see gorillas living today, we could
create a morphing of their appearance to ours as a time-lapse
representation of how our appearance might have changed through the aeons.

"might have". We really have a lot of pieces missing from this jigsaw.

You don't need those... I'm talking about the differences in homo sapiens
from cro-magnon, neandertal, etc....

And even if we didn't look *exactly* like gorillas, the fact is that at
one point we looked like something more hunched over, and hairier.

ok. It's possible it wasn't as big (I'm speculating)

That is the kind of thing I mean by "appearance trend". We don't look
like Cro Magnon anymore.

I see what we looked like then, to what we look like now, as the
"trend in the appearance difference". +AKA-That we used to be more
hunched over and hairier in the past, while we are less hunched
over and less hairy now, with the continuance of that same
appearance trend, we will become even less hairy and of better
stature as things move forward.

sexual selection may fix the hair. We seem to like head hair.
I believe groin and armpit hair serves some practical purpose.

For me, it prevents sexual intercourse.

Is a mushroom more or less advanced than a shark?

I'm not comparing mushrooms to sharks.

why not? Why is the comparison less valid?

Because I focus on humans since I am human.

gorilla/human are two arbitary points on the ToL. So are
mushrooms and sharks. Just as a shark is not more advanced than a
mushrrom (can a shark live under the cellar steps? in the dark?)
so a gorilla is not more advanced than a human.

By not considering other points on the ToE you are not seeing the
non-progressive nature of evolution.

Humans have the technology to live on the moon. No other mammals can do
that. That makes us different. That is my idea of being "more advanced".
Other animals are not even aware it's possible to be on the moon because
they don't know it's been done.

+AKA-If I have a small bleeding wound and a shark comes by, I will
probably be bitten. +AKA-If my dog sees a small, bleeding wound, he
might lick it. +AKA-Therefore, sharks don't think like I think. +AKA-

I cannot follow your syllogism

I'm saying that the shark does not care that I am a person with feelings
and no ill intent toward the shark. If I'm bleeding, the shark will bite
me, even though I'm perfectly fine. The shark acts by instinct, caring
nothing about my feelings. I, on the other hand, can know why I was
attacked and still have no hatred of sharks. Sharks are not capable of
this kind of reasoning. And I think there's a range of intelligence for
other animals, hands down, I think humans reign supreme in being the most
inventive and creative when it comes to altering their own environment.
That's what I believe sets us apart from other animals /and/ gives us
self-awareness.

[...] all kinds of disasters to fly in the face of evolutionary progression.

there is no evolutionary progression

Then why are we homo sapiens and not homo hablis these days if there is no
evolutionary progression? +--AKA-

why are there mosquitoes but no pteradactyls?

Wait. +-AKA-I have always been under the impression that homo sapiens was a
gradual development through many stages,

yes. I am not suggeesting otherwise.

With your mosquito and pteradactyl comparison, it sounded like you were
implying that mosquitos evolved from pteradactyls.

no. Not my intention at all! I'm just saying being dead doesn't mean
you were "less advanced" than everyhing that is alive today.

Since pteradactyls are extinct and mosquitoes aren't do you think
mosquitoes are superior?

No. I'm talking about the level of self-awareness, awareness of what you
are compared to the rest of the universe. We know things about the
universe that no other species on earth can talk to us about.

Just as mosquitoes did not descend from pteradactyls humans did
not descend from gorillas. They are all just Arbitary Loci on The
Tree.

Yes, I know. I only made the reference to us looking more hunched over
and hairier, closer to looking like gorillas (or chimps) back then, than
we are now, while not looking exactly like gorillas. Cro-magnon,
neandertal, for example.

Come to think of it, given the thermodynamics of breaking down, chimps
could be descendants of cro-magnon, while humans ascended.

but with your question, it makes me wonder if evolution says that man,
in the form that he appears to be today, suddenly "appeared" as a
result of a certain joining of two types of pre-homo sapiens man.

I cannot see how what I said led to that. Hybridisation between two
previously isolated populations can lead to (small) jumps. It's
sometimes called "hybrid vigour".

I'm not talking about changes because of that.

yes you are! That's exactly what you said!

Oh, I see now. I'm just thinking that maybe evolution got some things
backwards. Like maybe we evolve in defiance of thermodynamics, while all
other animals degrade and get smaller. Dinosaurs became lizards. Big
apes become smaller apes.


<snip>


The point I was trying to make is that just becuase something
is extinct doesn't me it was in some sense "inferior" or "broken".
It could just have been unlucky.

I guess Neandertals and Cro-Magnon were unlucky.

yep. climate change got Neanderthals. Cro-Magnon were nearly modern
human.

Climate change must have driven Neandertals to gather food for harsher
winters. All that time sitting around thinking instead of physically
hunting day after day might have lead to their larger brains. More
thinking = bigger brain.

(didn't they have bigger brains than us?)

Might have. I don't want a bigger head. lol

+-AKA-I see it as a gradual progression all the way up
the timeline. +-AKA-

WRONG, WRONG WRONG.

Why is that wrong?

<LoB> read *any* book about evolution.

There we go again. I don't need a whole book. How do you know I would
actually find the answer?

Progression. +-AKA-Small changes, not sudden leaps in the past.
That's what it means to me.

small change, yes
progression, no.

What is change from the past to the future that involves an improvement in
living conditions through evolutionary changes in the brain and its
thinking ability, resulting in more efficiency of thought and interaction,
leading to artificial technologies, if it cannot be called "evolutionary
progress"?

yup. You are mixing evolution with technology and cultural change.
I'm not *sure* we are efficient.

I don't rate efficiency into the mix, just what we are able to do, such as
going to the moon and putting satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Even
knowing that can be done put us a cut above chimpanzees who can't even
comprehend what that means.

The entire scope of Darwinism flies in the face
of your claim.

You are mistaken about what modern evolutionary biology ("Darwinismn")
says.

And you offer nothing to refute evolutionary progression through the ages?

you made the claim. You provide the evidence.
Sharks/mushrooms. Pteradactyl/mosquito.

I'm not claiming that sharks evolved into mushrooms or vice versa, so
there's nothing to provide proof of in that regard.

gorillas didn't evolve into humans either

I know.

Damaeus

.

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