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Author | Topic: What bothers me about the evolution of Man | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member Posts: 20332 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: Member Rating: 3.6 |
Hi Tangle and welcome to the fray.
One wonders if this is a higher rate of fetal\birth death than in other species (under "normal" natural conditions). A higher rate of deaths of women during childbirth would also show this selection. Anecdotally this seems to be the case.
Add extended development outside the womb as a means for even larger brains to evolve, with further growth after birth during an extended childhood. The extended childhood is also longer than any other primate, with a human child not able to fend for itself until ~9 years old, just a few years short of sexual maturity (and hence the neotenty is also linked). Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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Tangle Member Posts: 7224 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.1 |
As I said. I'll happily accept whatever mainstream definition of intelligence you prefer. If you can get a dolphin or a crow to even take an IQ test I'll happily concede my point. (btw, getting peanuts out of jars with stick and similar fascinating but relatively trivial tasks that smart animals can master is not what I mean.)
My claim is that our kind of conscious intelligence has only evolved once. I am not claiming that other animals don't display some degree of intelligence, they obviously do. But it's equally obvious that their intelligence is not of the same order as ours. Not even close. Life, don't talk to me about life.
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jar Member Posts: 31783 From: Texas!! Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
We know that is your claim, but what is your claim based on? Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Which is wrong... unless you beg the question by dscounting extinct species or define intelligence a way that suit your claim. And which point, your claim is unimportant. Other animals have "our kind of conscious inteligence" but it is the degree that makes us different. Our kind of bipedalism equally only evolved once. So what?
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Dr Jack Member (Idle past 448 days) Posts: 3507 From: Leicester, England Joined: |
I'm puzzled by your inclusion of "conscious" here? I agree with you that human-level intelligence has only evolved once in the history of life on Earth. But I'm not sure how conscious comes into it? Are you suggesting we're the only conscious species? Or that other species have the same intelligence but are not conscious?
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Tangle Member Posts: 7224 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.1 |
I've said this at least three times now. I'm not excluding extinct species except ape descendants - for the obvious reason that we are ape descendants ourselves and are therefore likely to have the same brain. (Unless you can show that an extinct line independently came up with an analogue to our brain - then fine, but good luck with that too.)
I've said this twice now - I'll accept any mainstream definition.
So it's very interesting and it's useful to ask the question "why?" It's what science does I believe. One view is that bipedalism, brain size and hair-loss are all related developments. They allowed us to leave the forests for the open savannahs - bi-pedalism and hair-loss allowed us to run long distances without boiling over and our brains helped us organise in groups make weapons and hunt down faster animals (and avoid predation). It's a good story anyhow. Can you think of any other single adaptation that delivers so much competitive advantage that only exists in a single species? It's seems that H. sapiens has at least two. cf feathers, flight, gills, lungs, quadruped locomotion, exoskeletons, taste, touch, hearing sight, radar, scales, hooves, fingers, tails, blood circulation, warm-bloodedness, stomachs, vivipary,........a very long list. Life, don't talk to me about life.
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Panda Member (Idle past 2056 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
Please focus.
You were replying to 2 different people in one post.
How does it differ to other animals? (Surely you don't simply mean magnitude?!)
Real intelligence has evolved in many many animals.
We are at the top of the intelligence ladder. That does not mean that there is no other creature on ladder with us. Real intelligence has evolved in nature countless times. If I were you And I wish that I were you All the things I'd do To make myself turn blue
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
In that regard, feathers only evolved one. BFD. Like I said, its a vacuous claim. What about Gorillas? quote:
Unless it suggests that human intelligence is not unique
You haven't even gotten us that far... All we've got is: "Herp, real intelligence only evolved once, derp."
Well sure, the peacock's tail has already been mentioned in this thread. But you're back to a single species now... Neandertals were a different speicies with the same intelligence that humans have so this adaptation does not exist in only a single speicies. It depends on how you want to limit your sample. If we discount all bird decedants, we could say that feathers only evolved once. But this is getting pretty ridiculous. You're point is not profound or anything. I think you were just talking in passing. Clumsy word choice and cluttered thinking.
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Tangle Member Posts: 7224 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.1 |
So I'll ask for one final time to give me a single example, using any kind of mainstream definition that you like, of another species, living or dead, that even approximates to our own level of intelligence and consciousness. Even a very distant miss would do. ps, if it helps you at all in guaging the level of attainment you need to demonstrate in your dolphin, elephant, jay or chimp, I'm writing this with an iPad from the other side of the world to a machine I've never seen, by radio. So yes, technology is one method of establishing the intelligence of a species and yes, I do think that magnitude is a major differentiator and yes I do think consciousness is also vital and no I've never claimed that 'intelligence' itself, no matteer how lowly, is unique to us, that was a straw man. Life, don't talk to me about life.
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Tangle Member Posts: 7224 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.1 |
For a while there I thought there was nothing we were going to agree about. You genuinely think that our intelligence is no different than that of other sprecies? I mean really? Life, don't talk to me about life.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Of course its different. But its different by degree, not by kind. And other (extinct) species have had similiar degrees so it isn't unique to humans. You seem to be suggesting that humans have a unique kind of intelligence to a unique degree... that's just not true.
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Tangle Member Posts: 7224 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.1 |
I claim that it's different by both degree and kind. I believe that the degree is uncontestable (a statement of the blindingly obvious, the degree of difference is so large that no other animal intelligence would get onto the same scale.) The kind is more contentious and not being a neuroscientist, I can't easily defend it - but I have develeoped an amateur interest in it. Many/most/all animals have something normally called a brain. The major difference in humans from any other animal, including modern apes and extinct hominids, is the massive over-development of the prefrontal cortex and the functions it performs. This part of the brain is responsible for our recently developed ability to reason and calculate - it's the functions developed in this are that are used to govern more ancient functions like morals and emotions. We are only just beginning to understand how our brain actually works, it's really only since funtional MRI scanners became available that we've been able to begin to get a basic understanding of it. There's a rather outragious quote from Professor Cohen, from the Study of Brain, Mind and Behaviour at Princeton University that puts the human brain in context (i can hardly wait to hear the pedantic, nit-picking objections from several here, but as they say, fuck it.)
There's a thread on the human brain and morality called is Biology Destiny here on this forum here, if you're interested: http://www.evcforum.net/dm.php?control=page&t=16015&mpp=1... Edited by Tangle, : Added link to Is Biology Destiny forum Life, don't talk to me about life.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
sigh quote: Too: quote: Haven't you heard of a chimp being described as being as smart as an X year old human? Is that "on the same scale"?
quote: Its a difference of degree, not kind.
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Panda Member (Idle past 2056 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
But I'll leave this aspect of the discussion to Catholic Scientist, as he is doing a good job of showing how meaningless your argument is.
I think not. You really need to address the rebuttals I make rather than just repeating yourself.
I have never claimed that we don't have a different level of intelligence. In fact, if you had bothered to read my last post, you would see that I agree that we are the most intelligent.
The ability to experience or to feel? I know animals can do that. I expect that you can't actually identify any aspect of consciousness that humans have but animals lack.
Maybe when you say...
I can only judge your opinions by what you write - and you have written that you think that intelligence is unique to humans (i.e. has not evolved in other animals). Real intelligence has evolved in nature countless times. If I were you And I wish that I were you All the things I'd do To make myself turn blue
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Tangle Member Posts: 7224 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.1 |
This sort of remark really doesn't help. I mean there's so many fallacies jemmied into that sentence that it makes me feel really tired - but I'll try to explain myself. Aristotle, is likely to be more inteligent than both you and me added together. Just because he lived a long time ago or if he had lived today in a primitive environment like the tribal photo shown earlier - he, and all his society, would still be described, without dispute, as being intelligent, really intelligent. Not the minimalist intelligence of a parrot or even an ape. He lived in an immensely sophisticated society with buildings constructed with advanced mathematics and organised building skills - masonry, carpentry, painters, gardeners, mosaic makers etc. He could build a fire and cook, plan and run an agricultural economy and trade. He could travel in ships to other continents using astronomical navigation or on land in horse drawn carts on roads built from fashioned stones. He could read and write, teach and pass on those teaching using libraries. He thought deeply and planned ahead. He imagined the future and invented believed in gods and practiced philosophical thought processes that considered the minds of others. In short he had real intelligence that would be recognised by a visiting alien. Name me another species that could pass that test. I'm still waiting. Life, don't talk to me about life.
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