Human Intelligence

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All terms are human; does anything exist at all? If a tree falls in the forest.... does it make a sound? To pursue this, we would need to start a topic about Clinton-speak (...that depends on what the word "is" is....)

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What humans call an accident is something that goes against what a human would predict. Sometimes "accident" is related to a mistake, such as a car accident. In nature, the closest thing to "accident" that you get is a statistically random phenomenom, which applies to mutational events. However, those mutations are then selected for, which is not an accident with respect to random distributions. Selection causes non-random distributions, the opposite of accident.

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You are so right. But what caused the cause? And the cause before that? Maybe we're asking "where did it all begin?" Where did the energy orignate that caused the first "thing" to build up speed to "knock" into another "thing"? Maybe we're asking where did the "superatom" come from? Or the energy to make it spin? Or explode? Or where did God come from? Who made God? Where did God get his energy? What is the real purpose of our question here?

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Evolution has nothing to do with origins. For example, we don't time how long it takes a sprinter to get to the starting line, the real race starts at the gun. Evolution's starting gun is the first replicator, thats it.

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If it rained on the rocks for millions of years, then one day lightning struck the ground (or the water, or whatever) and suddenly there was a living microbe, would you consider the living microbe to be the intentional result of a "cause"?

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If indeed the origins of life was a natural event, there would be no intent in causing the first replicator (in your description the result would be a self replicating chemical reaction, according to current theories, not a full microbe). So, I would call it a "result" of a rare occurence. Once you have an imperfect replicator (mutations)and limited resources, however, evolution will occur. Does this answer your question?

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Your frustration seems to lie in fact that you can't explain the origin of evolution while avoiding the requirement of an intelligent presence.

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I freely admit that it could have required the intervention of an intelligent presence, or it could have been due to natural causes. There is little evidence for how life started so I am open to ideas. However, the diversification of species by the mechanisms of evolution is supported by mountains of evidence so I am less wishy-washy in this respect. BTW, it is not the origin of evolution, but the origin of life. Evolution is a consequence of mutation and selection, this mechanism has always been around but only causes speciation once there is life. I am not trying to avoid your questions, I merely wanted to make sure I understood your question correctly. I won't duck any question you ask unless you start being confrontational. Deal?

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At least someone has the decency to admit that I'm not being given a straight answer. But actually, I can't get a straight answer because the people who are expected to answer know precisely where I'm going with this and choose to derail the conversation by invoking the power of semantics (cut to a scene with Bill Clinton answering "...that depends one what the definition of "is" is....)
"Accident" in the context of this discussion is simply the opposite of "intelligent design". Again, it's all in the "context" of the discussion, which takes a little common sense (something which a few of us think doesn't exist). The answers that have been posted to my basic question so far are clearly dodging the obvious, again, by playing the semantics game. But at least you admit that the whole concept is a "phenomenon" (which defies explanation).

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We are playing with semantics because you are erecting a strawman argument. IOW, you define evolution however you want (accident in this thread) in order to tear it down when in fact your original definition is not correct. I think what you want to say is that evolution is not goal oriented in that there are many possible outcomes of which evolution is blind. Intelligent design seems to say that there are goals and organisms contain information to reach those goals.BTW, even if a staunch evolutionist used the word "accident" I would have posted the exact same thing.

Getting back on course, I was thinking that human intelligence could be traced back by looking at human tool use. Language would also be a very defining factor, however this is not preserved in the fossil record and poorly preserved in human artifacts.For instance, the first use of stone tools for scraping meat off of carcasses, changes in weapon use, and even perhaps in metal use. Any thoughts?

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Hitler didn't believe in God, he only used references to God as a sales tactic to sell his agenda to German Christians, but dropped God once he was in power. How could you miss this?

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And he only referenced Darwin to try and give his ideas legitimacy during the 1930's. It was just as great a sin to use scientific theory to further a political agenda as it was to use the idea of a pure CHRISTIAN Fatherland in the name of Christianity. Don't forget that Hitler also wanted to create a Christian nation. Should I ignore christianity for this reason?

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So, are you saying Darwin was right in his assessment of "savages" and "negroes"?
And how would you handle Hitler's further expounding that "negroes" were a less favored race and could rightly be eliminated ("natural selection") to preserve the greatness of of the "stronger" (??) and more favored races?

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I disagree that any eugenics program is supported by Darwinian theory in the same way that I disagree that christian ideology supports a eugenics program. They were both misused by Hitler to gain power. I don't discount ToE because of Hitler's misuse of the theory, and I don't discount christianity for Hitler's misuse to create a christian nation. You seem to be saying misusing Darwinian theory negates its explanatory power but christianity is immune to this effect.