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

[Minimalist]

Yeah...but that one is a doozy.


Besides, it was Dig who wrote that, not me.

[Digit]

For conceptual simplicity and intuitive (near) self-evidence, Creation (minus the -ism) certainly requires the least number of moving parts and suppositions (= 1).

I take it that that is not meant as a serious point?
As I pointed out, no one has yet mounted a serious challenge to Darwinism, nor general relativity nor any of the other bases of modern science and I am puzzled as to why so much attention and energy is wasted in snip at Darwinism without any attempts to show an alternative.
Min. If the genetic change that resulted in Eurasion people changing their skin colour from the (presumed) black to something lighter occurred 'cos they were living is les sunny climes then it is necessary for someone to explain the mecanism that does not involve ramdom changes.

Roy.

[uniface]

It was put forth seriously, Digit.

From the perspective inside the attic-like accumulation of all sorts of ideas the field's accumulated by now, it probably looks untoward. But notice, please : as with descrying the very possibility of people here before Clovis, it is the amalgamation of beliefs that are the point of reference in disputing its plausibility -- not the idea itself, or the evidence germane to it. A procrustian bed is set up and, if something comes along that doesn't fit it, so much the worse for the new evidence. The bed is invested with implicit trust ; new data regarded with suspicion and only credited if it "validates" it.

Even with the "punctuated equalibrium" cop-out granted for the sake of argument, there simply are no "transitional forms" in the fossil record. New species appear suddenly and full-blown, like Zeus from the head of Minerva. Granted, with contradictory evidence suppressed or rationalized away, the picture can be massaged into conformity with the notion of human evolution. But only at the cost of trashing and ignoring discoveries like Victoria's (and many more before it), which refute the notion of evolution in intelligence.

Once a certain level of technology is reached, the creation of new life forms from pre-existing ones is (as with your sea urchin) feasible and (congruent with the appearance of previous new species in the fossil record) instantaneous. We are watching the process involved (albeit at second hand) almost daily. Recognising the probable connection is no more difficult than, by switching perspective, seeing the nose in front of one's face.

It then devolves on the impossibility of coming to an adequate conception of an intelligence superior to our own. At the risk of being tentitious, our situation here is that of the ants in Idries Shah's tale : "We have one sting. But God has two !" The ein soph -- the utterly incomprehensible -- is, by definition, utterly incomprehensible. Arguments from incomprehensibility (including "unliklihood," conceptual "leaps of faith" and the rest of them) are as predictable as they are, in this model, irrelevant.

We cannot imagine an intelligence (sentient as we understand sentience or not) that could have made us what we are today, but we can observe gradation in intelligence. Given that our cats are more intelligent than the bugs they play with, and that we have a greater capacity than our cats do, if there did turn out to be a more advanced life form than us, this would not come as a surprise to anyone being, as I see it, honest.

From here, given that the Air Force has been chasing "foo fighters-slash-UFOs" for longer than I've been here -- devices that run rings around them -- how unlikely is it that we may not be the Crown of Creation after all ?

For simplicity and congruence with what is observed, some variety of "creationism" is the most rational (from ratio : keeping everything in proportion) supposition in play.

IMHO (for whatever this may be worth -- assuming anything) we were, literally, released into the wild. Even granting EP's excoriation of Sitchin's translations as unduly imaginative and gramatically unfounded, the basic account is . . . well, basic. As in all but universal. You can shoot the Sumerian version of it full of holes, but it confronts you from a plethora of other sources. There is always a higher intelligence involved in our origin.

Because (comfortably congruent with Darwinian gradualism in the increase in intelligence) our ancestors were too stuuupid to imagine anything else ? Or because we are too invested in the inherited hobby-horse to quit riding it without a fight ?

[Minimalist]

The Creationists pursue a false dichotomy, Dig. They think that all they have to do is poke imaginary holes in the ToE and by default the answer will be their fairy tale. Lately on my atheism boards I've taken to issuing a challenge wherein I stipulate that the ToE has been disproved and invite them to produce all their evidence that all life began 6,000 years ago in the Middle East. So far...not one has picked up the gauntlet.

The skin color thing just drives me nuts. The old observation that Egyptian wall paintings showing Nubians and Egyptians living side by side on opposite sides of the border always comes into play. Could the sun have been THAT much stronger on the Nubian side? And what about people living in the Congo Basin? Sure, it would have been hot and muggy but sunlight penetrates the trees with difficulty and dark skin is no benefit to hot/muggy conditions.

It's too early in the morning for me to wrap my head around this one again. Let me finish my coffee.

[Minimalist]

Assuming the supernatural to be rational is never the most rational, answer Uni.


"Goddidit" is, however, the easiest solution.

[Digit]

simply are no "transitional forms"

Please re check that assertion as it is out of date, so where does that leave the rest of your argument?

Roy

[Ishtar]

Min ... I'm wondering why "God didn't do it" is more rational that "God did it", when there is not a scintilla of evidence either way? None. Zilch. Nada. (By 'God', I mean a Supreme Intelligence and not the old jealous Jehovah).

Uniface .. I agree with much of what you say, but there's just one thing I'd like to question: Why do think cats are more intelligent than bugs? How do you know what or how a bug thinks .. and come to that, a cat? Possibly the cat can do more than the bug. But isn't intelligence about being able to live within your own environment successfully and sustainably, and who's to say whether a cat does that better than a bug, or vice versa? (Certainly modern man hasn't been able to achieve it yet! And possibly the reason that we can't find HE's boats was because he did. )

[Minimalist]

Because you would first have to convince me that "god" is something more than the personification of human fear, weakness and ignorance, Ish.

And you've never been able to do that.

[Digit]

Pale skin Min is the result of the loss of a gene that produces dark colouration rather that gaining one as such.
If we agree that mutations are random, or even if caused by outside forces, (radiation?) it could have existed in dark skinned individuals but not spread do its dis advantages in tropical environments. Equally it may have occurred amongst Eurasians whilst in Eurasia, at which point NS would have worked to promote it as opposed to working to eliminate it as in the tropics.
Central African people have lived in Europe for more than 2 thousand years with no record of climatic conditions causing a colour change. Likewise there is no evidences of generations of Europeans turning black in the tropics.
The only method by which environmental factors could change the genome would be by exposure to toxins of some kind, otherwise they appear to be random.

Roy.

[JSteen]

Min, where are some good atheism boards, I'd like to check them out - thx.

Uniface, there is so much time for inteligence to have evolved why doubt it? We could have been as smart as now 300K years ago or even smarter and still have plenty of time for our intelligence to have evolved before that. The amount of time is so vast. We could go back a million and a half years and still have time for our present-day intelligence to have evolved by then.

[Digit]

Yep! But unfortunately we can't tell from a bag of bones.

Roy.

[uniface]

Uniface, there is so much time for inteligence to have evolved why doubt it? We could have been as smart as now 300K years ago or even smarter and still have plenty of time for our intelligence to have evolved before that. The amount of time is so vast. We could go back a million and a half years and still have time for our present-day intelligence to have evolved by then.

Then why is Victoria such a leper to them ?

[Minimalist]

Min, where are some good atheism boards, I'd like to check them out - thx.

http://www.atheistforums.com/


http://atheistforums.org/


http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/ ... tion=forum


http://www.angryatheism.org/


There is also Richard Dawkins.net but I confess to giving up on that one because the traffic level was such that I simply could not keep up.

[Ishtar]

Because you would first have to convince me that "god" is something more than the personification of human fear, weakness and ignorance, Ish.

And you've never been able to do that.

Yeah .... I'm not much interested in doing that.

But your statement is just a personal opinion, Min, which doesn't answer my question.

My question was: "I'm wondering why "God didn't do it" is more rational that "God did it", when there is not a scintilla of evidence either way?"

You haven't given any rationale other than just your opinion based on your life experiences, which you're entitled to do. But it's not any more rational (or irrational) to the opposite opinion, as there is absolutely nothing to base either on. For instance, I've met some pretty weak and ignorant atheists in my time (present company excepted!)

In other words, you're more than entitled to your own opinion, but deluded if you flatter yourself that your opinion, based on your life experiences, is more rational (and therefore has more value) than someone else's opinion based on their life experiences.

[Ishtar]

Uniface, there is so much time for inteligence to have evolved why doubt it? We could have been as smart as now 300K years ago or even smarter and still have plenty of time for our intelligence to have evolved before that. The amount of time is so vast. We could go back a million and a half years and still have time for our present-day intelligence to have evolved by then.

Then why is Victoria such a leper to them ?

Uniface, her name isn't Victoria. It's Virginia. Virginia Steen-McIntyre.

J Steen, intelligence may well have evolved over time, but you're missing the point. There is NO EVIDENCE that intelligence has evolved, and yet anthropology and genetics have based their work on the understanding that it has. So at the very least, it's not very scientific to base your conclusions on unproven assumptions for which there is NO EVIDENCE and also to withhold conflicting data in order to appear unchallenged. Thus Uniface's doubt shows the objective, healthy questioning mind of a scientist, and your assumptions are just that ... assumptions.