What are we evolving TOWARDS?

[Catalyst]

@leandroc76

I understood that man arrived as early as 2.2 million years ago.

Your own source confirms 200,000 years ago as roughly when Homo sapiens sapiens arose.

2.2 million years to create the Hoover Dam, 2.2 million years to learn to fly, 2.2 million years to build an automobile.

These are not a product of biological evolution

That’s an awfully long time. It should be an insult to all of US humans.

What’s insulting about it?

Something had to have happened in all that time. Something we can’t define.

Who said something wasn’t happening? Exactly what do you think was happening?

There are stories of Atlantis, flying planes and societies not too different of our own. If that is myth, it is more believable than monkey’s directing traffic in 2005.

I’m not sure what this comparison is supposed to mean.

That’s what evolution say’s. That monkeys evolved into humans. (I say monkey as in ape, chimp or whatever)

A relative of modern monkeys and apes. I’m not sure why you find this troubling.

does this make any sense to you?

If you mean evolution, yes. If you mean your argument, no.

Evolutionist OVER estimate the time because they cannot define what happen in between.

Please clarify. Exactly what do you think isn’t being taken into account? What sort of timeline are you suggesting for Earth?

On preview, I see you’ve posted again, so I’ll ask again: Please define this “problem of time” you speak of.

[John_Mace]

@leandroc76

I understood that man arrived as early as 2.2 million years ago.

2.2 million years to create the Hoover Dam, 2.2 million years to learn to fly, 2.2 million years to build an automobile.

That’s an awfully long time. It should be an insult to all of US humans. Something had to have happened in all that time. Something we can’t define.

The genus *Homo *is thought to have emerged about 2.5M years ago. While it’s technically correct to call any member of that genus “human” it doesn’t mean that all members of that genus is the same as “us”, ie, the sepcies H. sapiens.

The species that existed 2.5M years ago DID NOT have the brain power to build a bridge, must less the Hoover damn.

Scientist disagree about exactly when our species, with its full intellectual ability, arrived. Some say 200k years ago, and some say as recently as 75k years ago.

But it was the “invention” of agriculture that allowed civilization to get started, and that didn’t happen until about 10k years ago. Once settled communities came on the scene with a large surplus of food, the sky was the limit as far as how we expand our technological capabilities.

Does that timeframe make things more plausible to you?

There are stories of Atlantis, flying planes and societies not too different of our own. If that is myth, it is more believable than monkey’s directing traffic in 2005. That’s what evolution say’s. That monkeys evolved into humans. (I say monkey as in ape, chimp or whatever)

does this make any sense to you? Evolutionist OVER estimate the time because they cannot define what happen in between.

The key to understanding this is what you brush off as “whatever”. It wasn’t a monkey or a chimp. It was something entirely different, that doesn’t exist anymore. Something that evolved INTO chimps and at the same time evloved into humans.

[leandroc76]

Yes it does, that was a good answer

[Nature_s_Call]

In considering where are we as humans evolving to, I was intrigued by the discussion of the influence of artificial selection. UncleRojelio, butler1850, dropzone, Patty O’Furniture, others

leandroc76 concluded that evolution never applied to human beings.

All of this got me thinking about the distinction between natural selection and artificial selection.

The term “natural” carries with it connotations of “not on purpose”, “not supernatural”, “not man-made.” Artificial, (relating to artifice), means crafted on purpose. It seems odd to use “artificial” to desribe anything an animal may do, or anything that God may do, so really “artificial” means man-made. Natural, then, just means “not man made.”

Look at it this way: If a tiger population moves into a new area, one where it begins feeding on a predator to a species of gazelle with long horns that were visible above the grasses. Eventually the tiger’s predation will select out those gazelles with long horns, leaving a species of gazelles with shorter horns. We would call this natural selection.

Then along comes a human population and paves a road through this area. This will select out species that can’t deal with the presense of asphalt. Would we call this artificial selection just cuz the environmental change was man-made? What if we started fishing only those crabs that didn’t look like samurai? Again, artificial or natural? Does it matter? We are part of nature, like it or not. That road is just as natural as a bird’s nest.

I know that is a bit contrived and contorted, but bear with me. Chronos has argued that medical science has not changed human evolution, just redrawn the environment in which evolution is occurring. As long as medical science exists, we are evolving into a species that depends on medical science.

Further, by killing off all of the bugs and microbes that cause us disease, we are selecting out those that are susceptible to or attacks, leaving to thrive those that aren’t.

See where I’m headed? The introduction of medical science means little in terms of what evolution will or will not do. The circle of life spins on. What are we evolving towards? We’re evolving towards extinction! We will depend more and more on medical science, making us more vulnerable. Medical science will more and more select out anything that’d kill us, evolving a species of something that can and will kill us.

Okay, enough of that. I’m off to play a round of golf.

[coffeecat]

Until someone comes back from the distant future and tells us what’s going on there, this is really an IMHO question–but, hey, I can speculate as well as anyone. Since “more fit” really means “better able to reproduce,” we’re evolving into really horny women who luuurve kids, and men who can talk the legs off a sheep.

[Acsenray]

I don’t see what the “time frame problem” is here. First of all, it seems to me that your problem, whatever it is, has nothing to do with evolution. You are focusing on technological development. Do you see the difference?

Technological advances require specific knowledge and specific resources. And it takes a long time to get those into line. You could never have built the Hoover Dam without advances in agriculture, metallurgy, mining, chemistry, mathematics, transportation, smelting, and all kinds of things.

Why are you so sceptical that it shouldn’t take so long? Have you ever thought about how complicated it is to make bread and cheese? If you, having no knowledge about agriculture or animal husbandry or fire, were given a wild aurochs and a blade of grass, how long do you think it would take for you to figure how how to make a cheese sandwich?

[Balthisar]

Just to throw a wrench into things, there’s not really any evidence that “evolution doesn’t have a goal.” Just because we aren’t that goal (or maybe we are?) doesn’t mean that there’s not one. And before I’m accused of being a wacko, I’ll grant that there’s also no evidence that there is a goal, either. So, maybe the creationists are right, but just wrong about the methodology, while the evolutionists are right, but just wrong about the nature of God.

[Mangetout]

@leandroc76

I’m sorry 20 million years ago.

So your saying it could have been possible that man a few million years ago could have had Sony Playstions? The question never said anything about guns and playstions. It all has to do with time. I like to call it an evolutionary oversight.

Because until we’d invented these things, we didn’t know what they were; it’s not as if it was absolutely necessary for us to have invented them by some point in time.

Why are we taking so damned long to invent the snid? I mean, we should have done it by now, shouldn’t we? - snids should be cheap, reliable and commonplace. What’s a snid, you ask? how can I answer that when nobody has invented it yet. That’s exactly the situation our ancestors found themselves in - there wouldn’t have been any neolithic cave-dwellers sitting around saying “man, this sucks, if only someone would hurry up and invent the bloody PlayStation!” - the concept didn’t exist until it was invented.

We had all of the brain power, resources and dexterity to put a man on the moon back in the Victorian era - what we lacked was the incremental benefit of technology invented by our peers and forebears.

[groman]

I think the basic assumption here is wrong. We are not more intelligent than our fellow apes. We have no reason to believe that we are more intelligent than any other mammal. We don’t really have a firm grasp on what our own intelligence is, we can’t effectively compare individual humans to other individual humans, so any kind of cross-species comparison is meaningless.

We know that fellow apes of different species are a) as evolved as we are since they’ve been living alongside us b) for the most part do not want to or cannot engage in communications in our languages c) for the most part do not construct objects out of other objects, build shelter, etc.

Since we a) are too busy building neat things like building and painting paintings and making musical instruments most of us have never even spent 30 minutes interacting with an ape of a different species b) for the most part do not want to or are unable to engage in communications in whatever languages fellow apes speak c) for the most part do not lead their lifestyle, we are not qualified to compare different species of apes in any generalized fashion.

For all we know all the chimps ever do is write the most beautiful chimp poetry in the history of the chimpanzee nation and eat bananas all day and we’d never know. They get plenty of fresh air and exercise, a cornucopia of fruits, and an occasional exciting chase by a predator. As well as the ability to rear young, play all day and observe the beautiful world around them.

Saying they are less intelligent than us is pretty anthropomorphic, if not offensive and meaningless. If you contend than you are smarter than an average chimp, I’ll contend that the average chimp has a much better life than you do. Both of these statements are equally unverifiable, but emotions (unlike intelligence) are understood across species much easier. And chimps just SEEM happy to me.

[Bookkeeper]

@leandroc76

If alligators, sharks and apes existed back when we were Mr. Ooga Smith why didn’t THEY evolve along side us?

Humans were the apes who weren’t as good as the rest at living in trees and eating fruit, and were forced out into the open plains to adapt or die. The ones who adapted to the new environment and survived were our ancestors, the other apes have elvolved into new, improved apes and are still better than us at living in the trees and eating fruit. (Yes it’s simplistic.)

[Mangetout]

@Balthisar

Just to throw a wrench into things, there’s not really any evidence that “evolution doesn’t have a goal.” Just because we aren’t that goal (or maybe we are?) doesn’t mean that there’s not one. And before I’m accused of being a wacko, I’ll grant that there’s also no evidence that there is a goal, either…

What does Occam’s Razor suggest in this sort of situation?

[leandroc76]

@Bookkeeper

Humans were the apes who weren’t as good as the rest at living in trees and eating fruit, and were forced out into the open plains to adapt or die. The ones who adapted to the new environment and survived were our ancestors, the other apes have elvolved into new, improved apes and are still better than us at living in the trees and eating fruit. (Yes it’s simplistic.)

I understand that. No, really I do.

[Bytegeist]

@Nature's Call

Chronos has argued that medical science has not changed human evolution, just redrawn the environment in which evolution is occurring. As long as medical science exists, we are evolving into a species that depends on medical science.

Further, by killing off all of the bugs and microbes that cause us disease, we are selecting out those that are susceptible to or attacks, leaving to thrive those that aren’t.

Optimists argue that the medical science which (inadvertently, and unfortunately) selects for more vicious pathogens will also conquer those pathogens, given enough time to catch up. Of course many people might die or suffer in the duration, while we’re all scratching our heads, but it’s not like horrible death hasn’t been going on for all of human history anyway.

And so far, medical science been working, for the most part. In modern industrialized countries, the leading causes of death are no longer the smorgasbord of diseases we used to face, like tuberculosis and cholera. Today most western people die from cancer, heart disease caused by bad diets, and accidents — usually separately, not simultaneously. But real medical science has only been around a century or so. Too short to know its true legacy, particularly in our future evolution.

Personally I’m not worried about us being wiped out by a disease, for two reasons: (1) extinction in other species usually seems to happen for almost any other reason, like competition with a rival species, or overspecialization, or a radical change in the climate; and (2) pathogens don’t really have any “incentive” to be vicious, and they don’t tend to stay that way for long. In fact, killing off your host is a bad move, evolutionarily speaking. Much better to infect your host and get him to spread your progeny around to other hosts. Exploit, don’t destroy, in other words.

[glee]

@Balthisar

Just to throw a wrench into things, there’s not really any evidence that “evolution doesn’t have a goal.” Just because we aren’t that goal (or maybe we are?) doesn’t mean that there’s not one. And before I’m accused of being a wacko, I’ll grant that there’s also no evidence that there is a goal, either. So, maybe the creationists are right, but just wrong about the methodology, while the evolutionists are right, but just wrong about the nature of God.

There’s not really any evidence that “I created the Universe last Thursday”. So maybe I’m a God. :eek:
It’s certainly just as likely as creationists being right.

Incidentally, when you say ‘God’, do you mean the one described by:

• Judaism
• Protestant Christianity
• Catholic Christianity
• Buddism
• Sunni Muslim
• Shiite Muslim
• Hinduism
• Egyptian myth
• Roman myth
• Greek myth
• Native American Indian myth
• Scandanavian myth?

[Colibri]

@Balthisar

Just to throw a wrench into things, there’s not really any evidence that “evolution doesn’t have a goal.”

If one had to speculate on the “goal” of evolution, there is a lot more evidence that it is to produce immense numbers of beetle species than it is to produce one single bizarre species of primate.

[Bytegeist]

@groman

I think the basic assumption here is wrong. We are not more intelligent than our fellow apes. We have no reason to believe that we are more intelligent than any other mammal. We don’t really have a firm grasp on what our own intelligence is, we can’t effectively compare individual humans to other individual humans, so any kind of cross-species comparison is meaningless.

Since we a) are too busy building neat things like building and painting paintings and making musical instruments most of us have never even spent 30 minutes interacting with an ape of a different species …

… but some people do spend lots of time on them — scientists, in particular, who study ape behavior. And then they publish books and papers on their findings, so that the rest of us don’t have to quit our jobs to go study apes. That’s what keeps them busy.

I supposed you’d have to pin down what you mean by intelligence. Being able to paint, or play an instrument, or build a house, might not be fair tests for a chimpanzee. But as far as I know, it’s not really controversial that the other apes are less intelligent than us, that they measurably lack mental abilities we indisputably possess. This is not any kind of insult to them. It’s just the way things are.

If anything, we’re the freaks, with our music, art, literature, and math proofs.

@groman

For all we know all the chimps ever do is write the most beautiful chimp poetry in the history of the chimpanzee nation and eat bananas all day and we’d never know.

You’d never know if trees made poetry either. Still, I’m going to assume that they don’t until there’s some concrete evidence that they do.

@groman

Saying they are less intelligent than us is pretty anthropomorphic, if not offensive and meaningless.

I really just don’t see how it’s either offensive or meaningless. Perhaps it’s the word “intelligent” that bothers you, as when we call a person less intelligent, and it’s normally an unkind remark. So can we say the chimps lack sapience, then? Without implying that makes them less worthy of life?

If you contend than you are smarter than an average chimp, I’ll contend that the average chimp has a much better life than you do.

You’ll get much less argument from me on that point.

[Cervaise]

@leandroc76

I/we believe the earths time table is NOT as long as YOU think.

I believe you don’t have a basic grasp of the facts necessary to draw such a ridiculous conclusion.

@Colibri

If one had to speculate on the “goal” of evolution, there is a lot more evidence that it is to produce immense numbers of beetle species than it is to produce one single bizarre species of primate.

I go with the ants, myself.

[Blake]

And I for one welcome our insect overlords.

[John_Mace]

@groman

I think the basic assumption here is wrong. We are not more intelligent than our fellow apes. We have no reason to believe that we are more intelligent than any other mammal. We don’t really have a firm grasp on what our own intelligence is, we can’t effectively compare individual humans to other individual humans, so any kind of cross-species comparison is meaningless.

We know that fellow apes of different species are a) as evolved as we are since they’ve been living alongside us b) for the most part do not want to or cannot engage in communications in our languages c) for the most part do not construct objects out of other objects, build shelter, etc.

Since we a) are too busy building neat things like building and painting paintings and making musical instruments most of us have never even spent 30 minutes interacting with an ape of a different species b) for the most part do not want to or are unable to engage in communications in whatever languages fellow apes speak c) for the most part do not lead their lifestyle, we are not qualified to compare different species of apes in any generalized fashion.

For all we know all the chimps ever do is write the most beautiful chimp poetry in the history of the chimpanzee nation and eat bananas all day and we’d never know. They get plenty of fresh air and exercise, a cornucopia of fruits, and an occasional exciting chase by a predator. As well as the ability to rear young, play all day and observe the beautiful world around them.

Saying they are less intelligent than us is pretty anthropomorphic, if not offensive and meaningless. If you contend than you are smarter than an average chimp, I’ll contend that the average chimp has a much better life than you do. Both of these statements are equally unverifiable, but emotions (unlike intelligence) are understood across species much easier. And chimps just SEEM happy to me.

Now you’ve strayed into fantansy land. There is not one piece of evidence that chimps compose “chimp poetry”.

We are clearly a much more successful species than chimps are. Just count the numbers. If chimps go extinct, it’ll almost certainly will be because of us. Pit 100 humans against 100 chimps, and guess who’ll win?

There may be some mental tasks that chimps are better at than us, but clearly there are more mental tasks that we are better at. That doesn’t make us a “better” species in a moral sense. But there is no question that we are a more successful species by the only measure that matters. At least for now…

[groman]

@John Mace

Now you’ve strayed into fantansy land. There is not one piece of evidence that chimps compose “chimp poetry”.

They’re clearly communicating. We’re clearly unable to understand that communication. It could be poetry, we don’t have any evidence for or against. However, we have very limited idea of how complex the communication is. This gets us back to a philosophical question if a super intelligent being can’t communicate is it any different from a non-intelligent being that can but won’t.

@John Mace

We are clearly a much more successful species than chimps are. Just count the numbers. If chimps go extinct, it’ll almost certainly will be because of us. Pit 100 humans against 100 chimps, and guess who’ll win?

There may be some mental tasks that chimps are better at than us, but clearly there are more mental tasks that we are better at. That doesn’t make us a “better” species in a moral sense. But there is no question that we are a more successful species by the only measure that matters. At least for now…

It’s not “clearly”. We simply don’t know. We do know that a lot of the mental tasks we assign them they do worse at than us. We’re still working from OUR subset of mental tasks that WE invented, is it any wonder that WE are better at them anybody else? All we can say is that chimps are about as well adapted to our lifestyle and environment as we are to theirs. Doesn’t tell us much.