Does Evolution Beg the Question on Survival of the Fittest? - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Pollution, global warming, urbanisation etc.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14839507
Hindsite wrote:Being closely related does not mean evolved and in no way proves the theory of evolution. They also say man is closely related to Chimpanzees, but that does not mean man evolved from Chimpanzees or the Chimpanzees evolved from Man. It is all a silly notion to begin with. Any person with common sense would not believe such nonsense. Only those that are stupid enough to allow themselves to be brainwashed and propagandize would even think such crap.



Closely related means they share a common ancestor. Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor, one group did not evolve from the other in this case.

But thanks for bringing up the subject of human evolution. This presents another example of the importance of contingency. The apes, to which we belong, were very common and diverse in the Miocene. With the change in climate due to topographic changes resulting from plate tectonics, the great rain forests of the Miocene gave way to cooler and drier environments. The cercopithicenes (old world monkeys) were better able to cope in the austere conditions than apes and today are more abundant. Apes only managed to hang on in residue forests in Asia plus a derived group in Africa. That latter group, chimps, humans and gorillas, adapted to terrestrial niches. But they only just hung on.

One group, the human linage, underwent significant evolution and managed to hit on a new survival strategy. But it was a near thing. The hominids came close to extinction. At one point it was down to homo habilis, restricted to a small location in East Africa. This group shows a lot of variation in a small population, suggesting rapid evolution. So they were being subject to severe selection and on the point of extinction. But they managed to emerge as homo erectus, which was a successful species. There was enough potential in the variation available that they could just hang in there long enough to reach a stable new form.

Again, luck. The recent human linage was as much of a fluke as the longer term mammal linage. This very lucky story has implications for the assessment of the likelihood of sentient life elsewhere in the universe.

Tell me, Hindsight, as a Christian, what are your views on the subject of intelligent alien life?
#14839528
Hindsite wrote:It is all nonsense in my view.



The truth is that you can probably get away with that opinion. The chances of intelligent life on Earth are so remote that we'd say it was impossible if we didn't exist*.

Though the universe is mind bogglingly big and so mind bogglingly old, and thus that even the remotely possible had enough time and space in which to be realised, intelligent life seems to be so improbable that it is a distinct possibility that we are the only example in the entire universe.

Life seems to be likely to the point of inevitability given suitable conditions. Life on Earth occurred as soon as it could. So we might reasonably expect to find bacteria equivalent life quite frequently assuming that planets with those conditions (generally liquid water) were common. Complex cells and multicellular life require contingency to be realised, so we would expect jellyfish equivalents to be most uncommon. As to the complex metazoan and plant life we observe today, that would be exceedingly rare in the universe.


So you can get away with believing intelligent aliens are nonsense as there probably aren't any.



*you do realise this discussion is heading toward phenomenology, right? Maybe you should bail out of the thread before it is too late?
#14839537
MB. wrote:Irrational obstinance has been the religious right's modus operandi for some time now. I think trying to reason with Hindsite is similar to trying to teach a brick wall how to play Bach's chromatic fantasy.




Hmm, maybe your right. Better cut to the chase.

@Hindsite

When all is said and done, it isn't about who is fittest but rather, given the contingency factor, why do we exist at all? Or do we exist? This video sums it up. Try to watch it to the end.

[youtube]S-xUjmJkO8g[/youtube]
#14839542
@foxdemon
I enjoyed your posts, but by your own reasoning, the rarity of the circumstances of life does not necessarily reach any conclusion about how much life is out there. It would only take one rare intelligent species that achieved advanced space flight to change the possibilities completely. We are also finding earth similar planets to be very common. Their numbers increase the chances of earths circumstances having been repeated.
Lastly, you are speaking of human type life rather than intelligent life. Earth has life forms that exist in the most bizarre circumstances that humans could never tolerate. That is why those are the scientists NASA looks to for guidance and not human biologists.
Personally, I think the universe is for us, but it is a coin flip whether I am correct.
#14839615
foxdemon wrote:Hmm, maybe your right. Better cut to the chase.

@Hindsite

When all is said and done, it isn't about who is fittest but rather, given the contingency factor, why do we exist at all? Or do we exist? This video sums it up. Try to watch it to the end.

So you believe a science fiction movie sums it all up. Well, the theory of evolution is science fiction alright. The Holy Bible tells us why we exist. You should read it sometime. HalleluYah
#14839627
MB. wrote:What's with the voice modulation bro?
Ahhh... Yes, the voice modulation is undoubtedly a curious thing for a serious listener. Speed of sound~ speed it up~ slow it down, vocal absurdity pairs nicely with gravitas. I originally wanted normal commentary, finally I realized time is of the essence- I sped up the commentary and slowed it down for some acoustic goofiness. I shaved more than a few minutes off its length and decided 18:55 would be just right. If you watch the follow-up videos in the Beyond One & Zero playlist, you may absorb a more concentrated perspective and experience my perception of reality. You can do what you want with the information in formation. I personally adore the last video- Kaleidoscopic Awareness

Call it an exercise in (f)utility. See, I'm not training my mind to duel with my brothers and sisters... I'm preparing for Artificial Intelligence, I must obtain kaleidoscopic awareness and use poetic language to properly combat artificially intelligent system-thinkers. Conceptual framework like our 'Born Classified' thread may be keep them puzzled for a couple weeks- that shall hopefully give me enough time to hone my skills before I face my intellectual equal. Believe me, if you're using Newtonian billiard ball lingo and a classical/mechanical modus operandi, you'll be DOA. I'm ready to defend the human intellect, MB. :up:

My face is melting and I sense a strange heaviness in the room. No bother, fear is the absence of love... or is love the absence of fear.... Whatever, ONE∞LOVE!


-RT
#14839747
As mammals ourselves, we like to think that we and our evolutionary lineage is special but in reality the mammals have been the 'also ran' of tetrapod evolutionary history. A lot of the results of evolution that we observe are due to dumb luck. We don't exist because our linage is superior, we exist because our ancestoral species got lucky.

Indeed. The mammals (or, strictly speaking, the mammal-like reptiles which later became the 'true' mammals) first appeared at roughly the same time as the dinosaurs first appeared. But they were totally out-competed by the dinosaurs for more than 150 million years - the mammals remained small shrew-sized critters scurrying around the heels of the dinosaurs, coming out only at night when they couldn't be seen or have to face the likes of Tyrannosaurus or the Velociraptors. And if that meteor hadn't knocked the shit out of the Earth's ecosystem 66 million years ago, that would likely still be the case to this day. That meteor killed everything bigger than 10kg in weight. Luckily for us.
#14839750
BULL SHIT LIES.

God created everything 6000 years ago. God made us in his image, and if each and every one of you just accept the lord Jesus Christ as his savior you would see things in their true and righteous light.

Remeber, you can do all sort of good deeds, but unless you accept the word of God, and accept Jesus into your heart, it all means nothing.
#14839754
Potemkin wrote:Indeed. The mammals (or, strictly speaking, the mammal-like reptiles which later became the 'true' mammals) first appeared at roughly the same time as the dinosaurs first appeared. But they were totally out-competed by the dinosaurs for more than 150 million years - the mammals remained small shrew-sized critters scurrying around the heels of the dinosaurs, coming out only at night when they couldn't be seen or have to face the likes of Tyrannosaurus or the Velociraptors. And if that meteor hadn't knocked the shit out of the Earth's ecosystem 66 million years ago, that would likely still be the case to this day. That meteor killed everything bigger than 10kg in weight. Luckily for us.


Why lucky? I'd rather be a sentient dinosaur than a pig/ape hybrid. Dinosaurs dude. Dino-motha-fakin-saurs!

Image
#14839759
Why lucky? I'd rather be a sentient dinosaur than a pig/ape hybrid. Dinosaurs dude. Dino-motha-fakin-saurs!

Intelligent dinosaurs? Unlikely. Intelligence is only necessary to compensate for physical weakness. The glaring physical deficiencies of the human body - our lack of claws or fangs, our slow running speed, our physical weakness - would have spelt doom for our species long ago, were not for the fact that we are clever little bastards. The dinosaurs staked everything on being bigger, stronger, faster and more badass than anything else on the planet. They didn't need to be smart. The dinos were the jocks of the natural world, and humans are the nerds. By sheer dumb luck, the nerds inherited the Earth. Lol.
#14839772
I disagree, we are enourmous bastards.

Compared to a Tyrannosaurus Rex? I stand by my description. The dinosaurs were the biggest, baddest bastards around. We're just the runty, ferrety-looking guy who runs a betting scam.
#14839777
I was being cheeky. But really a giant carnivore is less of a bastard in some way than us because we can take pleasure in other peoples suffering without any sort of biological need.

Have you never seen a cat playing with a mouse? And I'm pretty sure the dinosaurs liked to play with their food too.

Besides, the very fact that you are moralistically criticising human cruelty says a lot about the human sense of empathy even for other species of animal. I assure you that most animals have absolutely no sense of empathy for each other whatsoever. Nor are they writing monographs on the philosophy of ethics. They're too busy hunting and eating each other. Lol.

Helping Ukraine to defeat the Russian invasion an[…]

https://twitter.com/huwaidaarraf/status/1773389663[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

What wat0n is trying to distract from: https://tw[…]

Russia-Ukraine War 2022

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1773436787622[…]