Creation vs. Evolution

[H2Andy]

lol

frontal lobe, my friend

it's all about the frontal lobe

and then what you get is "potential" you have to develop. now, whales appear to have rather complicated language-like abilities, so ... i'm not saying they're dumb, they just can't, for example, develop fire or start a farm, since they live in water.
thus, their environment limits how much they can use their potential.

frankly, without primate-like hands to manipulate the environment (or the like), i don't see even the most potentially smart animal developing abstract skills to the level humans have.

it's sort of a cumulative effect: we're smart, so we do xyz, which makes us smarter, and then do abc which we coudlnt' do before, and doing that makes us smarter, which allows us to come up with nmp, and so on...

 

[Soggy]

frankly, without primate-like hands to manipulate the environment (or the like), i don't see even the most potentially smart animal developing abstract skills to the level humans have.

Dolphins have a prehensile penis, does that count?

 

[ShakaZulu]

From Creation, to Evolution to penisses.........guess evolution wins?

 

[H2Andy]

devolution, perhaps?

 

[Soggy]

devolution, perhaps?

Don't make me start quoting Devo songs....

 

[Thalassamania]

I read that the brain of a sperm wale is 6 times the size of a persons brain and the largest brain in relation to body size is that of an ant.

Most of a sperm whale's brain appears to be involved in sonar calculations and imaging (something that in a Fast Attack Subs takes six linked Cray Supercomputers to do what is likely a rather poor job in comparison).

Brain relative to body size is a meaningless measure, except when body size is held constant. It's like the foolishness of an ant being able to lift a car if it where the size of a human. If an ant were the size of a human gravity would pin it too the deck, mass goes up as the cube while strength goes up as the square. Conversely, if a human were the size of an ant, the human would be infinitely more powerful, but would freeze to death rather quickly since surface area goes down as the square while mass goes down as the cube.

 

[Uncle Pug]

not everything that evolves evolved as a primary survival tool.

Natural Selection is essential to evolution. Without it there is no Theory of Evolution. Natural Selection (popularly known as survival of the fittest) supplies the pressure that moves an organism through successive generations in a particular direction.

To simply say that *not everything that evolves evolved as a primary survival tool* dodges the question. That dodge could be used to shrug off any number of non-essential attributes exhibited by organisms.

If Natural Selection is truly the key to understanding the developmental evolution of species then it must speak to everything.

What is it about spirituality that has caused it to *evolve* and not only become predominant, but dominant in the human experience?

Natural Selection must be able to cogently explain the emergence of this phenomenon.

 

[Cacia]

What is it about spirituality that has caused it to *evolve* and not only become predominant, but dominant in the human experience?

what criteria says it has, in fact, evolved? Human mothers now opt for many accepted choices that don't protect their young, a survival of the species instinct, ....for example. Regressive evolution also occurs.

 

[Soggy]

Natural Selection must be able to cogently explain the emergence of this phenomenon.

This is one of those cases of "just because you say it doesn't make it so." Natural selection does not have to explain every behavior. Not all behaviors influence survival, thus do not fit in. Belief in a deity is a learned concept, not an inherent one. The only relation religion/spirituality/whatever has to evolution is in the development of our brain that allowed us to be able to come up with the idea of god/religion.

 

[H2Andy]

To simply say that *not everything that evolves evolved as a primary survival tool* dodges the question.

this is not the first time in the past few posts that you accuse me of dodging issues.

it's not my fault that you don't understand evolution. please educate yourself on the subject. (or at the very least, please stop reading motives into my responses to you that are simply not there).

one more try:

the human voice evolved to communicate.

it can also be used to sing beautiful arias, but that was not the primary purpose it evolved for.

are we to conclude that humans have inherently evolved the ability to sing arias to survive? or that is has a survival pay-off?

likewise, humans evolved big brains because it kept them alive. as a result of that big brain, the ability to ask spiritual questions arose. there is no survival pay off in spirituality. if there is one, it is at most speculative.

If Natural Selection is truly the key to understanding the developmental evolution of species then it must speak to everything.

it does. it explains how there are ancilliary benefits to survival evolutionary adaptations.

not everything that evolves evolves for survival.

this is well known