Honey:
I thought it was funny the way that post could be read both ways to mean completely opposite things.
Anyone sweet as a honeydew can’t possibly be an arrogant radical leftist. I don’t know what “decrying” means so I can’t comment on that.
But I do know what Rex was saying. People seem to find it hard to accept that we humans are a product of nature, not some otherworldly force set up contrary to nature.
Well aren’t you a fucking stroppy little git 
OK so I don’t got no Phd in English Lit, but to me Humanity would pertain to the behaviour etc of the human race, as opposed to Human which, in my case, was referring to the physical being [two arms two legs, head, opposable thumbs etc], or is that too stupid/complicated for your up in a bunch pantee attitude to get a handle on?
Oh and BTW I apologise most profusely for daring to think of speculating of not seeing things from your own percious point of view. Heaven forbid anyone have their own opinion on a subject … 40 lashes with a horse whip for me
First, hello. My first post here.
To address a few of the comments on here:
I disagree that many/most people who accept evolution do so out of some sort of faith. I think the basic structures of evolution as originally laid out by Darwin are easy for pretty much anyone to understand.
But I think that may be part of the problem. Our understanding of evolution has increased dramatically since Darwin, and while the basic framework is stronger than ever, many of the details are far more complicated than Darwin ever imagined.
So I think many people understand evolution in its early terms, and fear it not out of religous beliefs necesarily but out of fear of its implications; the Nazis used early and misguided interpretations of evolution to justify much of what they did.
As we have seen with at least one post on this board, people tend to see evolution as some sort of heirarchial ascent; kind of a pyramid shape. As if it is going to lead to some sort of final result or something.
I think also that too much attention is paid in this thread to creationism as the threat to serious evolutionary inquiry; I disagree. Intelligent design is far more of an intellectual threat in my opinion, though one that cant last.
And it does bear mentioning that its not only the religous who are threatened by evolution. Many long held philosophical beliefs are also threatened (and in my opinion rightfully so) by evolution and lessons derived from it; the tabula rasa for one.
Oh pardon me while I prostrate myself in awe at your superiority over all lifefroms on this planet.
It’s all the mice’s fault you do realise …
dmgorman, as previously mentioned in this thread, “non-teleological” does NOT mean “random” or “accidental”. It means that evolution is not directed to a predetermined result, i.e., there’s no “law” or principle that evolution has to produce humans 65 million years after the extinction of most dinosauria. Reset the clock, run the movie again, something completely different will happen.
Such a principle being not necessary to explain the current state of affairs, and not provable by evidence, it’s extraneous to the actual biological theory and would only lead to confusion and distraction, at best, and at worst to tailored-to-fit science
Now, sure, the idea that evolution must be non-teleological may initially sound, to someone who’s into the whole idea that “not a sparrow flies, not a leaf falls to the ground” w/o God’s intervention, as an “either-or” call to abjure their belief. But it’s just stating that working with the scientific theory does not need to account for divine interventions or preset designs, and it’s a distraction to be looking for them.
Evolution HAS a guiding force: natural selection. But it’s not prejudiced to produce you or me, and it’s not “random” Mutations that provide an advantage useful in adapting to the environment as it is at the time will be selected for and will result in cummulative change.
BTW, yes: to Creationists, “Evolution” is a broad conceptual package of “contrary-to-Genesis” teachings, that includes old-universe cosmology (whether Big Bang or Steady State), old-earth geology, abiogenesis, speciation, natural selection, language families, etc., with probably relativity, quantum physics and psychoanalysis thrown in for good measure . But let me say that a century ago even writers favorable to (or tolerant of) the theory would at times refer to what we call evolution in the biological sense as the “theory of descent”, or “transformisme” or some other such, as to distinguish it from a “general” vision of a changing, evolving universe (then again many of them at the time saw “progress” as a natural law, rendering them teleological in their own way). So what the Creationists are doing is retaining an archaic usage and understanding of the term.
Dudes… I think Lobelia was originally attempting to make a funny about H. sapiens not exactly being physically the most functionally or aesthetically optimized multicellular eukaryote in the 'sphere. Gotta admit I think I’d be much cooler with adaptive camouflage coloration, immunity to cancer, the ability to sythetize vitamins, maintenance-free teeth, and 30 minute dive endurance. But John Mace seems to have got it. I base that on her first retort, before the debate on whether the two words are interchangeable… (Sorry, Lobelia, but the dic. definition (1) of “humanity” IS the collection of humans. People WILL jump to conclusions).
Oh, and let me also side with JM on his take on Rex’s comment. We ARE a product of nature and evolution. It’s under the rules of nature and evolution that we made it to the current top predator spot fair & square even w/o fangs, protective coloration, high speed or great strength. But we ARE on top, for now so I don’t begrudge us some collective enjoyment of that billet. Even if half the population are hopeless fools. What a piece of work, indeed… in every sense.
Name a single good thing humans have done.
Be sure to prostrate yourself before me, too.
I demand equal prostration time.
… Which is that in that post I mentioned another thing that probably worries Creationists – if our current Top Billing is a contingent circumstance, AND evolution is NOT directed deliberately to culminate in us as crowning achievement, that would mean that there is the poss… no, pron… nay, the virtual certainty that one good day natural extinction will come knock-knock-knockin’ on sapiens’ door, with OR without a suitable successor-species in line upon whom to vest our knowledge and deeds.
(And since there is the misunderstanding that evolution = progress, many fear that any successor species would have to be superior to us, and treat us like, well, inferior animals.)
This then ties in with the Naturalist Fallacy – that if we’re nothing but another animal, then we need not behave like anything but. Many Creationists fall into that false conclusion and thus see the teaching of evolution as morally corrosive.
Good Night now, and may we come back to topic.
JRD
Well, of course they used evilution! And not just the biological stuff, but also all the stuff about the earth being old. See my tract “The EARTH is YOUNG INDEED” on this webpage.
(BTW, my next project will be the “Unholy Hoaxes” tract, but that one requires me to actually draw, so it might take a little longer. Many thanks to everyone who helped with suggestions!)
** Lobelia Overhill**
[Moderator Hat ON]
Yuu’re not allowed to call people insulting names in this forum, Lobelia. If you must insult, take to to the BBQ Pit.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
It could easily be asked as well to name one good thing any other species of animal has done. After you defined ‘good’ of course.
Human being are superior to all other forms of life on this planet. As the only species conscious of it’s own impending death, our needs trump those of anything else on this planet. Whatever sort of “suffering” we might ever cause another lifeform, it doesn’t come close to the suffering of a human death, because we have the accompanying agony of knowing it’s coming. Human lives, human enjoyment, and human self-actualization outrank everything else. We are the superior beings on this planet, in terms of reasoning ability, in terms of power, and in moral terms.
In fact, other species aren’t even capable of “good” acts, because other animals cannot ever make a moral decision. So by default, we’ve done more good than any other species could ever do.
What evidence do you have for any of the above? Given that we can’t even adequately define intelligence, much less sentience, how can you guarantee that no other life forms on this planet have either?
And of what value are our vaunted morals if the world is nothing more than our plaything, to do with as we wish?
Humans got to be where we are not because we’re so damn smart, but because we’re damn good at killing everything else, including each other. And much of our history has been inventing new ways to do just that. Despite our supposed superior morality.
It is tough to be certain, but we can make a good try by looking at the behaviours of animals. Until an animal exhibits behaviour that exhibits evidence that they possess future-oriented mental states, that they are capable of desire beyond simply “FOOD - HERE- NOW”, then we should assume from the available evidence that we’re the only such species. IMHO, it’s a threshold issue, not one of scale. So if dolphins or dogs or apes could be demonstrated to rise to the level of intelligence where they were conscious of their own death, and thus had future-oriented mental states, hopes, plans, etc., then we could easily extend them the same protection. We can deal with that if it happens. But that doesn’t have any impact on our relationship with 99.99999999999999% of the species on this planet who are demonstrably unintelligent.
Then, as Garth said to Wayne, “Party on!!!” If it’s just our plaything, and we have no responsibilites to anything at all, then I say live it up. What great freedom that would bring. I think we basically have that, so we should enjoy that. Why should a single human being’s self-actualization be frustrated to preserve some endangered insect species? The value of such a species is only in what it might do for us. Just look at the way environmentalists phrase their arguments, their main fear is that some plant or insect might be useful to humans later and that we’re screwing ourselves by killing it off. That doesn’t make the plant or insect valuable intrinsically, it only recognizes the fact that animals and plants derive their value from their relationship with humans.
All animals are great at killing each other. It’s not always direct, but all animals live in populations in which there is a finite amount of resources. The carrying capacity of any environment for any one species is limited. So animals are always either killing each other off through direct predator activity, or simply by using up resources.
In fact, humans have probably had to do LESS of that than the lower animals have. Technology allows humans to artificially increase the carrying capacity of their environment to support more humans. Technology turns a resource supply that might have supported X number of primitive people into a supply that can and does support exponentially more. So whereas animal populations would have to have either mass starvations, radical alterations to predator/prey ratios, or direct warfare over resources, we have been able to put off such conflicts on any larger scale.
And nothing we invent is likely to surpass nature’s own killing ability. How many native Americans died, through no artifice but merely natural diseases, when the Europeans landed here? I don’t have the numbers handy, but I’m guessing it dwarfs Hitler and Pol Pot combined, and may even exceed all that Stalin could muster. Nature itself is the greatest killing machine in existence.
I think there is a huge difference in taking something on the authority of well… a central authority that everyone follows and interperets vs. taking something on the authority of a social system based on subjecting claims to constant criticism and seeing what survives the weight of argument and constant search for more evidence. You might not know much about the evidence for evolution, but you might know about the social system that produced it and approved of it as knowledge.
There is a big difference from fundamentalist principle (some singluar authority knows and tells the truth, and you simply believe it on trust) and the liberal science principle (no one is a final or special authority, and all knowledge is the result of constant and ongoing criticism, skepticism, and a process of constant checking), and a big difference from thinking the latter process is much more likely to produce truth than the former.
There is one problem with your theory:
Your “I never knew HE was an atheist!” tract talks about Katherine Heburn in the past tense. I believe Hepbrun is still alive and thus use this one tiny flaw to completely dismiss all of your work.
SDMB
I gave the kiddies a playground here.
"Name a single good thing humans have done. "
TVAA: You’re too inteligent to be spewing that sort of stuff. I’m going to assume you were joking.