Creation vs. Evolution

[Uncle Pug]

Perhaps they (the monkeys) lack the capacity to contemplate the abstract.

Or perhaps they just really like flinging feces.

Most likely both are the case.

Which brings up a question for those who have the ability to contemplate the abstract: why and how did the capacity to contemplate the abstract evolve... or was it there from the moment man was created?

 

[Thalassamania]

What do you make of this article that Andy linked a couple of pages back?

Though examining a different issue, the article says basically the same thing I just did, to wit: “Assessments of congruence between stratigraphy and phylogeny for a sample of 1,000 published phylogenies show no evidence of diminution of quality backwards in time. Ancient rocks clearly preserve less information, on average, than more recent rocks. However, if scaled to the stratigraphic level of the stage and the taxonomic level of the family, the past 540 million years of the fossil record provide uniformly good documentation of the life of the past.“

I have some problems with their methodology, it draws heavily on caldistics, an approach that requires three basic assumptions: 1. Any group of organisms are related by descent from a common ancestor. 2. There is a bifurcating pattern of cladogenesis. 3. Change in characteristics occurs in lineages over time. For a number of technical reasons I am unwilling to grant the second assumption.

 

[Soggy]

Which brings up a question for those who have the ability to contemplate the abstract: why and how did the capacity to contemplate the abstract evolve... or was it there from the moment man was created?

It is beneficial to our survival as a species just as large canine teeth are beneficial to a wolf's survival or an opposable tail is beneficial to a monkey's survival. Since man was not created, it wasn't there from the "beginning."

 

[bwerb]

Which brings up a question for those who have the ability to contemplate the abstract: why and how did the capacity to contemplate the abstract evolve... or was it there from the moment man was created?

That is more or less the argument from Gerald Schroder. http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Big-Bang-Theory-Discovery/dp/0553354132

He fully supports the current scientific timeline but equates the emergence of human consiousness as the moment of the "creation of man"...that when the "soul" or "spirit" was breathed forth it set "man" apart from the rest of the animals.

The more I read and study, the more I see how both science and the Bible have much greater confluence than convergence. The deeper you get into one or the other, the more you see the reflections are telling the same story from completely different angles, with totally different purposes.

Science isn't going to be your best place to find answers to questions about the spiritual, the Bible isn't the best place to find answers about genetic drift. They each have something to tell however about the greater whole of who/what we are.

 

[H2Andy]

It is especially unsatisfying to attempt a discussion of the metaphysical with a monkey.

They are most likely to just fling feces at you, grin and hoot wildly.

wow, Pug...

deep stuff




on the other hand, apes (such as gorillas and chimps) do learn sign language and can communicate with humans

PeWhich brings up a question for those who have the ability to contemplate the abstract: why and how did the capacity to contemplate the abstract evolve... or was it there from the moment man was created?

why is as Soggy stated. it helps us surive.

how, in brief, is as follows:

higher brain functions (analysis, language, abstract thought) are centered in the frontal lobe of the brain.

as you see the size of the frontal lobe increase in an animal (such as dogs, pigs, dolphins, chimps), you see their capacity for more abstract thought increase.

it's not an "on/off" switch

it's a dimmer, which goes from no abstract thought (say, a lobster) to some abstract thought (say a dog) to quite a bit of abstract thought (say a dolphin) to
awesome abstract thought, humans -- at least by our standards ...

as to when it first happened, the frontal lobe has been steadily growing, and abstract thought slowly emerged over the past 5,000,000 years,
as evidenced by the slow appearance of ornate tools, decorated shell and bone jewelery, and other "art," which shows more than mere "survival" skills at work

humans evolved about 200,000 years ago. for the first 100,000 years, we were somewhat advanced, but nothing to write home about. then, about 100,000 years ago, we developed language. this date is not certain. what is certain is that for a long time, humans had language and did little with it.

then, about 40,000 years ago, something called The Great Leap Forward happened.
this is probably the evolution of fully functional language, and all the technological advances and storage of information it provided. the knowledge acquired by the elder members of a tribe was not lost upon their death: it could be passed on to the new generations.

the Great Leap Forward (linked to the full evolution of language) did not happen until about 40,000 years ago. so for 160,000 years, humans were there physically, but not yet mentally.

so, i would say humans have had frontal lobes big enough for at least some abstract thought for quite a long time, and have been slowly getting better at it, but that "modern" abilities for abstract thought probably date back only 40,000 years ago

basically everything that makes us "human" (including fully developed language and abstract thought) was in place by then

i'd recommend:

The Third Chimpanzee

 

[MikeFerrara]

Though examining a different issue, the article says basically the same thing I just did, to wit: “Assessments of congruence between stratigraphy and phylogeny for a sample of 1,000 published phylogenies show no evidence of diminution of quality backwards in time. Ancient rocks clearly preserve less information, on average, than more recent rocks. However, if scaled to the stratigraphic level of the stage and the taxonomic level of the family, the past 540 million years of the fossil record provide uniformly good documentation of the life of the past.“

I have some problems with their methodology, it draws heavily on caldistics, an approach that requires three basic assumptions: 1. Any group of organisms are related by descent from a common ancestor. 2. There is a bifurcating pattern of cladogenesis. 3. Change in characteristics occurs in lineages over time. For a number of technical reasons I am unwilling to grant the second assumption.

I may have misunderstood the whole thing...this isn't my field but, it seems to say that the fossil record agrees with other methods of prediction on average about 50% of the time (average SCI of about 0.5). I guess the point is to show that it doesn't vary significantly with time but 0.5 doesn't sound very good to me. What did I miss?

 

[sandjeep]

I wonder why we have a tail? Where did it go? It sure looks like an evolutional artifact.

Not a tail and it serves a funtion. Nor do babies have gills during developement in the mothers womb.

 

[H2Andy]

I may have misunderstood the whole thing...this isn't my field but, it seems to say that the fossil record agrees with other methods of prediction on average about 50% of the time (average SCI of about 0.5). I guess the point is to show that it doesn't vary significantly with time but 0.5 doesn't sound very good to me. What did I miss?

there were three values being compared, of which SCI was one (stratigraphic consistency index). when compared to the other two indexes, SCI is consistent with what the other two show.

an SCI mean of .551 does not mean that it is right 50% of the time. it has nothing to do with that. it's not a prediction tool. it's an internal measurement to the index.

it means that, on average over the years, the SCI levels of consistency is .551, and it holds close to there from the eldest fossils to the younger fossils

meaning that the fossil record is fairly stable over the years, and we have a good picture of the older fossils

(he was arguing against the notion that the older fossils don't give a good picture of what was happening then)

 

[Soggy]

Not a tail and it serves a funtion. Nor do babies have gills during developement in the mothers womb.

Really? Everything I can find suggests that it is a vestigial tail. Sometimes people are born with it in which case it is usually removed by a doctor. Can you site where you have found that is not a tail?

What about the appendix? I wonder what that is for.... Occasionally people are even born without them.

 

[sandjeep]

warthaug said,

For example, archaeopteryx is a transitional fossil between dinosaurs and birds, but there is a whole range of fossils between dinosaurs between "regular" dino's and archaeopteryx, so which ones are "transitional" and which ones are "species".

I had thought that the dino to bird issue had been discounted. From everything that I have read archaeopteryx was only a bird, but perhaps I am wrong. Could you provide your source?