Human Creation, Evolution, Quantavolution, Alien Origins, etc.

[goodsamaritan]

I think its best we redirect debates about human origins in this thread.

What's your leading analysis / guess / hypothesis / theory / belief at this time?

[William]

What's your leading analysis / guess / hypothesis / theory / belief at this time?

I use the scientific method,  which requires observation of evidence. Evidence is what anyone can see , and agree that it is real

I know of only one such thing, this is the Sumerican creation epic known as "Enuma Elish" , or in English translation "When in the Heights".

There is no other evidence AFAIK, and the difficulty of translation is enough that analysis / guess / hypothesis / theory / belief is not worth discussion. IMO

[Raw Kyle]

I use the scientific method,  which requires observation of evidence. Evidence is what anyone can see , and agree that it is real

I know of only one such thing, this is the Sumerican creation epic known as "Enuma Elish" , or in English translation "When in the Heights".

There is no other evidence AFAIK, and the difficulty of translation is enough that analysis / guess / hypothesis / theory / belief is not worth discussion. IMO

Your evidence is a text that you cannot translate? That to me seems the opposite of "what anyone can see, and agree that is real."

I can see that living things either A) pass on their genes; or B) don't; by watching that some animals reproduce and some die before reaching reproductive age or don't successfully reproduce. In light of that observation, of which I need no translation for, I can only agree that evolution makes the most sense. Every religion has a creation story, why pick one when they're all so similar and obviously based on the environment the people were surrounded by? To me it seems like if you raised someone in an experiment, like that movie "The Truman Show," you could get them to believe a creation story based on their surroundings. That's why most creation stories involve the sun, water if the people lived close to it, the local animals etc...

[goodsamaritan]

My current leanings as to human origins is:

Evolution yes - but not in the slow millions of years description, I believe it runs much faster.

Quantavolution - the successor and more probable path of evolution... quantavolutionary JUMPS, not slow "evolution", the conditions of the earth and the solar system have been changing in drastic ways... we are pushed to the limit to "evolve"... quantavolution jumps... gene expressions... just like the viruses and bacteria and yeast which "transform" according to the environmental conditions, we humans have done something of the sort.

Why people forgot -- the great forgetting -- of what it truly means to be human, paleolithic knowledge -- because as described in the Quantavolution theory, drastic worldly changes happened, great catastrophes lead people to start again from square one.

Gods? Aliens? Tweaking humans to "evolve", why not?  Always open to such things.  But I'm sure these "higher beings" didn't design humans for cooked food.

Agriculture -- was not a mistake, it was necessary for survival.  Conditions on earth changed.  Either resort to agriculture or die.  Notice how drastically more EXPENSIVE our paleo diet is compared to the cheap SAD diet.

Our genes, are still of stone age / paleolithic make.  We haven't changed in so little a time.

Paleolithic times is a wide swath of time, probably lots longer than neolithic times.

All theories of human origins is tested with WHAT WORKS.

Currently high fat / low carb organic animal + organic fruit works for me.  There is no turning back for me to SAD.  My life may have expired if I stayed on SAD.

We are all trying to remember who we are... it seems we are all on the right track.

[The Barbarian]

I think its best we redirect debates about human origins in this thread.

What's your leading analysis / guess / hypothesis / theory / belief at this time?

I'm part alien. The cool thing is I can say that out loud and noone comes to take me away for expiriments cuz they don't believe me :-)

[PaleoPhil]

While I don't think that adopting a Paleo diet requires recognizing the validity of the evolutionary model, it did help me to recognize instantly the brilliance of Boyd Eaton's paper on Paleolithic nutrition and biological discordance. Most Paleo dieters acknowledge the importance of biological evolution, but some are creationists. Given that Paleo dieters are in such a tiny minority, I think we should learn to get along for the common good. That being said, I'll tell my story.

I am a reformed creationist. I wrote two college papers on creationism vs. evolution. In the first one I took a pro-creationist position. Further research for the second paper led me to an undecided position. This book is what tilted me to indecision and then eventually over to evolution with its brilliant refutations of creationist points:

Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution by Douglas J. Futuyma

I dare any creationist to read it without calling into question some of your assumptions and beliefs. Also influential but not mind-changing were the writings of Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, Louis Leakey and others (I can't remember them all now). Creationism is now called "Intelligent Design," but the arguments haven't changed much, so don't be fooled by the slick repackaging.

"[The theory of evolution by natural selection is] the most fundamental and pervasive idea of all biology" --Loren Cordain, PhD

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." -- Theodosius Dobzhansky

"[Evolution] has become the central organizing principle of modern biology, providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life on Earth" --The Interacademy Panel on International Issues. 2006. http://www.interacademies.net/Object.File/Master/6/150/Evolution%20statement.pdf.

"Natural selection is one of the cornerstones of modern biology." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

"evolution is the foundation of every branch of biology; in fact, it is so fundamental and pervasive that we often take its importance for granted. ..."
--The Triple HelixToday, www.thetriplehelix.org/features/521

Quantavolution "jumps" sound similar to Gould and Eldredge's "punctuated equilibria."

[Sitting Coyote]

In principle I agree with the idea that Homo sapiens evolved via the process of natural selection over millions of years, although I'm not so sure paleontologists, archeologists and anthropologists have as good a handle on the details as they claim.  I also believe that human evolution was not necessarily always occurred slowly and at a near-static rate.  I suspect that throughout the expanse of time that led to modern man there were periods where changes in our environment forced us, biologically and behaviorally, to change much faster than at other times.  Punctuated near-equilibrium, in other words.

And as a trained scientist (I do research in energetics, specifically in the areas of fossil fuel depletion, renewable fuels and building and transportation energy sectors) I am saddened by how hard it is for many scientists to admit that we don't really no much about the history--Big History--of our species.  Because of the paucity of the fossil record and the very limited amount of information we can reliably get from fossils there will always be important questions we can never hope to answer.  I'm in favor of saying "I don't know" far more often...

[Paleo Donk]

I also believe that human evolution was not necessarily always occurred slowly and at a near-static rate.  I suspect that throughout the expanse of time that led to modern man there were periods where changes in our environment forced us, biologically and behaviorally, to change much faster than at other times.  Punctuated near-equilibrium, in other words.

I recently watched a show about evolution on nova where they said that hominid brain size stayed stagnant and small for 4 million years from 6 to 2 million years ago. It was hypothesized that around 2 million years ago significant climate and ecological changes happened rapidly that forced hominids to adapt at a much faster pace. The ones with the larger brains were able to quickly figure out how to adapt to the changing environment and suvive.

[PaleoPhil]

In principle I agree with the idea that Homo sapiens evolved via the process of natural selection over millions of years, although I'm not so sure paleontologists, archeologists and anthropologists have as good a handle on the details as they claim. 

I agree. They can be real asses about it. I think that the creationists and ID folks have been useful in giving them some competition and forcing them to explain some things.

I also believe that human evolution was not necessarily always occurred slowly and at a near-static rate.  I suspect that throughout the expanse of time that led to modern man there were periods where changes in our environment forced us, biologically and behaviorally, to change much faster than at other times.  Punctuated near-equilibrium, in other words.

You're in good company with Mayr, Eldredge and Gould then, but be forewarned that Gould is anathema to Tyler (and Gould is not my favorite either--I'm not fond of scientists who seem to put politics ahead of science, though he was a good writer).

And as a trained scientist ... I'm in favor of saying "I don't know" far more often...

Excellent. A true scientist. We should get along dandy. Are you a fan of Socrates and Nassim Taleb too?

[alphagruis]

In principle I agree with the idea that Homo sapiens evolved via the process of natural selection over millions of years, although I'm not so sure paleontologists, archeologists and anthropologists have as good a handle on the details as they claim.  I also believe that human evolution was not necessarily always occurred slowly and at a near-static rate.  I suspect that throughout the expanse of time that led to modern man there were periods where changes in our environment forced us, biologically and behaviorally, to change much faster than at other times.  Punctuated near-equilibrium, in other words.

And as a trained scientist (I do research in energetics, specifically in the areas of fossil fuel depletion, renewable fuels and building and transportation energy sectors) I am saddened by how hard it is for many scientists to admit that we don't really no much about the history--Big History--of our species.  Because of the paucity of the fossil record and the very limited amount of information we can reliably get from fossils there will always be important questions we can never hope to answer.  I'm in favor of saying "I don't know" far more often...

As a trained scientist too (physicist) I agree that we so often don't really know the ansver (as in climate change and "global warming" for instance in spite of the IPCC claims). Yet, as to evolution in biology I'm quite convinced and pretty sure of it's clear cut reality . Physics has evolved rapidly in the past 30 years and a new science of complex systems, complexity and emergence has been developed (please google a little bit with these words). Unfortunately the relevant ideas are not yet popular for many reasons, mainly because they are still too recent and entirely new.  

This means that we now know much more about the mechanisms of evolution than just natural selection and Darwin. Darwinian selection turn out to be only a small part of the story. The main phenomenon that drives evolution is something called self-organization in a complex system, namely here in the biosphere. Within this framework evolution no more needs to be just gradual as in darwinian natural selection. Theory of complexity precisely implies that evolution must include very rapid steps and jumps that punctuate the more gradual changes. In other word we now understand quite well from a theoretical point of view why there is something like "punctuated near equilibrium".

Food for thought in this respect here for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Kauffman

As to the absence in paleontology of evidence (fossils) of intermediate steps and links in evolution of man or other species, often invoked by ID or creationists against evolution, that's indeed true but quite understandable because good conservation of remains is necessarily a rare event for many reasons. Absence of this kind of evidence is certainly not convincing evidence of absence. Its just the most likely expected situation, unfortunately. There is actually ample  evidence and IMO one of the most convincing one in favor of evolution is in fact the very conspicuous and quite striking similarity in biochemistry (and genes) of all animals or plants. This definitely implies the existence of a common ancestor and thus evolution. No way to escape from this reality.    

[TylerDurden]

I see PP anticipated my reaction. Gould was notorious, just like Meade , in creating nonsense theories such as punctuated equilibrium(since dismissed by the scientific community) and then either manufacturing or carefully selecting only those few facts which fit in with his theories and rejecting all others. His punctuated equilibrium theory is itself widely derided because its concept of revolution was directly inspired by Gould's Marxist beliefs rather than having any scientific basis. But the clincher was that he constantly attacked the field of evolutionary psychology(to the point where people understandably viewed him as a Creationist sympathiser), but was eventually proven dead wrong as evidence in favour of that field steadily increased.

Here's a rather irreverent article on Gould and his misjudgements:-

http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2016

The obituaries on Gould are, of course, all very nice but even they reluctantly acknowledge that he was a "glorious failure" in science, that he was an entertaining writer but a poor scientist.

I believe Richard Dawkins and a number of scientists have already written several books/articles demolishing Gould's ideas, so there's not much else for me to add, other than to say that Gould is not an appropriate poster-boy for human evolution or any related subject.

[alphagruis]

I see PP anticipated my reaction. Gould was notorious, just like Meade , in creating nonsense theories such as punctuated equilibrium(since dismissed by the scientific community) and then either manufacturing or carefully selecting only those few facts which fit in with his theories and rejecting all others. His punctuated equilibrium theory is itself widely derided because its concept of revolution was directly inspired by Gould's Marxist beliefs rather than having any scientific basis. But the clincher was that he constantly attacked the field of evolutionary psychology(to the point where people understandably viewed him as a Creationist sympathiser), but was eventually proven dead wrong as evidence in favour of that field steadily increased.

Here's a rather irreverent article on Gould and his misjudgements:-

http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2016

The obituaries on Gould are, of course, all very nice but even they reluctantly acknowledge that he was a "glorious failure" in science, that he was an entertaining writer but a poor scientist.

I believe Richard Dawkins and a number of scientists have already written several books/articles demolishing Gould's ideas, so there's not much else for me to add, other than to say that Gould is not an appropriate poster-boy for human evolution or any related subject.

That's just bullshit babble, utterly wrong and pretentious. You don't know what you're talking about. Please update your knowledge.

Occurence of rapid sudden changes during evolution are just a fact that no serious scientist denies.

As to Gould, may I recall once more that one be may wrong in some of ones beliefs and right in others as Dr. Price or Einstein or...   you, Dawkins, me etc. A reality that you are apparently definitely unable to grasp.

A good deal of the views of Dawkins are merely at odds with what we have learned now from the most advanced work in theoretical biology.



 

[TylerDurden]

You may not like it, but I'm simply stating the general scientific view of Gould and his theories. As for Dawkins, while he has, like Gould, been criticised for mixing politics with science, he is just nowhere near  on the same fraudulent level Gould was. And it isn't only Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and many others have also similiarly criticised Gould, and not just for his bad science:-

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/reviews/dennett_exchange.html

. Here's another article which points out the 2 main disagreeable aspects of Gould which are directly against palaeo principles(ie Gould's hatred of natural selection and the degree to which Gould's attacks on darwinist natural selection has indirectly helped Creationist arguments:-

http://www.nonzero.org/newyorker.htm

I always remember a journalist once writing(during those dodgy cold-fusion claims) that it's relatively easy to tell who the really bad or fraudulent scientists are, they're often the ones with excellent PR skills.Gould certainly fits into that category.
Ah well, as Max Planck said:- "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”. Now that Gould's dead we can look forward to more serious evolutionary science being put forward over the next decades.

[Paleo Donk]

A good deal of the views of Dawkins are merely at odds with what we have learned now from the most advanced work in theoretical biology.

Do you mind going into further details. I've only read 'Selfish Gene' but the only other book where the logic resonated within me so well was Fooled By Randomness.

[William]

This definitely implies the existence of a common ancestor and thus evolution. No way to escape from this reality.    

If you were to write "This implies the existence of a common origin" I could agree.

As for complex systems, I must be missing something, because it looks like the old statement "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".
OTOH if  I have it right, then we should salute Kauffman for making money from it.

[alphagruis]

You may not like it, but I'm simply stating the general scientific view of Gould and his theories. As for Dawkins, while he has, like Gould, been criticised for mixing politics with science, he is just nowhere near  on the same fraudulent level Gould was. And it isn't only Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and many others have also similiarly criticised Gould, and not just for his bad science:-

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/reviews/dennett_exchange.html

. Here's another article which points out the 2 main disagreeable aspects of Gould which are directly against palaeo principles(ie Gould's hatred of natural selection and the degree to which Gould's attacks on darwinist natural selection has indirectly helped Creationist arguments:-

http://www.nonzero.org/newyorker.htm

I always remember a journalist once writing(during those dodgy cold-fusion claims) that it's relatively easy to tell who the really bad or fraudulent scientists are, they're often the ones with excellent PR skills.Gould certainly fits into that category.
Ah well, as Max Planck said:- "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”. Now that Gould's dead we can look forward to more serious evolutionary science being put forward over the next decades.

Non-sense completely out of topic.I don't care about Gould. Nothing to do with the present discussion. I not even mentioned Gould in my post. Maybe you didn't notice but the relevant point was a specific scientific fact and not men and/or politics, namely the discussion was about

The occurence of rapid sudden changes that punctuate the much slower gradual change during evolution

Again this is just a plain fact. Period.

 

 

[alphagruis]

Do you mind going into further details. I've only read 'Selfish Gene' but the only other book where the logic resonated within me so well was Fooled By Randomness.

Well this is a vast technical topic. I've read most of the books of Dawkins. His reasoning certainly explains interesting aspects of evolution as does darwinian natural selection but evolution is much more than that. The problem with Dawkins views is that he attempts to reduce life to genes and darwinian selection. We now know that this is definitely not possible and many aspects of the order formed during evolution is actually the result of self-organisation of the biosphere. Roughly speaking in a complex system such as the biosphere that is maintained far from thermodynamic equilibrium (here by the permanent arrival of solar radiation on earth) breathtaking order (such as life- chemical order- or simply ocean currents or wind systems such as trade winds- ordered movement of air or water-) merely forms spontaneously from interactions between constituant parts at lower level such as the molecules the system is made of. The clear cut demonstration that such unexpected most astonishing complex order at higher level merely emerges  from very simple and now quite well known (from physics) interaction laws at molecular level is one of the greatest achievements of science in the past decades. This indeed means that the whole is much more than the sum of the parts and this is not a triviality. In other words knowledge of the parts (genes for instance) is by no means sufficient to predict or anticipate the properties of whole.  Nevertheless the properties of the whole as astonishing as they may be are just a consequence of the much simpler and known interactions of the parts. No need of any plan coded in genes or an organizing entity such as God.

I suggest googling a little bit with "complex systems", "emergence", "self-organization" and/or read for instance the books by Stuart Kaufmann (biology) or Robert Laughlin (physics) to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

The main message here is that we cannot and should not reduce the formation of order in biosphere (or evolution) to darwinian selection or even worse to genes.



        

[alphagruis]

If you were to write "This implies the existence of a common origin" I could agree.

As for complex systems, I must be missing something, because it looks like the old statement "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".
OTOH if  I have it right, then we should salute Kauffman for making money from it.

Please read my reply to PaleoDonk's post. Your "old statement" is by no means a triviality, nor is Kaufmann's (or more generally Santa Fe Institute's) work. If it were the competitors would have killed him (scientifically of course). Believe me competition among scientists is very very tough.

As for replacing "ancestor" by "origin", William, I'm not so sure it makes really a substantial difference.

[Paleo Donk]

William, could you briefly give the forum an overview of what exactly you believe with regards to how we got here and evolution. I still don't understand. If you could pretend you were talking to an 11 year old with above average intelligence that'd be great.

[PaleoPhil]

While some of Tyler's comments seem to stray into ad hominem (which I admit is something of a judgment call), it is quite a coincidence that the Gould/Eldredge punctuated equilibria theory fits neatly into the official Soviet propaganda of biological history (and social history and pretty much everything else) as a series of revolutions. Granted, I'm now biased by my libertarian leanings and I couldn't read Gould's mind and therefore don't know his true motivations. However, when I read Eldredge/Gould back in the 80s I wanted to believe them, because I was a creationist and some of Gould's views fit fairly nicely with my own. However, I also managed to remain open-minded, so that when I searched some of the works that Eldredge/Gould cited and read other materials, I found that what they presented didn't seem to back punctuated equilibria quite as strongly as they had argued.

On the other hand, while I'm a bit out of it now, because I haven't done a lot of reading on the debates within the scientific community on biological evolution since the 80s, I don't get the sense from what I've read that punctuated equilibrium and Gould in general have been quite as thoroughly discarded as Tyler suggests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium#Criticism; Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest, http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/nettle.html). Yes, Dawkins, Dennett and others criticize PE and Gould, but others still write positively about both and at least one source even says that Dawkins agreed with Gould on some things outside of this theory.

[William]

William, could you briefly give the forum an overview of what exactly you believe with regards to how we got here and evolution. I still don't understand. If you could pretend you were talking to an 11 year old with above average intelligence that'd be great.

Garbage in, Garbage out is what I believe. What I hear is fantasies, fairy tales and wishful thinking.
And I read of people who insist on believing,  as if the the world will end if I don't believe the latest fashion.
FTW
I'm still working on Ginnungugap; if I ever understand that, the next on the list will be "complex systems", "emergence", "self-organization" -- that last has a smell of Glooskap, the self-created man.

These are all stories - no matter how entertaining, if you start believing them, you are owned.  

[goodsamaritan]

Well I love my new DVD:

One simple truth will change the future of science and our understanding of human history:

The ancient sky bore no resemblance to the sky we see today.




Symbols of an Alien Sky will introduce you to celestial spectacles and earth-shaking events once remembered around the world. Archaic symbols of these events still surround us, some as icons of the world's great religions, though the origins of the symbols appear to be lost in obscurity.

Cultural history seems fragmented and contradictory. But as demonstrated in this introductory episode, there are also levels of deep agreement between the cultures. According to David Talbott, these "archetypes" allow for a radical reinterpretation of both human and planetary history. Competing regional symbols are aspects of "one story told around the world," a story both awe inspiring and terrifying.

Symbols is a groundbreaking documentary of epic proportions. Never before has so much new information been offered up in one production.
(Approximately 78 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzxVhLcCH8w

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ZT-IOf0gM

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoThe9EzcaE

[TylerDurden]

The occurence of rapid sudden changes that punctuate the much slower gradual change during evolution

Again this is just a plain fact. Period.

A meaningless statement. I've heard similiar bald statements of absolute conviction made by Creationists/Flat Earthers about their own theories and I wasn't convinced then, either. It is not a fact and is heavily disputed in the scientific community.

[goodsamaritan]

A meaningless statement. I've heard similiar bald statements of absolute conviction made by Creationists/Flat Earthers about their own theories and I wasn't convinced then, either. It is not a fact and is heavily disputed in the scientific community.

Have you seen the short clips on YouTube about Symbols of An Ancient Sky?
I can gift you with a DVD if you'd like.
PM me your mailing address.

[TylerDurden]

Have you seen the short clips on YouTube about Symbols of An Ancient Sky?
I can gift you with a DVD if you'd like.
PM me your mailing address.

I had a quick look at all 3 especially at the first one. I'm really not a fan of this sort of thing. It's very much the same sort of stuff that Von Daniken wrote about. You'd probably like Velikovsky's works too, they're of a similiar type.