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Author | Topic: Can Evolution explain this? (Re: The biological evolution of religious belief) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2191 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Actually, cats leave food for their kittens. By bringing us food, they are taking care of us. (My cats just read what you said about "masters" and they are now over in the corner, nudging each other in the ribs and chuckling)
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inkorrekt Member (Idle past 6103 days) Posts: 382 From: Westminster,CO, USA Joined: |
Cats leave food for their "masters" (hard to believe any cat thinks it has a master, in the way I understand it from the many I have owned). Maybe it is for all three reasons presented. As a gift, as a learning opportunity, and for random fun. Maybe, depending on the cat, it could be for all reasons at the same time. Who says the cats have to have only one reason for their behavior? Cats are not alone. Ducks are very special. They pair with each other. After this, they never depart till they die. The mother duck does not eat till all the babies have eaten. If no food is left, then the mother duck stays hungry. These are known as animal instincts. Maternal and paternal instincts. This is not the same as consciousness. What you are referring to is self awareness.This is not the same as the quest for God inside the human soul. Any mutation is theoretically possible, however, any mutation that requires an energy expenditure better be able to justify itself in the struggle for survival. Can you explain why did the bird flu virus mutate? It is still mutating. Was it because of struggle for survival?
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anglagard Member (Idle past 858 days) Posts: 2339 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
Can you explain why did the bird flu virus mutate? It is still mutating. Was it because of struggle for survival? Yes, virusus mutate because if they did not, they would cease to exist once the last host died or developed the appropriate immune response to destroy such a virus. Under such conditions as most virusus exist, existance itself demands mutation. Smallpox failed to mutate rapidly enough to outrun the vaccine, that's why it no longer exists in the wild. Flu mutates rapidly, that's why it is still here... ...providing yet more evidence for the ToE. In fact, providing currently observable evolution in a human timescale. This message has been edited by anglagard, 04-28-2006 09:47 PM This message has been edited by anglagard, 04-29-2006 12:04 AM
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anglagard Member (Idle past 858 days) Posts: 2339 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
This is not the same as consciousness. What you are referring to is self awareness. This is not the same as the quest for God inside the human soul. How do you know that other mammals don't have conciousness or believe in God? Do you have evidence? After all, a simple dissection shows that the brains of mammals are wrinkled, crenulated if you prefer, just like humans. Check out a dolphin brain: “http://soma.npa.uiuc.edu/courses/bio303/comp_brain_size.JPG” Or a cat brain: “http://brainmuseum.org/...ns/carnivora/cat/brain/Cat6clr.jpg” The above is an example of evidence, as opposed to pronouncement. Perhaps the reason mammals are not commonly associated with religious belief is that they do not use such belief to interfere with the natural right of other dolphins to catch fish or for other cats to catch mice. It may be pompousness, rather than spirituality, that is the most defining human trait. This message has been edited by anglagard, 04-28-2006 11:58 PM
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inkorrekt Member (Idle past 6103 days) Posts: 382 From: Westminster,CO, USA Joined: |
Very interesting explanation. So, in this situation, Survival of the fittest is the virus and not the host.
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anglagard Member (Idle past 858 days) Posts: 2339 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
Survival of the fittest is the virus and not the host. As best I can tell, the implication of the above is that when a virus causes a human death it implies that the virus is better fitted to survive than the host. This case is at an individual and not a species level. At the individual level, the better fitted human for the purpose of surviving bird flu virus would be the one that lived long enough to pass on their genes. The better fitted virus would be the one that survives to continue infecting hosts. Survival of the fittest in the case of a single individual means the fittest within a species, not the fittest of all species put together. Survival of the fittest at the species level would then be one species versus another rather than one individual versus one case of infection. The levels of individual and species appear mixed and therefore meaningless in the previous post, if I understood the post properly. This message has been edited by anglagard, 04-29-2006 09:32 PM
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5054 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
quote: The federal government finally has decided that I am "no longer" disabled. Of course, I never was mentally disordered except as it religion and evolution were being conflated NOT by me. So while the decision is the correct one the reason is wrong as on this decision there is no way to start to work out the means that evolution might or might not explain the biological basis of religion. To continue one would need to explain the puncture as not being a hole at all that Stove wrote in "Darwinian Fairytales"p 212quote: To begin to approach the patch that covers nothing one would have to show that in any instance the trend in a taxanomic hierarchy that Darwin illustrated but did not include in his "origin" (but later came out in 1975)(Gould brings this issue out in his Structure book) can NEVER be due to cellular automata. As long as the issue is about confusing better health with time rather than space (the federal government simply had a 7 year arbitary review of ability BUT IT ALSO PERMITS retention of medicare during appeal but not necessarily food) there will be no time, not because scientists are preventing the research but because the states have intruded on the rights and powers of people with civil servants filiing the gap that is a fake hole over a twisted fabric that mimics a puncture but is not topological in any sense of the correct word.
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inkorrekt Member (Idle past 6103 days) Posts: 382 From: Westminster,CO, USA Joined: |
After all, a simple dissection shows that the brains of mammals are wrinkled, crenulated if you prefer, just like humans. No doubt about this at all.I have dissected hundreds of rat brain and even a monkey brain. This is one of the similarities between human brain and even a rat brain. Such convoluted structures do not have anything to do with the higher functions of the brain.Animals can be trained. This is learned behaviour. An animal does not have the ability to distinguish between right and wrong; Good and evil. Animals are driven by instincts whereas humans can examine facts and make conscious choices. Rationality and reasoning are unique to human beings. This message has been edited by inkorrekt, 04-30-2006 04:56 PM
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anglagard Member (Idle past 858 days) Posts: 2339 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
An animal does not have the ability to distinguish between right and wrong; Good and evil. Animals are driven by instincts whereas humans can examine facts and make conscious choices. Rationality and reasoning are unique to human beings. In post 64 I asked for evidence, not pronouncement. Please provide evidence. Actually, this could be a topic in itself. My basic research indicates these pronouncements are debatable.
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nator Member (Idle past 2191 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: No, that's not true. Humans have a greater brain surface to volume ratio than any other mammal. That's because our cortex, which regulates all of our higher functions, takes up a much greater proportion of the human brain compared to other mammals.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2534 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
maybe someone has already answered what I'm going to. I don't feel like reading all the posts right now. However. . .
We have a need to explain things. For whatever reason, we want to know why we exist, what our purpose in life is, and why does the sun always come up in the morning and go to bed at night? What does evolution have to say on this matter? nothing. Those previous questions tend to philosophical (and more specifically, metaphysical). When we don't have science to answer our questions (and science uses natural explanations) we turn to the supernatural. Back when we thought the sun came up and went down, it was explained that a chariot pulled the sun across the sky and when the charioteer went to bed the sun did. Nothing rational in that. Non-rational, yes.
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inkorrekt Member (Idle past 6103 days) Posts: 382 From: Westminster,CO, USA Joined: |
My basic research indicates these pronouncements are debatable This is the first time, I am hearing something of this nature. I am really curious. I guess it was few years ago that some neurologist wrote an article in Times. He reduced man's relationship with God to a basic stimulus-reaponse phenomenon and he even ascribes this as a God center in brain. In other words, he wrote that the ecstatic God experience of some people can be simulated by electrical stimulation of the God center in brain. Well, there must be solid controls and very well designed Experiments. I need to see the results.
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inkorrekt Member (Idle past 6103 days) Posts: 382 From: Westminster,CO, USA Joined: |
Answer to this is we were the products of natural selection and random mutations. That means, we just happened. there is no purpose for our existence.We live and when our time is up, we die. that is all.
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ramoss Member (Idle past 633 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
actually, a virus that does not kill the host is more successful than one that kills it.
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ramoss Member (Idle past 633 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Answer to this is we were the products of natural selection and random mutations. That means, we just happened. there is no purpose for our existence.We live and when our time is up, we die. that is all.
And??
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