Evolution of Intelligence More Complex Than Once Thought 453
palegray.net writes "According to a new article published in Scientific American, the nature of and evolutionary development of animal intelligence is significantly more complicated than many have assumed. In opposition to the widely held view that intelligence is largely linear in nature, in many cases intelligent traits have developed along independent paths. From the article: 'Over the past 30 years, however, research in comparative neuroanatomy clearly has shown that complex brains — and sophisticated cognition — have evolved from simpler brains multiple times independently in separate lineages ...'"
Linearity in Complexity???!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
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In Complex Systems, Linearity is the exception, not The Rule
In other news
Le Roi Est Mort. Vive Le Roi!
Re:Linearity in Complexity???!!! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Linearity in Complexity???!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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I'm sure that first claim was tongue in cheek, so I won't bother to disabuse you of the notion that you're an expert, but you asked a smart question so:
As a classical mathematical concept, Markov Chains are considered stochastic processes (with the word stochastic meaning damned near exactly what the average guy means by random).
Evolution is a non-random process. (Evolution has two major aspects, Mutation and Selection. Mutation itself is random, but Selection applies a pressure that should be mathematicall
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The article doesn't mean 'linear' in the sense of 'linear dependence on a set of variables', but rather 'linear' as in 'sequence of events that follow one another as a direct consequence of the previous one'.
I know, and even there I still maintain that any assumption of a simple causal relationship in a complex system with so many interconnected parts is also silly. Simple causal relationships are the exception, not the rule.
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O RLY? Convergent evolution? Is that news? (Score:5, Informative)
As I've wrote before (f*cking IEEE paywall [ieee.org]):
"Convergent evolution is one of the most impressive concepts of Darwinian thought. As stated in the literature, "It is all the more striking a testimony to the power of natural selection that numerous examples can be found in real nature, in which independent lines of evolution appear to have converged, from very different starting points, on what looks very like the same endpoint" [Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker, p. 94]. Eyesight is a good example of a remarkable biological tool that has appeared independently many times. For instance, the octopus' eye has evolved from a line independent of our lineage, and there are records of some 40 such "parallel" lines of evolution leading to the development of eyes [L. F. Land, "Optics and vision in invertebrates," in Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII, H. Autrum, Ed. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1980, pp. 471-592]."
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Intelligent Design proof... (Score:5, Funny)
This proves that the Intelligent Designer:
- has never been taught of proper design practice and re-use of previous work
- has been sued by the other intelligent designer who built the previous brain for patent infringement and thus couldn't use the same brain but had to built a new one
- is so messy that instead of trying to dig again her/his/its plans of the previous (intelligent) design for brains somewhere under a mountain of junk, restarting everything from scratch is a better alternative
- isn't meticulous and precise enough be succeed making the same brain twice in a row
- is so bored the she/he/it needs to reinvent the wheel every week or so
- has Alzheimer's disease
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This proves that the Intelligent Designer:
An interesting post to be sure, but it proves nothing. You simply offer a list of alternative possible explanations, many of which are unlikely to hold in conjunction with the others. Allow me to suggest that it is perfectly possible to postulate other explanations, none of which could be remotely considered proof, which do not support your suggestion that there is no intelligent designer.
What this research suggests, but not proves, is that there is a non-intelligent system at work in the formation of in
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You might want to read this [slashdot.org]. I'll remind you later, since you'll probably forget. [mutters: senile old git]
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You might want to read this. I'll remind you later, since you'll probably forget. [mutters: senile old git]
Well I can see that you fully understand the concept of sarcasm.
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I suppose it would be not so very different to a heuristic computer program, in that respect.
Any sufficiently complex heuristic computer program is indistinguishable from intelligence.
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whooooooooooooooooooooooosh guess what that sound is?
Hold tight, someone will be along to change your diaper soon.
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whooooooooooooooooooooooosh
guess what that sound is?
The sound of the intelligent designer running away before we find out that he's just a big fat fibber?
You forgot... (Score:2)
- is artistic and enjoys exploring different ways of accomplishing the same thing.
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- is just another damn Perl hacker and enjoys exploring different ways of accomplishing the same thing.
FTFY.
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Brilliant. This explains so much about the universe. God is a fuckwit. It's obvious now that I think about it. Yeah, ok just trolling the IDiots.
Re:You kid, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
. as if following some pre-determined path to a completed, human state.
Or, as if there are a limited number of adequate solutions to the problem 'control a bunch of muscles in order to survive in a three dimensional environment in which other organisms are trying to do the same thing'.
It seems like what we're seeing is that *if* a species randomly goes down the brain route, it'll either die out, or develop a brain very like other brains. Note that many organisms survive very nicely with no brain at all. Where's their "pre-determined path to a completed human state"?
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Note that many organisms survive very nicely with no brain at all.
Commence republicans/neocons jokes in 3... 2... 1...
Re:You kid, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Why don't Republicans believe in Evolution?
Because the first generation in their sample was Abraham Lincoln. The last was George W. Bush.
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A while, but almost two [wikipedia.org] thousand [wikipedia.org] years [wikipedia.org] less than your use of "Gallileo" (which is spelled wrong and should be "Copernicus" anyway if you are looking for the person who reintroduced heliocentrism to the Christian West in the Renaissance) in the subject suggests that you think it took.
Re:You kid, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it is not. Things of the same type evolving separately, only shows that those traits are successful.
It is also not new. It is pretty obvious that cephalopod and vertebrate brains evolved separately, and that bird and mammal advances over reptiles evolved separately.
Re:You kid, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You kid, but this is pretty good support for the intelligent design theory. Here we have multiple organisms evolving human traits independently... as if following some pre-determined path to a completed, human state.
Wrong, unless that "completed, human state" also looks like a super-intelligent squid capable of toppling the feeble empires of man.
The only reason there isn't a super-intelligent, man-eating squid race is because we beat the squids by a few evolutionary epochs, and their ancestors (who are currently living but less than super-intelligent) will probably go extinct before they have a chance to grow a better brain and develop an oceanic civilization of their own.
But rest assured, I'm sure they would have hypothesized an intelligent designer of their own. Only their intelligent designer would have tentacles on its face, and he would live under aquatic heat vents in heaven while sending the unfaithful to those hellish clouds way above the water.
Re:You kid, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Go tell that to him [wikipedia.org], but he won't be happy.
Disclaimer: he doesn't shoot the bearer of bad tidings, but he will eat his soul.
The hard work is just around the corner... (Score:3, Insightful)
As people who work with computers, we already know that the hard work is never done. What we often forget is that new, exciting changes in our field, whilst just stepping stones, are progress nonetheless.
I wouldn't make any big predictions for the future of our understanding, I think it's many years further off than we all hope. But I am always heartened to hear of progress, and optimism, in the field of scientific advancement.
I am feeling particularly uncynical today. Let's enjoy each new step.
Re:The hard work is just around the corner... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I am not as smart as I thought I was.
Re:The hard work is just around the corner... (Score:4, Funny)
Too many captchas generate unreadable garbage, requiring you to waste time by refreshing the page (and re-entering passwords, etc.). I have seriously considered searching for whatever it is spammers use to beat captchas and download it for myself.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
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I believe they are usually referred to as "Indians".
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Excuse me! I believe the proper term is Outsourced-American.
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Hey, I've read about this [xkcd.com].
More complex? I'd have thought less complex if... (Score:2)
... the same aspects of intelligence can arise independently in different species. I don't know if the article mentioned this (because its very long and I only had time to skim it) but this means the nascent potential evolutionary building blocks for intelligence are widely distributed in species in nature and given a chance will give riser to a smarter brain. Surely a more complex path to intelligence would be one that required specific stepping stones that only ever appeared in a small number of species a
Re:More complex? I'd have thought less complex if. (Score:5, Informative)
this means the nascent potential evolutionary building blocks for intelligence are widely distributed in species in nature and given a chance will give riser to a smarter brain.
It takes more than a chance - it takes evolutionary pressure. If something's already perfectly adapted to its environment without a brain, then it's unlikely to evolve one. A brain might even reduce the fitness of an organism (by diverting energy that could be better used for other survival/reproduction mechanisms).
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When I said given a chance the evolutionary pressure was a given. You're not going to find an intelligent species arise out of the blue for no reason.
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Sure, I could tell *you* knew what you were talking about. But if you're not precise with your words, the ID crowd get funny ideas.
I don't believe it. (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't believe is the "many have assumed" bit.
Parallel evolution is evident in all kinds of animal and plant features. I can't imagine why intelligence would be any different.
I strongly suspect that most evolutionary scientists don't consider these findings to be surprising. Still, it makes a better headline if you pretend it's a shock discovery.
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Just look where it was published. The phrases "military intelligence" and "plastic silverware" spring to mind.
let me correct that ... (Score:2)
there
What's the difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, even a spider can do quite tricky maths in order to work out how to spin a web between arbitrary fixed points, yet is completely flummoxed by even the simplest general knowledge quiz.
So what I want to know is, what was it about human beings that caused us to develop the capacity to drive cars, build computers and walk on the moon?
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So what I want to know is, what was it about human beings that caused us to develop the capacity to drive cars, build computers and walk on the moon?
I think the ability to construct "what if" scenarios in the brain is a useful trait for staying alive, and one where it's quite easy to see stepwise improvements as possible and beneficial. Increasingly sophisticated planning type activity, that could happen in increasingly evolved brains:
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Re:What's the difference? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think the spider is doing any maths. It's a bit like us when we can simply immediately point to an intercept between two curves on a graph. Finding the intercept mathematically is moderately hard, but just looking and seeing where it is is no effort at all. The spider's brain is just looking and seeing where to place the silk - it's no effort at all and he certainly won't be breaking out the spidery slide rule.
Re:What's the difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bit like us when we can simply immediately point to an intercept between two curves on a graph.
When we do that, there is some maths happening in our brains, it just isn't conscious. You're right, that is exactly what is happening in the spider's case. However to "just point" to an intercept seems like an incredibly simple thing to us, but to do it with the amount of brain cells a spider has is quite a trick. Bear in mind this all has to come from sensory data - it has to find branches, blades of grass or whatever and make a decision whether it is feasible to spin a web there, using very rough input from it's eyes. Try writing software for a robot to do that - if you manage it you might get a nobel prize. Even in a very simplified virtual world with perfect data, there would be a fair bit of maths, even if it's just basic trig.
Re:What's the difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
One observation I made many years ago led me to realise that we mostly underestimate what even small brains routinely do. I was watching a hovering seagull while waiting at some traffic lights. It was scanning the road surface below for a few seconds, then swooped down and picked up the tiniest speck of food from the tarmac. This was on a busy city street with lots of litter and other debris on the road, such as small stones and gravel, cigarette butts, etc. The tarmac itself presented a "noisy" image background and yet the gull picked out that speck as being worth expending its energy on from a height of 30 or so feet while maintaining balance in flight in a gusty high wind with a lot of moving traffic around. The image processing required to do that boggles my mind! So much for bird-brains.
It's not such a leap to suppose that intelligence, whatever it is, is far more common than we assume. What counts as intelligent for a dog, cat or even a bright bird like a Magpie is probably not something we'd really recognise. Every creature's intelligence is uniquely its own.
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When we do that, there is some maths happening in our brains, it just isn't conscious.
No, there isn't. Recognizing spatial structures and symmetries is a strong feature of the brain, but it's not mathematical reasoning, i.e. it does not necessarily lead to an unassailable logical truth. As an example, there are many "geometric truths" that one can convince one self of by drawing suitable geometric diagrams, but which turn out to be false if we attempt to prove them for example in Euclid's plane geometry.
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Your second point is mere nitpicking.
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Just Wondering (Score:2)
So they're claiming there's some chance intelligence may eventually evolve in politicians?
I'll believe it when I see some solid evidence.
Turn It Around (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's try the alternative:
Comparative neuroanatomy findings indicate that all the various animals have identical brains that evolved identically, and that they all operate on a single function through a single pathway.
I could go on but I'm not going to page through the article to pick at it more, and in so doing satisfy their click-through quota.
I used to really like the old, stodgy, stuffy SciAm. It said what it meant clearly and didn't end up with an oral-pedal inversion by trying to say more than was warranted, or that it felt it had to pump up with hype in the name of market share.
I like the new SciAm too, but I liked it better when it was called OMNI.
Recanted (Score:3, Funny)
But Vista changed my opinion about that.
Describe tying your shoe.... (Score:2)
....and realize your description can be as simple as you want to make it or so complicated, like in patent lawyer speak, that even a genius might have trouble following it.
There are different levels of knowledge where the further away you get from core knowledge the more complicated and error prone or distorted knowledge can become.
There is a cycle also to the evolution of knowledge, that it builds up to a point where it breaks down and a re-evaluation is done closer to the core, to again expand out in a mo
What inhibits intelligence, then? (Score:2, Interesting)
If creatures have evolved enough intelligence to use tools and anticipate the future, then why aren't all animals intelligent? As some of them have been around for longer than us, why aren't they smarter than us? Some adaptions, such as flight, or vision, or a poisonous bite might seem to have to happen all at once, but intelligence can come by degrees - adding a few more brain cells here and here until you have the right balance, until you reach some natural limit where the head becomes too heavy or uses
Re:What inhibits intelligence, then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe clever creatures get too clever for their own good, such as putting brain-good before gene-good. ie: a smart male praying mantis may avoid murderous females.
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That, and the energy requirements of the larger brain. But it's not really that much larger, is it?
Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
Although the brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization.
(I assume that's the human brain. There is a citation, but it's dead tree and I didn't go looking.)
Brains are expensive things to maintain. If an organism can survive and replicate without one, then it's not worth the cost.
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Where's the paradox? The dumber you are, the more you need to reproduce for your genes to survive.
Smart genes can survive on half a child per parent.
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More intelligence isn't always useful to reproduce better, which is what matters for evolution.
A bird that is born with a better brain that allows it to realize that it can pick a sharp rock and bash it against an egg with a hard shell to break it has an advantage: it now has more food available to it. It will be healthier (or survive) and will be more likely to reproduce.
A cat born with a brain that allows it to realize that if it could perform the necessary operations it could build mousetraps to catch mi
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Same thing for humans. A brain that makes you a supremely good programmer isn't terribly good at attracting women, especially when using that extra ability involves withdrawing from society to get things done.
If you have to withdraw from society to get things done, then perhaps you're not as great a programmer as you think you are. The qualities that make a good programmer are in no way incompatible with getting on in society.
The qualities that make a good programmer - abstract thought, application, problem solving, general geekery - have always been useful in society. People look to you for inventions and solutions, and are willing to pay for it.
The 'programmer' in a prehistoric tribe, might be the guy who real
:-( sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh how I wish it were possible to have a discussion of biology on Slashdot without discussing mythology. Having to explain/defend the basic principles of evolution over and over to the the hordes of deliberately miseducated really is a tiring exercise.
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Re:Wow, evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious, assuming you really don't "believe in evolution," what do you believe stops it? Leptons and quarks organize themselves into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into amino acids and peptide chains. All of this has been observed in nature or laboratory facsimiles thereof. So what magical force prevents organization from continuing to higher and higher levels, especially once rudimentary feedback loops form?
I've seriously never understood the classical religious position on this stuff. I don't believe it would take a God to steer evolution; based on all available evidence, it would take a God to stop it.
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:5, Funny)
I don't believe it would take a God to steer evolution; based on all available evidence, it would take a God to stop it.
Hence, the bible belt.
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Christians do not deny MICRO-evolution. For example, when two different breeds of dog mate, they form something different.
However, we deny that species evolve into other species. For example, fish do not become horses and cats do not become giraffes.
Now I have heard an example of modern evolution that defines a new species like this: suppose you have a fish that is normally green, but occasionally a mutation occurs and a blue fish is born among the green fish. Suppose these fish live near some green cor
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
However, we deny that species evolve into other species. For example, fish do not become horses and cats do not become giraffes.
Do you understand the idea behind "common ancestors?" Nobody has ever claimed that fish become horses and other such absurdities. Burning a straw man without an EPA permit is likely to result in a hefty fine, unless, I guess, if you do it out in the middle of the desert.
You are aware that speciation -- divergence of one species into two incompatible ones -- has been demonstrated, right? What barriers do you propose might exist that prevent one ancestral population from diverging into two arbitrarily-different ones? Be specific.
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That's actually true, isn't it? Fish -> amphibians -> reptiles -> mammals.
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
That's actually true, isn't it? Fish -> amphibians -> reptiles -> mammals.
Sure it's true. It's true in the same way that you can go from California to Brazil to the UK to Japan. You're simply leaving out the travel time and stops in between, and quite often that is more important than the destinations.
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Hardly, more like
Proto-fish
Intermediate fish . Proto-amphibian
Intermediate fish . Intermediate-amphibian . Proto-Reptile
Intermediate fish . Intermediate-amphibian . Intermediate-Reptile . Proto-Mammal
__ Current Fish _ . __ Current Amphibian _ . __ Current Reptile _ . _ Current Mammal
.
Most modern fish are as far from the common ancestor as modern amphibians, reptiles, and mammals; barring archae that live in relatively unchanging, low mutation ecologies.
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....Probably - over a few hundred million years.....
Probably is a statistical word. Do you have an idea what the probability is that a fish can evolve into a horse? I'll give you a hint. Your probability of winning next 23 consecutive lotteries is significantly higher than that a fish will evolve into a horse. The probability of another planet existing in the universe that can support intelligent life is about the same. Mathematicians consider any probability less than about 1 in 10^-42 equal to zero.
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The fish that had descendants that were some fish and some amphibians were very different from both sets of their descendants. (This isn't required, but that's how it happened.)
During the evolution of amphibians into reptiles, there existed many intermediate species, that if they still survived today would cause classification problems. That one was a transition with lots of intermediate steps. Lots of the transition species still survive, but they tend to get grouped into "amphibian". Salamanders aren'
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Were the first fish of which you speak fish, or were they not fish? If they were, then by your own admission I was right; fish evolved into amphibians. If they weren't, why did you call them fish?
Did I say otherwise? You, along with several others, seem to have have read a "direct" or "overnigh
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What barriers do you propose might exist that prevent one ancestral population from diverging into two arbitrarily-different ones?
If an individual strays too far genetically, God drops a rock on it.
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
However, we deny that species evolve into other species. For example, fish do not become horses and cats do not become giraffes.
Fish and horses are quite a bit more than a species apart. That doesn't just require speciation (what you Christians call "maroevolution"), but it requires the jumping of genus, family, order, perhaps more depending on your comparison.
There is not one single science paper stating that this happens. Nobody says "Fish become horses". This is a typical creationist (read: Christian) misstatement and misunderstanding. It shows you really don't know what evolution means or says.
Now I have heard an example of modern evolution that defines a new species like this: suppose you have a fish that is normally green, but occasionally a mutation occurs and a blue fish is born among the green fish. Suppose these fish live near some green coral where the green fish blend in and thus survive more than the blue fish. Then, say that several of the green and blue fish migrate away from that area several miles to where there happens to be a lot of blue coral. Now, the green fish die off and the blue fish survive. Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred. I call that a convenient definition to suit evolutionist agenda. Utterly ridiculous.
That is what is known as speciation. This is when one species becomes two. Again, what you Christians call "macroevolution", or evolution of one species into another. What you have described above is evolution... you have random mutation (your blue fish), natural selection (the green coral environment and the predators within), genetic isolation (a group of these fish move to a different environment), natural selection once again (the blue coral environment and its predators), and this results in speciation (the green and blue are separate and will no longer breed with one another).
One species is now two. Evolution. Now, do this process six-hundred-million times.
I have a hard time accepting evolution in general due to the wild leaps it makes. For instance, Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins about the origins of life in the universe and the possibility of intelligent design. The best answer that a practiced scientist and atheist can give on the spot is that some higher form of life evolved and then populated the earth with life. That is, aliens evolved & put life on earth. But, the aliens themselves would have had to evolved through some natural process. THAT is his answer to intelligent design. He answered NOTHING, but merely moved the issue to another planet. It is circular reasoning. I simply do not understand this die-hard attitude towards something that many reputable scientists have abandoned and continue to abandon to this day.
Yes, that is Dawkins' answer to Intelligent Design. This is not a reference to anything pertaining to evolution. Stein asked how ID could be applied to science, and the ONLY way is if alien life (intelligent) seeded Earth (design). Why is this the only answer? Because a deity is not science. Your God is not scientifically verifiable. Therefore it (and anything pertaining to it... your Bible, creationism, cdesign proponentists, etc.) cannot be a scientific answer to anything.
And for further reference, Stein was referring to life on Earth, not life in "the universe", something that IDists do not believe in either.
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Re:Wow, evolution (Score:5, Informative)
There is not one single science paper stating that this happens. Nobody says "Fish become horses". This is a typical creationist (read: Christian) misstatement and misunderstanding. It shows you really don't know what evolution means or says.
Please don't pidgeonhole all Christians under the Creationist camp. There are many Christians that are not diametrically opposed to evolutionary theory. Rather, we see the creation story in Genesis to be allegorical and poetic, instead of trying to place it under textbook scrutiny.
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Further, a belief like creatio ex nihilo, for
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If you think the Bible is just poetry (which it is, at best) you shouldn't call yourself a Christian.
The only condition to classify oneself as a Christian is the belief that Christ died on the cross to forgive our sins and give us everlasting life. That's it. I am also a Christian who happens to believe in evolution and I take the Bible very loosely rather than literally. I believe that the Bible was inspired by God and not the literal word of God, because the latter can't be written into any human dialect. You lose something in the translation.
I do have friends who believe the universe was literally creat
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If you think the Bible is just poetry (which it is, at best) you shouldn't call yourself a Christian.
I think you're not qualified to decide who get to call themselves Christians. After all, that's one of the few things where the truth really is decided on popular vote... Only the worst fundamentalist christians believes that all the christians that believe differently from them are not Real Christians(tm).
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a baptized, confirmed, signed, sealed, and approved Christian. It's my culture. A lot of it is pure voodoo, but there are some decent messages buried in there. Big man in the sky? Probably not. It looks to me like we're on our own, but I'll still put an angel on my tree, thanks.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with the bible basher on this one. I'm pretty sure if you're to claim you're a Christian, you need to believe at least:
All the other stuff, I think you can be flexible about. But that bullet list - you need that to be Christian. I know it all looks a bit unlikely. That's why it amazes me there's so many of them.
Now, I was brought up in a Welsh Presbyterian tradition (which doesn't the fundamentalist connotations it may have in the US) and like you, despite not believing in the mumbo jumbo aspects, I hold 'Christian values' dear - love thy neighbour, turn the other cheek, all that good stuff. I have a star atop my Christmas tree. But I'm still an atheist.
You, since you don't believe in a "big man in the sky", are either an atheist, an agnostic, or an "it's a bit more complicated than that". If anyone asks again.
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I'm pretty sure that by definition, anyone who tries to live by the teachings of Christ is free to call themselves a Christian. This is regardless of whether or not they live by all of them, or live by the rules of the religion his ideology grew out of.
Just splitting hairs. But I think it's important because otherwise you set up a polarizing environm
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that by definition, anyone who tries to live by the teachings of Christ is free to call themselves a Christian. This is regardless of whether or not they live by all of them, or live by the rules of the religion his ideology grew out of.
Well, that's two of you, and I guess there might be plenty more. I'm surprised I must say - in 35 years this is the first time I've been exposed to what seems to a mainstream tendency to describe yourself as 'Christian' despite not believing in, you know, the basic tenets of Christianity. You live and learn.
Just splitting hairs. But I think it's important because otherwise you set up a polarizing environment, where you think all Christians actually believe everything you listed.
It only becomes polarised if you think that all non-Christians don't believe in the good stuff. The being a good person bit.
By reserving the Christian label for people who believe in the Christian faith, you can demonstrate that the rest of us are decent people too. I bet if you tell a real Christian that you're Christian, they're going to assume, as I would, that you believe all the God/Hell/Heaven/Sin stuff.
Some of them just want Christ Consciousness. You know, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek.
There's already a perfectly good phrase to describe that kind of person "decent human beings". You don't need Christ to be a decent human being (though he did create some catchy slogans). Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. all manage to love their neighbours and turn the other cheek.
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If I were a Christian, I would hate you and see you as an incredibly bad person.
If you were a Christian, you would love him, you would fear for his mortal soul, and you would pray for him regularly.
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If someone claiming to be God knocked on the door of your dwelling, what evidence would such a person have to provide to convince you that such claim was true? If you slam the door in such a person's face and they came in anyway, right through the wall, what other evidence would you require?
That's the weirdest question I've ever been asked. Let's face it, it's never going to happen.
I can't think of any conjuring trick that would convince me - walking through a wall is hardly on a par with, you know, creating the whole universe.
But presumably an omnipotent being, who wanted to, could simply rewire my brain to make me believe anything he wanted me to believe.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Council that put together the Bible 200 years or so after Christ's birth, debated hotly which books went into it. The whole Old Testament was included for chiefly two reasons*
1. Some (not nearly all), wanted to include any OT book that seemed to have a prophecy of Jesus's coming, so that Christians could see that He met all the tests.
2. Some wanted all the Jewish laws in every copy of the Bible, so that Christians could see what laws Jesus was talking about when he spoke about living not by the law but
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
As Dawkins himself answers here [richarddawkins.net], the entire question at that point was nonsensical. Stein was asking a man who emphatically believes that Intelligent Design is nonsense to construct a scenario in which Intelligent Design might have happened. And as ID proponents so often point out when asked about the religious implications of their position, "they're not necessarily talking about a deity." Well, what does that leave, apart from aliens? The entire exchange in question is basically a believer getting a scientist to describe Intelligent Design's own belief structure, and then crucifying him because he didn't mention God. It's ID that's nonsensical, Dawkins was merely repeating your own words back to you.
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred.
So, here we have two different varieties of fish that look different, have different genes, and cannot inter-breed. Species is a classification system that is subjective in nature, so there is no truly objective definition of whether they are two different species, but where would you draw the line? What else would need to happen before you could say they were different species?
The hard part is this; When you say I believe in microevolution but not macroevolution, you are really saying "I believe in evolution, but with some exceptions". The broader your definition of species is (I.E. the more differences that are needed to declare something a new species), the fewer exceptions you are allowing. The narrower your definition, the more exceptions you are allowing (and the more credit you are giving to a god), but also the more difficult it is to make a claim that hasn't already been disproved.
I have a hard time accepting evolution in general due to the wild leaps it makes. For instance, Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins about the origins of life in the universe and the possibility of intelligent design. The best answer that a practiced scientist and atheist can give on the spot is that some higher form of life evolved and then populated the earth with life. That is, aliens evolved & put life on earth. But, the aliens themselves would have had to evolved through some natural process. THAT is his answer to intelligent design.
In this interview, Richard Dawkins was asked for a scenario in which ID would be feasible. He answered "Aliens" because the theory that a god existed seemed unfeasible to him. But of course, if you believe in a god, then he is an alien. Dawkins merely repeated ID's claim and suggested an answer to the question "where did god come from".
If you want to criticize Richard Dawkins for having ridiculous ideas, then please criticize him for the moments in which he describes his own beliefs, not yours.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
evolutionist agenda
Huh? What agenda is that? What really bothers me about religious thought is that they (you?) see everything in terms of agendas. Because religious people have no method for understanding whether something is true or not but only an understanding of competing faiths, they see science as merely a competing faith. Well, it's not. It is a method for refining the understanding of data, improving knowledge, repeatedly analysing and perfecting what we know. There is no agenda. There is only a search for tru
micro v. macro, flawed argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution theory does not require that a new species be introduced in a single generation. The theory contends that small genetic changes from one generation to the next accumulate over time, eventually giving rise to a new species. At every point, organisms from any given generation could produce fertile progeny with members of several previous and several subsequent generations. But, if genetic lines are allowed to diverge enough, at some point the accumulation of genetic differences would provide inferti
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Now I have heard an example of modern evolution that defines a new species like this: suppose you have a fish that is normally green, but occasionally a mutation occurs and a blue fish is born among the green fish. Suppose these fish live near some green coral where the green fish blend in and thus survive more than the blue fish. Then, say that several of the green and blue fish migrate away from that area several miles to where there happens to be a lot of blue coral. Now, the green fish die off and the
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:4, Funny)
I'm curious, assuming you really don't "believe in evolution," what do you believe stops it? Leptons and quarks organize themselves into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into amino acids and peptide chains.
I dropped a petitde chain this morning the size of a small baryonic particle. At one point, I wasn't sure if I was taking physics, or if the physics was taking me. And while I'm on that point, what's the deal with studying physics? Shouldn't it be physically studying? I'm certainly not taking anything with me when I'm done.
But back on topic, that dude's argument didn't make any sense, so why did you even respond?
Re: (Score:2)
I've seriously never understood the classical religious position on this stuff. I don't believe it would take a God to steer evolution; based on all available evidence, it would take a God to stop it.
Please don't mistake the ramblings of a minority of fundamentalists for the 'classical religious position'. For example, the catholic church officially recognizes the validity of evolution. Most intelligent religious people do as well, and many scientists are religious.
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
# C - Whole chromosome extra, missing, or both - see chromosomal aberrations
# T - Trinucleotide repeat disorders - gene is extended in length
Anyway, I will ask you a simple question if we build a device to directly view the past and you can watch over billions of years as life evolves as scientists thought it did, and see the most interesting thing Jesus did was starting a cult. Would you still believe in God?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm atheistic/apatheistic/agnostic, whatever you want to call it, but I've never understood why anyone would say that proving evolution (via your device to view it in action) would prove god/gods doesn't/don't exist.Likewise, I don't understand people on the flip-side who think that somehow believing in evolution is contrary to believing in god/gods.
The only thing proof of or belief in evolution would indicate is that the literal interpretation of the Bible is false. That's it. Trying to push it and say tha
Philosophy 2.0 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How can this be? (Score:4, Insightful)
We're constantly being told that scientists have it all hammered-out; they know all there is to know. About everything.
By whom?
If that's the case why don't all the scientists pack it in and do something else?
Fact is, science distinguishes itself from religion by NOT having it all hammered out. There's always more to find out.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
I don't think that word means what you think it means. (Or rather what the word "races" meant at the time.)
Here [rationalrevolution.net] is a rebuttal against accusations of Darwin being a racist.
Actually I don't know what he believed about non-white humans, but none of it would make him wrong about evolution.
Newton was a mystic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes yes, and Newton was a mystic and an alchemist, but that doesn't mean we should abandon calculus and classical physics. We don't dismiss all of psychology because of the quirks of Freud and Jung.
The map is not the territory. The part is not the whole. Evolution is not "Darwinism", relativity isn't "Einsteinism", and physics isn't "Newtonism". But engaging in an ad-hominem attack on a man centuries dead is sheer "Bozoism".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
John McCain, of course, because he's a fat cat himself and gives free room and board to another cat. And then there's this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wguQGP4p-Dk [youtube.com]