http://m.pnas.org/content/104/50/19751.full
https://www.ideapod.com/idea/The-Evidentiary-Proof-Humanity-is-a-Biologically-and-Genetically-Brain-Birth-Defective-Species/58f6a211fe3a59f26568c688
Just one example listed is overimitation, how children copies unnecessary steps while chimps did not. The middle post also lists other points for that case. Is this proof of anything?
Although when I tried to call him out on the errors all my posts were deleted.
I’m not gonna waste my time on your links. But to address your question, what are you claiming to be the purpose of humans that they aren’t doing?
Yup, we’re defective.
Next thread.
The middle link pretty much sums it all up. Other forums have taken time to look at the links, that’s the reason for them being posted. If you aren’t going to at least look them over then don’t comment.
So you agree with what the middle link is saying then? Or is this sarcasm?
You didn’t even comment on them. SDMB doesn’t like linkdumps followed by “What do you think?”
If you’re not even going to bother to give us a synopsis of them, we’re not even going to consider your question.
It’s pretty hard to come up with an objective definition of “defective”: creatures, humans included, are what they are because of what their ancestors were and what worked (however clumsily) for survival and propagation at the time. People born with stunted or misshapen hands for example learn to do what they can with them and are often surprisingly dexterous; if everyone was like that, we might not know the difference.
It’s fair to say however that humans are in evolutionary terms a fairly new design, one which “works” within certain parameters but doubtless has numerous compromises and improvisations. You can only speak of humans as “defective” if you could postulate something that does everything a human can only better.
Dude.
If you don’t summarize them, I ain’t reading them. Not with your track record.
Bottom line: Evolutionarily, Humans have to live long enough to to be able to fuck and have kids. We have clearly done that successfully up to today. Is that defective?
I got this far in the second link and gave up, as the author is clearly spouting bullshit:
Anytime someone capitalizes “Truth” you know that little of what they write is worthwhile.
Yet another of Machinaforce’s “Hatred of Humanity” threads. What else is new?
The first and last links are related to legitimate research about human cognition. The middle one appears to be the inane musings of a self important blowhard pseudoscientist who would be laughed out of any legitimate peer-reviewed publications and so spouts his nonsense on “Idea Pod.”
As to the first and last if you want to call the trait a defect you can but chances are the same behavior also has some distinct advantage in enough cases that it balances out to be a net plus. Chimps might skip needless steps more often than humans when imitating someone’s actions but we can learn to drive a car and operate a computer without understanding how they work. Being able to mimic exactly what we see others do without considering how necessary each step is allows us to navigate a much more complicated world than chimps. But in very specific, artificial situations it can be considered a handicap, sure.
If you’re asking if humans are imperfect the answer is yes.
Human beings do a bunch of shit that doesn’t make any sense.
But that doesn’t mean we are defective. It could just mean that we don’t really understand why we do what we do given our limited understanding of the world. With new information, we may be able to explain why, say, children overimitate.
Chimps get a point for not overimitating. Good for them. But perhaps overimitation is a minor trade-off to having a brain that is so plastic that it can compose symphonies or design skyscrapers. When chimps can demonstrate these abilities, then maybe we can talk about how defective we are relative to them.
So human children often copy unnecessary steps, while chimps don’t, when learning? Also, human children keep learning until they’ve eventually earned graduate degrees, performing surgery or patenting inventions – or putting together intricate psychology experiments involving chimps – or whatever?
Have I got that right? Like, human children, who grew up learning how to do stuff, got to the point where they could put a man on the moon – and by “a man,” I of course mean “somebody who’d started learning stuff as a wee human child, and eventually became a skilled pilot who’d picked up a doctorate,” yeah?
Chimps, with their amazing knack for skipping over stuff that seems unnecessary, top out at a vocabulary that pathetic human children – soon leave in the dust, since they quickly learn more in their imitate-more-thoroughly fashion? That’s the idea?
So OP has posted this in other forums. Isn’t this the definition of spam?
The children did exactly as told, they were not told to figure out a better way to open the box.
Children are generally taught to do exactly as an adult instructs.
The child can go on to learn how to design a space ship, or even invent something that has not yet been learned, the monkey is still using it’s bare had as toilet paper.
Your move.
Nope. We’re VERY good at being human.
Just a few points:
The first and third links were about over imitating. They gave a balanced view about how it’s a cost to the other things it enables.
Here is essentially a summary of the second, just the “key points”:
99+% of the time, the evolutionary process is very slow, it takes many centuries for very small changes to a species, to occur. In a few rare instances, the evolutionary process is very rapid, such as a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. Most humans refer to this as “metamorphosis”, rather than evolution, but it is clearly an evolutionary process.
The significant differences in human brain functionality from all other simians, suggests a birth defect caused a singular simian to divert from the norm, and this singular simian reproduced, passing along his defectiveness to his offspring, who passed it along to their offspring, and on and on, resulting in the formation of a new, different species, which now calls itself the “human being”.
Let’s analyze the radical differences that exist between humans and all other species.
The human being, alone among all other species, has experienced a singularly unique, unmatched and catastrophic, failure to thrive.
Only the human being chooses to end his own existence, via both dynamic and long-term suicide.
Only the human being chooses to suffer and to inflict pain/harm upon himself.
Only the human being hides from reality, pathologically creating and dwelling within fictional illusions of the real world.
Only the human being tries to solve minor problems, while ignoring and pretending that other, much more major and important problems, don’t exist.
Only the human is a pathological addict to substances that are actively harmful to him.
Only the human negates his own Self-value, leaving it to others to control how he feels about Himself.
Only the human consciously chooses to harm and destroy the environment upon which he is dependent for survival.
Only the human directs negative perception of Self, upon himself.
Only the human insists upon continuing to do what has failed over and over in the past.
Only the human chooses slavery over freedom.
These are all profound dysfunctions of behavior and thought, directly originating within the brain. And they are all unmatched by any other creature. Simians DO demonstrate very mild versions of a few of these pathologies, proving the legitimacy of evolution, but at the same time demonstrating the vast gulf between their much more functional brains, and validating the birth defect origins of the human brain.
Some will point out My past writings on the impact of universal child abuse and the fact every human is a tortured victim-creation of EXTERNAL trauma.
Why are humans functioning on a more brain dysfunctional level today, than 10,000 years ago? Because all genetic birth defects are progressive in nature. They get worse over time, as they are passed down from generation to generation.
I challenge you to articulate even ONE primary-level human problem, that humanity has solved over the past 10,000 years. Just ONE, name it! Hunger? Pain? Poverty? Child abuse? Familial violence? Belief in mythologies and supernatural idols? Injustice? Death? Nothing has been solved, nothing! Everything wrong 10,000 years ago, is exactly the same today, only worse. Another beautiful evidentiary proof of the birth defect status of the human brain.
There are three primary levels of brain functionality: Instinct, emotion, and intellect. These three are separate and distinct from each other. Within the human brain, ONLY the human brain, instinct is severely compromised. Natural instinct, for survival, well-being, for freedom, for autonomy.
The human brain, in all of its intellectual glory, can perceive certain realities, such as death, that many other species apparently cannot consciously perceive. But it cannot DEAL with these reality perceptions, it cannot cope with them. That is not NORMAL.
A genetically healthy brain either perceives AND deals with specific realities, or does NOT perceive, and therefore has no need to deal with, specific realities. But to perceive, but not be able to deal, is a dysfunction of brain DESIGN, a genetic defect.
Human children for example, are virtually always operating under the constant fear of being punished or reprimanded for not following the exact instructions of adult members of the species. However, the researchers in the linked paper attempted to prove and are inclined to believe that the ‘over-imitation’ displayed by human children is not a result of social factors and is more likely attributed to a inherent defect in causal learning. That is, the humans incorrectly identify all steps in a demonstrated process as being causally meaningful, even when they are not.
Regardless, I found it interesting to consider especially in relation to the perpetual ‘follower mindset’ that saturates collective human mentality and the inability of the human species to correctly identify and solve problems and to think radically and independently, in favour of ‘following suit’.
The universal manipulation and destruction of the young human mind definitely cannot be discounted, and obviously plays a large role in the overwhelming conformance of humans and in their neediness to be led.
I like in Your essay that You define and comment on evidentiary proof because it is consistently undervalued. Science claims to and at times does strive hard to eliminate any and all bias, but one of the greatest failings of science is that it is conducted by humans and so is already and automatically under a tremendous amount of bias and corruption, much of which the human ‘scientists’ are completely naïve to. Add to this the Fact that science is funded by and ordered to meet the requirements of the government and we have a very sorry picture indeed… “Find what we want you to find, god damn it!”
I can’t accurately summarize any of this without proper context, but these are the key remarks.
Wall 'o Text strikes for 2d12 damage, roll vs. Wis to save.
Each and every one of these assertions is just that, an unproven assertion. I have never chosen slavery over freedom and I suggest I’m not alone.
Meaningless gibberish.