RE: Evolution of Man
ORIGINAL: Soapy Sam
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.
It's a part of the nature of a net forum that one can't go too deeply. That takes a book or journal paper. So at the end of the day one is left with quoting links or advised reading. (And the other probably doesn't take them up.) So in a sense it comes down to chat and opinion. All the same, if you were to read Cremo's "Forbidden Archeology" you'd get some sense for the kind of dishonesty (though it may sometimes be unconscious knee-jerk reactions) those who 'scientifically' delve into the past are prone to.
Put simply, they distort conclusions and mis-report findings to push them into slots though they do not fit - the slots being pre-existing theories.
Most branches of science are prone to this, but I feel archeologists and paleontologists are worst of all. I wouldn't really call their practice a science.
I never saw any fossil evidence for a soul.
That's a nice literary touch, Sam 😀 since readers will go "Yes, that's true, no fossils prove a soul exists." Well, of course not. Different fields. Like saying you never saw a worm teach maths. It's true but meaningless.
By 'soul' I was using the archetypal philosophical word for any kind of non-physical 'self'. If the self is actually non-physical, and the body/brain just a vehicle the self inhabits (as posited by philosophers, scientists and psychologists) then there may be ways of proving its existence but that would be in the here-and-now.
I'd say the argument should be turned on its head perhaps. Those who say the brain is the self should show us where in the brain the 'self' is. We know basically what the various parts of the brain do. No self. Not even a practical explanation for where memory is or how it cold be stored in the brain either. So if we are not the brain, the fossil record doesn't necessarily show us how "we" evolved.
Next: huge gaps in the fossil record. There is simply no smooth flow demonstrating evolution from one hominid to another and through to ourselves. Evolution as a means through which all species appeared is mere theory.
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.
This to me is not science-speak. It's imposing wilful strength of opinion. (Not being personal here, but trying to deconstruct in a logical manner your discourse.)
Yes, we all know that evolution is pushed at us in the present age and we all know that to disagree invites cat-calls of "woo-woo!" But I like the words of Einstein, that knowledge is from experience; what we are told is just information. Evolution as an explantion for all life is only something we are told. As an all-encompassing idea it could be superceded even tomorrow. We don't KNOW it as we haven't seen it.
Humans evolved. Human brains evolved. These are facts.
Scientifically even they are not "facts". They are informed and possibly true theories which many adhere to, not all. I'd say the truth could be a combination of evolution, with some devolution at times, and added factors on top such as the shaping forces upon the material world of the non-material.
(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.)
Scientists in England are even now researching the out-of-body experiences of those who survived heart attacks. Apparently they are a good population to study as around 10% have OOBEs (though few spontaneously talk of it) and they are in hospita
RE: Evolution of Man
Hi David,
Very good counter-argument. You and Sam are both right.
Love,
Patsy.
xxxxxx
RE: Evolution of Man
Well no, we can't both be right and disagree at the same time.
We agree about some things. I agree that an internet board is more a place for expressing conclusions than stacks of data. But David's conclusions and mine are based on having studied very different data in real life.
I don't know Cremo's book, but I will look for it. On the general nature of scientists all I can say is that they are human. They make mistakes, indulge friends, feud with rivals like everyone else. Some of them are wilful liars. The nature of science though is that peer review eventually tends to find them out. That system is far from perfect, but to paraphrase Churchill on Democracy, "It's better than the others".
Also, scientists are not necessarily clever or original. Some are, most are not. Just like plumbers , doctors or anyone else. Yes, new finds will tend to be slotted into an existing framework, sometimes filling in a missing detail. Sometimes this causes that framework to bend. Eventually someone points out that it no longer holds and a new synthesis emerges. That has happened repeatedly in hominid palaeontology (and in archeology) in the last 200 years. I don't see how anyone interested could have missed that.
David says if "We"are not the brain , then fossil evidence does not show how we evolved.
We certainly agree on that. Palaeontology is the study of dead organisms. Given that we can't find the specific seat of consciousness in living brains, we are not likely to do so in a mud filled brain cast. Paleaeontologists would be wasting their time searching for it. It's futile to criticise them for not doing so.
(Edit to add- I suspect neuroscientists are unlikely to find a single seat either. They don't expect to. They would be hard pressed to say where in a computer the symbol manipulation happens. It's a distributed process.)
Now the old chestnut of smooth fossil transitions- How smooth would it have to be , David, before you accepted it?
Let me make an analogy with genealogy- currently a popular pastime.
If you have the family bible containing the birth and death dates of your great great great grandparents and you have photos of your great grandparents and memories of your grandparents and parents, it seems there is a gap in the family record. There are two possibilities-
1) Your great great grandparents left no known records. Such may exist if you search long and hard enough, but they may have been destroyed.
2) Of all the people on Earth, you did not , ever, have great great grandparents. You skipped an entire generation. You are unique.
Now, genealogists know that odd things happen in families. Children of unmarried daughters for example may be recorded as younger siblings. Stuff like that went on , and does so still. We need no mystical explanation of gaps in records.
Terrestrial animals leave few fossil remains. There never will, or can be a complete fossil record. We have virtually no fossils of chimps for example. Because nobody is looking and they are scarce to start with.
David, we also agree that my statement about evolution is not "science speak" (whatever that is). It's a statement of fact. If you want the contents of a life's reading and study on the subject I will supply it. It will take you about thirty years to get through, as it has me. But come on- look around you. Talk to a vet, a doctor , a biochemist if you don't believe palaeontologists. All life is similar. Questioning the fact of evolution is like questioning the fact of gravity.' That battle was lost long ago. Give it up.
I don't know what you mean by "devolution" in this sense. maybe you'll explain that?
We agree that evolution is a "physical" mechanism, but I disagree that it would be overturned by any non-physical discovery. Why would it?
As I said before, the fossil evidence is of physical change in physical objects. (Bodies). That requires no non-physical process, but says nothing about whether such processes may also exist. The beauty of natural selection is that as an explan
RE: Evolution of Man
Hi Sam,
I might have read the whole posts wrongly, but from what I can see, both you and David agree with the concepts of evolution - it is the perchance of the spirit's existence, and the coming at that from different viewpoints. There is no fossil record of the evolution of the spirit, and this would border on the philosophical rather than the scientific, imo.
Good points and arguments all round.
Love,
Patsy.
[&:]
RE: Evolution of Man
Hi all,
being only a believer in evolution, and by no means in the same league as Sam, I can't comment on the arguement between David and Sam; however as a long term observer of the higher animals and a believer in extra-terrestrial intelligent life, I would find the assumption that man is the sole product of evolution (of any kind) to a sentient state, very ego-centric and possibly limiting.
My dog 'thinks'; is self aware; is able to perform 90% of all the human functions (not to mention those senses in which he far excels us). Evolution, in my belief, found in the humaniod's hands and upright gait, the means to attach an accelerated line of advantageous development, that has lead to our species's dominance. The dog, for example, has neither hands, nor an upright gait, and it looks as if it never will.
No doubt, if we should ever manage to destroy our own species, then in the millenia that follows, some other, at present 'dumb', creature, would climb the evolutionary ladder; whether gradually or spasmodically, I do not know; but to my mind every higher order creature, has the potential, given the pressure, to become dominant.
If this concept is anathema to some, seeming to tread on the 'soul' toes, then I offer that it is just as ego-centric to think that only man has been given the benefit of the soul (assuming for the moment Sam, that there is a soul, independent from the state of self awareness).
Are we to say that 'Little Green Man' if and when he/she/it, comes knocking on our door, is to be accorded the privilges of the super intelligent, but pitied as bereft of soul and somehow NOT 'God's creature, like us'. Not in my Universe, but, that's just MHO.
Leo