why DID we evolve into humans?

Welcome to the forums! I thought I'd drop in because of something you said in this post, and I figured I might be able to help out a little. That is emphatically not the case. For future reference, I advise you examine the Forum Guidelines for further information. Rule number four is

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Points should be supported with evidence and/or reasoned argumentation. Address rebuttals through the introduction of additional evidence or by enlarging upon the argument. Do not repeat previous points without further elaboration. Avoid bare assertions.

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The type of evidence depends on whether you are discussing in a science based forum or a faith based forum. As you can see from the 'trail' at the top this thread is 'Science Forums' - 'Human Origins' - 'why DID we evolve into humans?', so you should back up your posts with evidence of a scientific nature.It is also a good idea to read the first post in any thread, to get some kind of context of what the debate is about...though debate topics do tend to drift. Especially this one; it was started about 3 years ago now!Incidentally, in order to ensure your words are read by as many people as possible, try to format your paragraphs in the manner common to the online medium: With 'whitespace' or empty lines seperating each paragraph. It makes it easier on the eyes and so results in easier reading . If you didn't know already, you'll have to trust me when I say that anything that hinders communication in debate (especially in written debate where much of our communication is lost) is going cause unneeded problems. For some more specific information in regards to this, see the EvC Style GuideFurther help may be found in the links in my signature. Take care, and I hope you enjoy your stay here at EvC!

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Quote: "A large part of knowing where you're going is understanding where you've been. We cannot make scientific progress without looking at evidence from the past to see how things work. We then try to draw conclusions from what we've seen and predict what we will see in the future. Look, by the time we see anything it's already ancient history...if we're going to automatically discount the past why should we make arbitrary decisions about what we should look at and what we shouldn't?"What evidence have you to indicate an understanding of where we have been will help guide us to where we're going? There is far more evidence to support the opposite view that we do not learn from the past. Evidence abounds that we do not learn or benefit from our mistakes, unless you are living in a different reality from the rest of humanity. Your remark that "by the time we see anything it's ancient history" is frankly meaningless. What on earth do you mean? How can seeing the blossoming of love be ancient history? Or is love something that is scientifically beyond provation?

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What evidence have you to indicate an understanding of where we have been will help guide us to where we're going?

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Oh, just thinking off the top of my head...how about...books? You see, books allow people who have been somewhere, seen something, done something or whatever to tell their stories to those who have not. In certain cases those people may learn from those stories. In a more rigorous context we make records of our past achievements and failures and allow those to guide us in our exploaration.We don't require everyone to start from scratch...you didn't have to invent language and writing before you could post here or agriculture before they'd let you buy a loaf of bread. Our knowledge is built on the wisdom and experiences of those who came before us and passed down their knowledge. Even the bible is such a record (I think we can all agree that at least the instructional parts qualify as recorded wisdom) which means that God doesn't have to come down personally every generation or so to tell us what we can eat and under what circumstances we can prostitute our children.

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Your remark that "by the time we see anything it's ancient history" is frankly meaningless.

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Perhaps it is meaningless to you...but the statement is still precisely true. Because there is no instantaneous transmission of information, the act of observation must always occur at some point in time following the event. I admit using the term "ancient history" is a bit of a dramatization, but it is a term without a specific meaning. Perception always lags the actual event.

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How can seeing the blossoming of love be ancient history? Or is love something that is scientifically beyond provation?

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Since love is an emotion I would think that seeing the blossiming of love would require a really sophisticated type of brain scan and even then we wouldn't be actually seeing love. Scientists don't dispute that the emotion of love exists, but would probably dispute the tangible reality of something we would recognize as love. Even if they could observe it they could only do so after the event...just like everything else.So what does all this have to do with why we evolved Malachi?

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

No, actually, the forum is to explore the controversy between evolution and creationism. This particular topic is in the category of "human origins", which refers to the sciences of paleontology and anthropology (and obviously to their union, paleoanthropology) in regards to the specific origins and history of the human species and its precursors. I don't get why that seems so reasonable to you that you don't feel the need to defend that. Things that actually happen leave evidence. If we experience something for which there is no evidence, that's a pretty good reason to question the authenticity of the experience.I mean, every one of us experiences hallucinations every night. Literally, we experience events - often with incredible realism, clarity, and a sense of authenticity - that aren't actually occuring. Is it so unreasonable for someone, then, to be skeptical of an apparently authentic event for which there was no evidence? Well, I think I pretty much did. There's a whole host of explanations for why someone would have an experience that "proves" to them that there's a God; almost every alternate explanation is considerably simpler and therefore much more reasonable than the proposition "there actually is a God." Sure. But that's hardly a reason to abandon the tentative conclusion that they don't happen, or to stop reasoning from that premise.

Thank you for your considered responses to my fumbling questions. AdminModulous pointed out that I may have stumbled onto the wrong trail. More than likely. However, I believe that all trails lead to the same destination (another thread for discussion?). Since you kindly provided rational replies to my posting I shall respectfully try to reciprocate.“Oh, just thinking off the top of my head...how about...books?”Excellent! I have read one or two. Fritjof Capra in The Turning Point seemed to strike a few chords of ”instinctive’ truth. On page 33 he writes “To put it bluntly, scientists do not deal with truth; they deal with limited and approximate descriptions of reality.” That’s only for starters. May I assume you have read him? What really interests me is Capra’s honesty and clarity about modern physics. Most recently “The Web of Life”.Another book I have read is Marcus Chown’s “Afterglow of Creation”. Wonderfully clear for idiots like myself; except on page 105, where he says “The universe became transparent to photons, and from that moment on matter and radiation went their separate ways.” I wish he would have explained how the universe became transparent when it had not yet existed. And how could cold photons create space (from nothing) in which to travel?Yet another book by Brian Swimme “The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos” in which he speaks about Einstein’s refusal to accept the correctness of his original equation. Can anyone wonder that Einstein lost his nerve?Although I cannot mathematically or scientifically understand the above books there is a spark of intuitive recognition of truth. Can you relate to what I’m saying?I recall reading somewhere, perhaps incorrectly, that when the smallest particle is dissected there is nothing left but a spark of light that immediately disappears. Is it possible that tiny spark is the essence of life? Or, as some might say, the spirit of God?“Our knowledge is built on the wisdom and experience of those who came before us and passed down their knowledge.”I understand and respect your comment. However, if you have had children of your own then you may agree that they seldom accept your wisdom or experience. Our species seems to have a need always to experience for ourselves and to gain our own wisdom from those experiences. Am I wrong to suggest that history is often more repeated than the lessons learned?Thank you for admitting the term “ancient history” in that context was a dramatization. No rebuttal.“Since love is an emotion I would think that seeing the blossoming of love would require a really sophisticated type of brain scan . . . .”I suggest you are being unnecessarily provocative. The tangible reality of love is self evident in everything our species has created; architecture, music, art, inventions, social models, etc. The list is long. All were created through a desire to be of loving service. Would you disagree that emotions of hate have always been destructive? If there is a God then, it seems to me by definition, that we and everything in the universe, are the result of divine Love.“So what does all this have to do with why we evolved?”There is only one faltering unscientific answer I can offer. We have evolved for the purpose of continuing the process of evolution that began with the eruption of divine Love. We are intelligent and sensitive creatures; essential elements of creation, and (dare I suggest?) an important thread in the web of life.

My view is that your question is implicitly teleological, at least the way it is phrased.You kind of assume, a priori, that there is a 'why', when in fact the existence of humans is just one endpoint of a series of highly contingent events, some guided by selection, others completely stochastic. If we could 're-run the clock' of evolution *even with the exact same starting conditions* humans might look entirely different or not even exist at all.Others have already commented on the various roles of selection, different types of selection, and random 'chance' processes. What must be remembered is that the overall process of evolution is not in any way directed at an outcome. Nor does all evolutionary change necessarily arise from some 'need' on the part of an organism. That easy. A lot of evolutionary change requires trade-offs. Organisms end up with new traits that essentially replace older traits. So sometimes old functionality is lost, never to be regained, when new functionality is acquired. Every organism has evolutionary constraints that arise from its phylogenetic history and limit the possible pathways for future evolutionary change.Hope this helps.
EZ

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Excellent! I have read one or two. Fritjof Capra in The Turning Point seemed to strike a few chords of ”instinctive’ truth. On page 33 he writes “To put it bluntly, scientists do not deal with truth; they deal with limited and approximate descriptions of reality.” That’s only for starters. May I assume you have read him? What really interests me is Capra’s honesty and clarity about modern physics. Most recently “The Web of Life”.

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I seem to recall reading "The Tao of Physics" at some point, but I frankly don't remember a lot of it. Capra seems obsessed with discovering some sort of uber-framework that will tie together all scientific knowledge. Personally I think he is more willing to bend the universe to fit his ideas than visa-versa. I acknowledge that scientists are not concerned with discovering universal truth, instead they are finding things of more practical use. Since you like quotes here's an oldy but goody from Joseph Stalin: "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."As for the other authors, well I don't read all that much on cosmology myself and I have to wonder just how you think they have anything at all to do with human origins. We do have cosmology fora for you if you'd like to discuss that with people who understand it better than I do. My understanding of those books (while admitting I haven't read them) is that Chown's "Afterglow" is a decent layman's introduction to the Cosmic Background Explorer experiments and Swimme is seemingly critical of science for not spending enough time smelling the flowers of beauty which surround us. In either case these are books for laymen which avoid the ugly maths and evidence and stuff which fills real science books. You don't expect people to understand the bible from reading Chick tracts...don't expect to understand science until you can follow the real documentation.

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I understand and respect your comment. However, if you have had children of your own then you may agree that they seldom accept your wisdom or experience. Our species seems to have a need always to experience for ourselves and to gain our own wisdom from those experiences. Am I wrong to suggest that history is often more repeated than the lessons learned?

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Since we continue to advance our knowledge you are demonstrably wrong. It's not what children do before they grow up, but what we do collectively that counts here.

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I suggest you are being unnecessarily provocative. The tangible reality of love is self evident in everything our species has created; architecture, music, art, inventions, social models, etc. The list is long. All were created through a desire to be of loving service. Would you disagree that emotions of hate have always been destructive?

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So I can boil all of these things down and get a glass of love out of them? Love is an emotion...if we assume there is a God then even his love is intangible. You are also discounting the myriad of practical uses which these things have to imbue them with a quality which they do not have. Architecture keeps us out of the rain; sure it can be decorative and even inspiring, but the real reason it's there is because it sucks to be cold and wet. Even art inspired by the emotion of love does not actually contain love itself, it merely reflects the feelings the artist wishes to convey...it's sophisticated communication nothing more.

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If there is a God then, it seems to me by definition, that we and everything in the universe, are the result of divine Love.

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And if there is no God what are we then? Unless you have some sort of proof for God's existence you might want to at least consider other explanations.

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There is only one faltering unscientific answer I can offer. We have evolved for the purpose of continuing the process of evolution that began with the eruption of divine Love. We are intelligent and sensitive creatures; essential elements of creation, and (dare I suggest?) an important thread in the web of life.

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Okay you now have a hypothesis...remember this is a science forum... now come up with an experiment that tests your conculsion and see if it survives in the real world. That's how science works. I'd suggest you forget about showing the presence of divine love and focus on something a little easier to see...perhaps something that will show that human evolution is either guided or has an ultimate goal.So step one: show that human evolution has a purpose. Step two: worry about the purpose.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

"Everyone of us experiences hallucinations every night. Literally, we experience events - often with incredible realism, clarity, and a sense of authenticity - that aren’t actually occuring. Is it so unreasonable for someone, then, to be skeptical of an apparent authentic event for which there was no evidence?”Yes. I will argue that it is unreasonable to dismiss any event unless or until it can be independently authenticated. May I begin by replacing your use of the word ”hallucination’ with the words ”thought’ and ”sensory perception’. You might agree that everything that has ever been invented, created, produced or manufactured by humans originated from an idea - a thought - that eventually was made manifest for the good or ill of others. The evidence of a thought is in its materialization. As you say, there is no apparent reality to any thought or idea if no material evidence can be demonstrated.I suggest that anyone who is unwilling or unable to acknowledge the potential reality of an idea is primarily lacking in imagination. Inspiration is a thought form. The law of cause and effect clearly demonstrates and supports my argument. A scientist may cause an experiment to verify a calculated effect; and that scientist might be amazed or horrified to discover that his cause resulted in a most unexpected effect.Perhaps you are focussed on purely rational experiences. Fritjof Capra wrote, “The rational and intuitive are complimentary modes of functioning of the human mind. Rational thinking is linear, focused, and analytic. It belongs to the realm of intellect, whose function it is to discriminate, measure, and categorize. Thus rational knowledge tends to be fragmented. Intuitive knowledge, on the other hand, is based on a direct, nonintellectual experience of reality arising in an expanded state of awareness.” (The Turning Point, p21)I asked if, in some circumstances, can anyone say their experience was false or unreal?You replied "Well, I think I pretty much did."I think not. Capra says, “An increasing number of scientists are aware that mystical thought provides a consistent and relevant philosophical background to the theories of contemporary science, a conception of the world in which the scientific discoveries of men and women can be in perfect harmony with their spiritual aims and religious beliefs.”I make no apology for quoting Fritjof Capra or anyone else who stimulates and broadens my growing perception of the purpose of life on earth and my search for answers to the question, Why did we evolve? The most astonishing revelation to me is that the universe is no longer seen as a machine. In contrast to the mechanistic Cartesian view of the world, I find more enlightenment and inspiration in the organic, holistic, and ecological view of life and the universe.This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 04-18-2006 11:10 AM

That's hardly my position. Perhaps you don't understand what is meant by "skepticism"? Skepticism is merely the position that we don't rush to judgement about something in the absence of any evidence for or against it. Not that we rush to dismiss the stuff we don't have ironclad proof for.But, nontheless, some "experiences" are so out of the realm of probability given our current understanding of the universe. So, which is more reasonable to you:1) Rejecting as tenatively false one single, unsubstantiated report of an experience by one person.
2) Rejecting as tenatively false the rest of our physical knowledge about the universe, which has been verified by countless experiments, on the basis of one single unsubstantiated report of an experience by one person. But that's just nonsense. It's devoid of meaning. "An expanded state of consciousness?" Expanded to what? Expanded where? He's using words that sound like they mean something, but it's just the metaphysical hocus pocus words that people have used for centuries to talk about something they don't know anything about. What evidence does he present for these claims?This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 04-18-2006 11:09 AM

“I’d suggest you forget about showing the presence of divine love and focus on something a little easier to see...perhaps something that will show that human evolution is either guided or has an ultimate goal. So step one: show that human evolution has a purpose. Step two: worry about the purpose.”I’ll try.Step one: History seems to indicate that the purpose of human evolution is two-fold: 1) To invent WMD’s powerful enough to destroy the planet, and 2) to consume everything as quickly as possible before destroying the planet.One more purpose was suggested by Stephen Hawking, another scientist whom you may regard with disdain. His idea completely removed the human element from evolution so it doesn’t apply.Step two: I worry not about the purpose because I will not be around to witness our self destruction.So, there you are. The definitive answers to everything. I shall now slide back into the primordial slime from whence I briefly emerged.Enjoy your power struggle!This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 04-18-2006 11:09 AM

"2) Rejecting as tenatively false the rest of our physical knowledge about the universe, which has been verified by countless experiments, on the basis of one single unsubstantiated report of an experience by one person."That, of course, sounds more reasonable. I accept that on your terms.I am not qualified to defend Chapra's science. Nor would I wish to argue on his behalf.I've aired my few thoughts and have received much in return to contemplate. Thank you.This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 04-18-2006 11:10 AM

I'm not supposed to reply to this one because it has the big red flag, but the response does address the OP and the only reason it might deserve a red flag is lack of scientific support for the opinions expressed. So here goes anyway and maybe I'll get a red flag of my very own.

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Step one: History seems to indicate that the purpose of human evolution is two-fold:

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I'm a big fan of history, but this is a science forum not a history forum. Human evolution started long before history. We also have to remember that history is an art and not a science; historians routinely jump to conclusions without the kind of support a scientist would require. This is only natural since so much of history is based on exploring the very real human motivations for historical acts.

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1) To invent WMD’s powerful enough to destroy the planet, and 2) to consume everything as quickly as possible before destroying the planet.

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Well I don't know where you pulled those from, but they qualify as a hypothesis...now there's a few things you need to do:
1. List the observations that lead you to form your hypothesis.
2. State the hypothesis clearly.
3. Devise a rigorous test for your hypothesis that is capable of showing your hypothesis is incorrect as stated.
4. Run your experiment and document the results.

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One more purpose was suggested by Stephen Hawking, another scientist whom you may regard with disdain. His idea completely removed the human element from evolution so it doesn’t apply.

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Why would I regard Stephen Hawking with disdain? He's a brilliant man, but he is not a biologist, geneticist or an expert in paleo-anthropology so his opinion on human evolution carries no special weight. The works you referred to were all popular literature on subjects not remotely related to the OP Malachi; they weren't even scientific studies. Brilliant scientists who are capable of excellent works of science can also be lured by big publishing dollars for works that explain everything to the average joes. The scientific value of those works is quite variable and not dependent on the quality of the scientist.Real science is done in published studies that are reviewed and critiqued by a body of other scientists. They don't send them off to the New York Times for inclusion on the Best Selling Scientific Studies list. The experiments are documented and can be performed by anyone so they can see the results for themselves and validate or challenge the original findings.

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Step two: I worry not about the purpose because I will not be around to witness our self destruction.

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Since you are posting in this forum I concluded that you have a scientific opinion on the reasons behind human evolution. Now you claim to not be worried about such things...I suppose because you either expect to die or be raptured away before whatever end-time prophecy you happen to be following today. Move that discussion over to the religious forums where it belongs...here you are expected to apply the methods of science instead of relying on prophecies which have, so far, failed to come true as the "experts" predict.I can use science to make accurate, useful predictions...you can use faith to make fuzzy, weak predictions that leave you plenty of wiggle room for when they fail to manifest. Which do you suppose is worth more to our civilization?

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

If, in future, you deliberately try to stray off topic when warned you may find yourself unable to post to the forum that the thread is in.

This may be futile, but let's try and refocus this deteriorated thread. The OP seeks a reason why we are as we are, and sort of assumes we must be a product of some directed process driven by 'need', when nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing 'needs' to evolve into anything in a specific form.
Evolution is a process of 'make do' - the best genetics of what is available in a given generation , surviving a given set of selective influences particular to that specific year, survives and reproduces.
Chance events can have permanent consequences to population structure.
There is no evidence of any 'determinative force' or 'goal-directed process'. The fact we are humans in the form we are is merely a product of chance and a long series of contingent events, both selective and random, that affected the survival of the genes borne by our predecessors.

Hi Percy,I picked up the first admin message from my email postbox. I hadn’t realized my reply wouldn’t be posted on the discussion board. So, for the record, I repeat my posting dated April 16th.“Hi. Thanks for your guidance. Obviously I’m not a scientist and have no conclusive evidence to support any thoughts I have. Since nobody on this planet has concrete evidence of the existence of God or how the universe began it would seem that I am at a slight disadvantage o produce any evidence you require in order to construct and maintain a meaningful discussion. Thanks anyway.”As you know I have continued babbling away. I have one more reply to Posting 208. I think, for the benefit of the science community, that should be my final contribution. On the other hand, if someone winds me up . . . who knows?