Calico Site (California, +/- 200K Ago)

[Minimalist]

So I won't be coming to you for any 'flu remedies, Min!

Smart...since everyone here is sick.

Damned if I'm going out in public looking for "cock" though. That can get you shot here in Red Neck Land.

[Minimalist]

As I have stated, probably too often, i was an engineer.

Then, can you imagine engineering a boat without being able to talk to your crew? Just grunts and pointing?

[Digit]

I have shown very clearly where this kind of thinking comes from ... false axioms created by pseudo-Darwinism.

So I ask how a known faculty is quantified and I've been brain washed?
Measurment in its various forms is the basis of all science!

Roy.

[uniface]

Easy, friends.

A friend (a Berkely PhD type who does something or other with information systems in a quantum mechanics context) convinvced me years ago that Science (capital "S") pretty much stops with physics and math type stuff. It's utterly incapable of dealing with life, because nothing in life can be defined, quantified or replicated. Biology and Medicine use bits and pieces of it but are not, and cannot be, fields of scientific endeavor. By the time you get to archaeology, psychology, history and so on, it's worse than a joke. It would be better if the squishy stuff stopped pretending to be science at all, and just got on with it in terms that made sense to it.

[Minimalist]

You know, Uni, I always use the terms hard science and soft science but "Squishy stuff" works for me, too.

[uniface]

A cut-&-paste from the webpage cited above germane to the discussion :

For scientists to do other than regard Homo erectus as an ape-man would be too great a departure from the simplistic notion that everything, including human cognition, evolves gradually over time. The idea that human cognitive ability evolves gradually comes straight from Darwin's 1859 proclamation that each mental capability will be shown to have been necessarily acquired by "gradation" (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859, page 488; a pivotal quotation in The Graphics of Bilzingsleben). Why would any scientifically-educated person question that statement? This is the whole point, they can't.

[Minimalist]

Check out NOVA.

They start with HE. 2 million years ago and with a few minor differences, they call it "us."

This could be good. Sure as hell will piss off the Creationists.

[Rokcet Scientist]

NOVA who?

[Minimalist]

Public Broadcasting's show.

I sent you a link

[Rokcet Scientist]

No link arrived...

[Minimalist]

Its in the Tonight On Nova Thread.

[dannan14]

Great. Now i have to remember to look for the third part next week. That was a good program. It seemed to cover all the bases.

[Rokcet Scientist]

I wouldn't know...

[hardaker]

I did not see the NOVA series, and I have a feeling they did not include this guy. Thoroughly pisses of the anthro folks who are fighting saying, "better tools made better brains" vs "better brains made better tools." For Cunane, it was out of the trees and onto the beach (or into the water). The fat in human babies, and its absence in Apes, is for me just one more intriguing piece of evidence that perhaps there's something to the aquatic ape theory. Of course, having been a surfer and water lover, I'm probably biased. But what an enjoyable "other" approach. If I knew anything about chemistry etc maybe I would know better, but not being afraid of the water would have its advantages. Bodysurfing for one.

**************************

"Survival of the fattest: the key to human brain evolution"

[Article in French]

Cunnane SC.

Centre de recherche sur le vieillissement, Département de médecine, physiologie et biophysiques, Faculté de médecine et sciences de la santé, Université de Sherbrooke, 1036, Belvédère Sud, Sherbrooke, Québec, J1H 4C4, Canada. stephen.cunnane@usherbrooke.ca

The circumstances of human brain evolution are of central importance to accounting for human origins, yet are still poorly understood. Human evolution is usually portrayed as having occurred in a hot, dry climate in East Africa where the earliest human ancestors became bipedal and evolved tool-making skills and language while struggling to survive in a wooded or savannah environment. At least three points need to be recognised when constructing concepts of human brain evolution : (1) The human brain cannot develop normally without a reliable supply of several nutrients, notably docosahexaenoic acid, iodine and iron. (2) At term, the human fetus has about 13 % of body weight as fat, a key form of energy insurance supporting brain development that is not found in other primates. (3) The genome of humans and chimpanzees is <1 % different, so if they both evolved in essentially the same habitat, how did the human brain become so much larger, and how was its present-day nutritional vulnerability circumvented during 5-6 million years of hominid evolution ? The abundant presence of fish bones and shellfish remains in many African hominid fossil sites dating to 2 million years ago implies human ancestors commonly inhabited the shores, but this point is usually overlooked in conceptualizing how the human brain evolved. Shellfish, fish and shore-based animals and plants are the richest dietary sources of the key nutrients needed by the brain. Whether on the shores of lakes, marshes, rivers or the sea, the consumption of most shore-based foods requires no specialized skills or tools. The presence of key brain nutrients and a rich energy supply in shore-based foods would have provided the essential metabolic and nutritional support needed to gradually expand the hominid brain. Abundant availability of these foods also provided the time needed to develop and refine proto-human attributes that subsequently formed the basis of language, culture, tool making and hunting. The presence of body fat in human babies appears to be the product of a long period of sedentary, shore-based existence by the line of hominids destined to become humans, and became the unique solution to insuring a back-up fuel supply for the expanding hominid brain. Hence, survival of the fattest (babies) was the key to human brain evolution.

PMID: 16828044 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Ishtar]

I have shown very clearly where this kind of thinking comes from ... false axioms created by pseudo-Darwinism.

So I ask how a known faculty is quantified and I've been brain washed?
Measurment in its various forms is the basis of all science!

Roy.

Roy, I want you to prove to me that the sky was blue 2 million years ago.

Otherwise, why should I believe you?

And while you're at it, you should prove to me that water was wet 2 million years ago, and that fire was hot.

Because according to the theory of evolution, fire should have started out cold and got gradually hotter and hotter over time. And water should have started out as dry as a bone, and gradually got wetter and wetter over time.

It stands to reason! It's scientific!

And after all, measurement in its various forms is the basis of all science!