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Author Topic:   Are we all descendants of Adam and Eve?
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 301 of 376 (710466)
11-05-2013 1:38 PM
Reply to: Message 298 by Taq
11-05-2013 1:17 PM


Re: First man?
So says the person who has ruled out evolution from the very start.
I don't rule out completely changes within species. I really have a suspicion that the aspect of the theory which should be given more attention to is something that suddenly alters organisms to more explosive appearance on earth.
All-encompassing grand gradualism from below that bacteria to a long rise to the present biosphere - without goal, without a plan, without guidance? I don't think so.
Animals lived. They no longer live for some reason. If they are ancestors to modern animals, I would look in the direction to sudden alterations of some kind. Long steady gradualism, I don't think occurred.
But, hey, to criticize evolution is to not understand evolution here. So ...
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 298 by Taq, posted 11-05-2013 1:17 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 302 of 376 (710467)
11-05-2013 1:44 PM
Reply to: Message 291 by jaywill
11-05-2013 12:05 PM


Re: First man?
The truth isn't in you Jaywill. I should have learned that from our last discussion.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 303 of 376 (710468)
11-05-2013 2:02 PM
Reply to: Message 301 by jaywill
11-05-2013 1:38 PM


Re: First man?
jaywill writes:
But, hey, to criticize evolution is to not understand evolution here. So ...
You can't successfully criticise that which you don't understand.
You just attempted to criticise Darwin's work, I'm waiting for you to answer the question I asked you about it, which was 'have you ever read it?'
Well have you?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 304 of 376 (710472)
11-05-2013 2:53 PM
Reply to: Message 301 by jaywill
11-05-2013 1:38 PM


Re: First man?
I don't rule out completely changes within species.
From the very start you rule out the possibility that humans evolved from a common ancestor shared with other species.
All-encompassing grand gradualism from below that bacteria to a long rise to the present biosphere - without goal, without a plan, without guidance? I don't think so.
Why not?
Animals lived. They no longer live for some reason. If they are ancestors to modern animals, I would look in the direction to sudden alterations of some kind. Long steady gradualism, I don't think occurred.
But, hey, to criticize evolution is to not understand evolution here. So ...
Why don't you think evolution occurred?
What evidence would you need? What features would a fossil need in order for you to accept it as being transitional between us and a common ancestor with other apes? What shared genetic marker would you accept as being evidence of the same shared ancestry? Or does the evidence not matter?

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 305 of 376 (710487)
11-05-2013 4:48 PM


Another point of view
For those who deny that there is evidence that supports evolution, I would like you to help me understand your point of view. Instead of arguing about whether this or that is evidence, I would rather ask you what evidence you are actually looking for. We can even start from the perspective that life is designed, if you so choose.
The real question is how would the evidence be different if evolution were true? Let's be more specific. How would these fossils look different if evolution were true, and why?
http://www.theistic-evolution.com/hominids2_big.jpg
If the comparison of the human and chimp genome does not evidence evolution, then what features should be there if evolution is true? What genes should be shared that are not currently shared, and why?

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 306 of 376 (710488)
11-05-2013 5:38 PM
Reply to: Message 299 by jaywill
11-05-2013 1:27 PM


Re: First man?
I accept that maybe the title of his book was hype that the publishers desired in order to sell it. Publishers do that. I don't know if that was the case.
It wasn't the case at all. The reality has been explained to you several times in this thread. It's also been pointed out to you that there is no racism or Social Darwinism in Origin of Species.
I do not accept that either the biological or social concepts of Darwin are innocent in the barbarism of genocide.
Yes, and given your obvious lack of familiarity with Darwin's work, your opinion is not worth the paper it's printed on.
The Descent of Man had arguments in favour of, and opposed to, ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species
And?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 299 by jaywill, posted 11-05-2013 1:27 PM jaywill has not replied

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 307 of 376 (710489)
11-05-2013 6:06 PM
Reply to: Message 306 by NoNukes
11-05-2013 5:38 PM


Re: First man?
It wasn't the case at all. The reality has been explained to you several times in this thread. It's also been pointed out to you that there is no racism or Social Darwinism in Origin of Species.
To put this in a more philosophical context, this is the infamous Is/Ought problem:
"Furthermore, it argues that just because someone has knowledge of how the world is (descriptive statements), this doesn't automatically prove that he knows how the world ought to be (prescriptive statements) and it is in fact impossible to derive the second based solely on the information of the first."
Is—ought problem - RationalWiki
IOW, science describes what the outcome of our actions will be. Morality describes which actions we should take. The two are separate processes. Science will tell us that pushing someone off of the Empire State building will kill them. Morality tells us whether we should push them or not. In the same way, the theory of evolution tells us that if we kill everyone with a certain trait that this trait will disappear from the population. It is morality, not science or the theory of evolution, that tells us whether we should do it or not.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 308 of 376 (710492)
11-05-2013 6:35 PM
Reply to: Message 290 by jaywill
11-05-2013 12:01 PM


Re: First man?
Why ? Certainly not because you deny the original title and intent of Charles Darwin's book -
" On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. "
Care to try some more revision of history ?
Good lord you are dense.
"Races" not people but all life. Every noticeable difference among populations animal, plant, etc. Species. Victorian England, remember?
"Favoured" not by him or you or me but by the environment. You know ... natural selection ... the entire focus of his life's work, remember?
Either you are dense as a stump, which leaves much to be desired in assessing your intellectual capabilities or this was a deliberate smear ... a lie.
Either way you have done yourself dirty.
AZPaul3 writes:
I have referred you to the most popular biology textbook of that time period.
(snip)
"... lightening struck on a pool of primordial soup and, presto, the first living micro organism came into being ..."
WAS NOT offered as the hypothesis, and that this is a misreading, misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of the hypothesis that:
molecules in a primordial soup, under the influence of lightning PROBABLY caused the formation of the FIRST LIVING THING. That first living thing NOT being a fully formed micro-organism.
Can you present a similar level of evidence showing I was wrong?
Show me this evolution-friendly science-based textbook of that time period that says differently.
So, jaywill, got anything?
I'm not going to get an answer, am I.
Am I?
I know you are not going to answer. You can't answer since your statement here is as false as the one above.
I do not want your answer.
I will mill around the edges and throw sand in your face but any "discussion" with you is done.

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jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 309 of 376 (710494)
11-05-2013 8:18 PM


" ... The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. "
What did Darwin mean ?
"If Evolution is true then racism is valid because some races will have evolved further than other races. This is clear in Darwin's second work Titled "The Descent of Man" , where one entire chapter was dedicated to The Races of Man. - one Jeffd_57 from a discussion -
From The Descent of Man
quote:
"At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes...will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between .... or Australian and the gorilla (1874, p. 178). "
[My bolding]
A few pages latter Darwin continues to discuss races of humans -
quote:
"Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties. Everyone who has had the opportunity of comparison must have been struck with the contrast between the taciturn, even morose, aborigines of S. America and the light-hearted, talkative negroes."
One Jeffd_57 contributes:
quote:
While Darwin may have maintained an outward concern for social justice, Thomas Henry Huxley, a close personal friend of Darwin’s and an indefatigable champion of evolution (who frequently referred to himself as Darwin’s Bulldog) observed: "No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average ***** is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathus relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out on by thoughts and not by bites" (1871, p. 20).
The point is obvious: if man evolved, then so did the various races.
But more than that, Darwin and Huxley argued further that the Caucasian race was farther along in the evolutionary process, and thus superior to all the other races.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2008042820293...
Darwin's hierarchy of races discussed from about 29:00
on "Darwin Day"
Speakers says the distancing of Darwin's ideas from racism came from younger (not older) geneticists after the Holocaust when the horror of the ideas of race superiority could no longer be tolerated.
Start at 29:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS6Volcb5LY
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
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 Message 313 by JonF, posted 11-06-2013 10:55 AM jaywill has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 310 of 376 (710498)
11-06-2013 2:44 AM
Reply to: Message 309 by jaywill
11-05-2013 8:18 PM


Darwin writes:
What did Darwin mean ?
You haven't read Darwin have you?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


(1)
Message 311 of 376 (710517)
11-06-2013 9:04 AM
Reply to: Message 309 by jaywill
11-05-2013 8:18 PM


And what does the racists ideas of someone in the 1800's have to do with the Theory of Evolution?
One of my biggest issues here is the lack of the ability to think by fundies and creos. The writings of Darwin are not the Theory of Evolution. "The Origin of Species" is not some infallible work. Darwin him himself made many changes to the text and the title.
Your seem utterly unable to conceive that the TOE is not a religion and Darwin's writings are not some sort of religious text. His writings are an important presentation of thoughts that go into the TOE but they are not the TOE. There are many things in his writings that are either incorrect and not fully thought out. That does not make the TOE wrong.
That Darwin followed the racism of the day does not make the TOE and Social Darwinism the same thing. That you cannot understand why Social Darwinism is not part of the TOE shows either extreme dishonesty or the lack of any ability to have any higher level thinking and a total lack of curiosity to make you sure the falsehoods you spout have any veracity at all.
ABE
One Jeffd_57 contributes:
quote:
While Darwin may have maintained an outward concern for social justice, Thomas Henry Huxley, a close personal friend of Darwin’s and an indefatigable champion of evolution (who frequently referred to himself as Darwin’s Bulldog) observed: "No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average ***** is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathus relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out on by thoughts and not by bites" (1871, p. 20).
The point is obvious: if man evolved, then so did the various races.
But more than that, Darwin and Huxley argued further that the Caucasian race was farther along in the evolutionary process, and thus superior to all the other races.
WTF does this have to do with the TOE. How does what Huxley or some anonymous internet poster have to say about anything have anything to do with the TOE.
You are use the comment of some guy on the internet as your argument? You have gone from ridiculous to pitiful.
Edited by Theodoric, : More crap to deal with.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

This message is a reply to:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 312 of 376 (710523)
11-06-2013 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 309 by jaywill
11-05-2013 8:18 PM


" ... The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. "
What did Darwin mean ?
"If Evolution is true then racism is valid because some races will have evolved further than other races. This is clear in Darwin's second work Titled "The Descent of Man" , where one entire chapter was dedicated to The Races of Man. - one Jeffd_57 from a discussion -
Nowhere in the theory of evolution does it state that we should judge a person's worth or place in society by the DNA sequence of their genome. Nowhere.
Remember your rant about people being trustworthy? You have shown yourself to be a liar, a charlatan, and someone who is not trustworthy.

This message is a reply to:
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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 313 of 376 (710526)
11-06-2013 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 309 by jaywill
11-05-2013 8:18 PM


Note that in none of those quotes does Darwin advocate any kind of intervention in natural processes. He's speaking of what he expects will happen. The first one especially is an egregious quote mine that is discussed at Quote Mine Project: Assorted Quotes.

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jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 314 of 376 (710579)
11-07-2013 4:22 AM


Some general comments.
I am presently reading Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
My referring to what someone said in discussions on the Internet about Darwin is no different from those referring me to what someone else said on talkorigins.org (?)
I notice that the usage of the word "race" in Origin, as far as I have read, is in relation to animals. But from what I can see in Descent of man race continues to be used in reference to people.
In other words, yes, in Origin Darwin, so far as I read, uses race for lower animals. I don't buy that he did not use "race" when latter referring to the human animal as it were.
The panel talk from Cornell University contained information which I have no reason to doubt, that he considered all men of one species but did regard hierarchical distinctions of races.
Whoever said there is nothing about racism in the Theory if Evolution is acting as if there is a monolithic statement somewhere like a creedal formulate. I agree lots of things may not be said in such a definition or general description. I don't take seriously that Evolution thinking has never had any room for concepts of race superiority / inferiority.
I notice Darwin constantly refers to native peoples as "savages". But we here in the US can push a button and instantly slaughter millions of people in a city in 20 seconds. And that is not "savage" ?
Until I complete my reading of Origin of Species I probably will have no more comments about that particular book. My main purpose here was to study the Bible. The Bible reveals Adam and Eve as the parents of all of us.
I cannot detect anywhere in Genesis or elsewhere where it speaks of Adam and the clock stops and the reader is lifted up into some philosophic mythical realm in which Adam as history is made fuzzy.
The flow of history from events in the life of Adam and his wife is rather seamless down to Abraham. I believe it. If you don't believe it then you just don't. I'll run with a FIRST man and a FIRST woman among human beings, hand waving about other theories and how convincing the "evidence" to the contrary is, not withstanding.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 315 of 376 (710580)
11-07-2013 5:09 AM
Reply to: Message 314 by jaywill
11-07-2013 4:22 AM


Jaywill writes:
I am presently reading Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Whilst you're reading it bear in mind that Darwin didn't invent evolution, he discovered it.
In fact he co-discovered it. Another bloke, Wallace, came up with the same idea and wrote to Darwin about it.
So today, on the 100th anniversary of his death, a statue of Wallace is being unveiled in the Natural History Museum in London.
I point this out because creationists seem to view Darwin and his book as something akin to God and the bible. It's not.
If Darwin hadn't got his book out first, evolution would be called Wallacism. And if Wallace hadn't come up with the discovery someone else would.
Whilst you're reading that 150 year old book, do bear that in mind.
It doesn't matter whether the discoverer of a fact is the world's most evil genius, the fact remains a fact.
(And, btw, Darwin was an intensely moral guy.)

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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