RE: Evolution of Man
I feel there's still a lot more to this subject than meets the eye, and what we think we "know" we do in fact only know because it's information that's passed through various filters. From my experience of 'scientists' they aren't necessarily out to score points over other scientists. If they have theories or evidence that would put them so far out on a limb from the mainstream, no matter how wrong their evidence may show the meanstream to be, they'll usually toe the line and keep their careers.
'Human Devolution' by Michael Cremo is one book with a collection of evidence toward the concept that the most primitive state archeological evidence demonstrates man was once in doesn't demonstrate man evolving, but rather a long period of devolution which bottomed out.
Of course this goes totally against what we "know" - but then we only "know" because we've been told this or that, right? Cremo appears to be just looking at the factual evidence, and this he feels is what it demonstrates. He also does hands-on research, going to the sites, so he has more credibility than many University-office professors.
Venetian
RE: Evolution of Man
Yes, echo Leo here Sam.
Commonsense wins every time. Gxxx
RE: Evolution of Man
The thing about "science" and "scientific discussion" as it is at the present time is that generally "science" doesn't get to grips with this thing called consciousness in an honest way. Psychologists who specialise in the study of the brain, the mind, or the mind-brain connection are generally agreeing today that consciousness is not the product of the brain, and the "self" cannot be located within the brain. To reductionist science consciousness and the self is either a genuine mystery or is explained away unscientifically a la Skinner.
This is all relevant to our ideas about evolution and the origins of man. If we believe the evolutionary theory of man wholeheartedly, then it's a materialistic belief system whereby the brain evolved and "produced" us, as thinking beings. There's nothing such as an invisible soul in that, for example, and arguably no God perhaps. But more fundamentally it doesn't fit the seeming fact that the self actually isn't the product of the brain and little evidence indicates that it could be. (I call the brain "qualified meat". :D)
It's a kind of long-term con-trick if you will that "we are the brain", given that this doesn't stem from the facts from study of the brain. We know what the different parts of the brain do, and they are sophisticated but chemical-mechanical. The areas of the brain really appear to be "receiving stations" like a biological radio whereby directions from other-where are received and lead to physical movement, and so forth. We control the body through the brain. It's an equivalent mystery to that of the heart-beat: science also shies away from discussing that it cannot explain where the impuse comes from to make the heart beat - again it comes from other-where.
Taking this broader view, evolution as an explanation for the origins of man is questionable from step 1. If consciousness doesn't evolve from primeval sludge, through ants and mice into human brains that "think", and consciousness is the real essence of what we are, then we need to look elsewhere and in other ways for our origins. Material science generally refuses to do this so far because it doesn't have the tools to do so. So it pretends there isn't a non-physical element to all this.
From www.humandevolution.com :-
Forbidden Archeology documented a massive amount of evidence showing that humans have existed on
earth for hundreds of millions of years. Such anomalous evidence, contradicting Darwinian evolution,
catalyzed a global inquiry, "If we did not evolve from apes, then where did we come from?" Human
Devolution is author Michael A. Cremo's definitive answer to this question.
"We did not evolve up from matter; instead we devolved, or came down, from the realm of pure
consciousness, spirit," says Cremo. He bases his response on modern science and the world's
great wisdom traditions, including the Vedic philosophy of ancient India. Cremo proposes that
before we ask the question, "Where did human beings come from? we should first contemplate,
"What is a human being?" Cremo asserts that humans are a combination of matter, mind, and
consciousness (or spirit).
Human Devolution contains solid scientific evidence showing how a subtle mind element and a
conscious self that can exist apart from the body have been systematically eliminated from
mainstream science by a process of knowledge filtration.
--------------------
What continent we "came from" or how long back civilisation can be traced are questions which seem to have answers changing - certainly on the age of civilisation - every half-dozen years. It's logical therefore, seems to me anyway, to expect the margins will continue to get pushed back, and that we really just don't know the real answers so far.
RE: Evolution of Man
Dunno about science or scientific discussion. The important thing is the evidence. People actually do spend large chunks of their lives hunting for fossil evidence, putting the bones in the geological and paleoclimatic context, dating the finds, comparing them with other finds and arguing and arguing with their colleagues and rivals.
I never saw any fossil evidence for a soul. Whether they exist or not is (to me) irrelevant to the question of organic evolution. Every creature on this planet is the result of evolution. If anyone out there is so totally , wilfully blind as to deny that, I think he is beyond the stage of rational doubt and far into simple denial.
Humans evolved. Human brains evolved. These are facts. Whether human minds evolved is not proven, but is strongly implied , by the proven evolution of the brain. (It is certainly my experience that minds occur only where there are also brains. This may have been different in the past, but until I see some support for that, I shall continue to suppose otherwise.)
There is (so far as I can see), no supporting evidence whatsoever for the existence of souls, now or in the past. I do not see how such evidence can be derived from fossil remains.
I wonder what, if any, difference a believer in souls would expect to find in human fossils as opposed to "nonhuman hominoid / anthropoid"? (This debate, you will remember, was carried on between Huxley and Owen for decades, with Owen's claims becoming sillier at each stage, and being consistently shown to be anatomically wrong. And most hominid fossils have been found since that debate. None of them supports Owen's position.
The establishment of mid-Victorian Britain was initially opposed to the idea of evolution- especially human evolution. Scientific radicals DID question approved orthodoxy and the evidence, over and over again, proved them right. It still does. That the Victorians then equated the idea of evolution with their views of upward progress and racial superiority was a sad irony- the sort of thing that happens when socio-political ideas are imposed on scientific fact. At one end of that spectrum is belief in fairies and at the other is belief in Übermenschen. Both equally deluded.
There may well be souls. Perhaps they also evolve. Or perhaps they do not exist save in our imagination. (The fact our imagination can conceive of such is truly wonderful. We need no fairy stories to stir our wonder, reality is quite wonderful enough). But souls have nothing at all to do with fossils.
RE: Evolution of Man
Hi Sam,
Yes, every living creature on the planet today evolved from the primeval creatures of the past, via their own branch roots. I would also agree that palaeontologists NEVER destroy fossils if they can help it. I have had many a lively argument over fossils, and long may it continue! No man ever came into contact with a dinosaur.
Sam, this socio-political thing about evolution and some regarding others as 'sub species' is still sadly prevalent. I have recently returned from Egypt, where part of my trip involved the study of the Nile geology. Two nasty women who were winding up the locals, said to me, 'They don't understand irony, do they?' 'They' were regarded in this context as though Egyptians are some sort of sub-human species. Like you say, some people need to check their facts before they come out with things like that.
Love,
Patsy.
[&:]