If 'The Origin of Species' is correct then why?

marantz1300

read some of Dawkins work.

it might be helpful.

Maynehead

It's not just one spieces. We're just the first.

Like I said, 3.5 million years ago (which is just 1/1000 of the time in the history of life on earth) humans were living like modern day apes. In another 3.5 million years, its likely that apes would be living like modern day humans.

Unfortunately the Earth by that time will probably be a black radioactive spinning cesspit. 

Sambostar

Well it makes sense because everything in life works on an exponential basis from cellular division to ill health to learning capabilities.  If you bank your knowledge and know how to produce reliable crops as a collective, the potential for exponential growth is compounded even more.

But I think the answer to your question is that the bottom line is that nobody really knows for sure or it's 10 pints or 42.  I can't believe Drew is quoting the Smithsonian though.

I'm not dissatisfied with human kind.  That is just a liberal interpretation of my personal outlook. 

I'm actually incredibly satisfied with humankind.  People are wonderful.

I know that in the natural environment (From observation) you only get the most floral diversity on the poorest soils or substrate with fewest nutrients and if you have rich soils you will get dominance from a singular species to the detriment of all others who cannot compete with it. 

Maybe that is all there is to it as many have mentioned.

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

The point I am considering is why no other species developed the same accelerated mental capacity alongside this one human species. I'm not asking whether we are better or whether what we have done with that ability is right, wrong, good or bad.

Why just one species?

They have - just not quite as much, and the results of that tiny difference are enormous. The single biggest advantage humans have is verbal communication (both spoken and written), ie the ability to transmit complex ideas - that's allowed human knowledge and technology to develop exponentially because each generation doesn't have to re-learn the same things or have them passed on one-to-one by demonstration.

Chimps are almost at the same level as humans - they have tools, social behaviour and even warfare. But they don't have spoken communication.

Sambostar

Why does a sparrowhawk who has evolved to eat meat successfully prey on vegetarian pigeons who are often twice their size?

Sambostar

There isn't 'Just' one species, in the natural environment there are many, it's just that our collective ego cannot grasp the fact as we compare ourselves to our closest primates.  We'll never survive or get rid of insects or an amoeba for example and if the success of a species is measured through it's own survival and ability to endure the odds and reproduce I would say we are far lower down the league than you would have us believe, in fact we probably don't even make it into the top twenty. 

'Capability' as you put it is merely an insular delusion based on modern culture.  It's what we are taught to believe.  If you were in a field up against a tiger or floating around in space in a small capsule with a limited supply of oxygen, I doubt you'd still feel that the human species was 'Capable'.

WezV

TheMarlin said:

It's a theory.  It's taught as fact, but it's still a theory. 

Worth pointing out that GCSE students are taught two competing theories of evolution.  Darwin and Lamark.

Students are expected to review some basic evidence for both theories.  Lamark's theory of evolution is rejected because it's easy to find evidence which doesn't support it.  Darwin's theory is still going strong because there is a vast amount of data to support it.  

Nitefly

Danny1969 said:

There was a guy, Dutch I think,  who wrote a series of books about aliens actually kicking off the human species on this planet. I like to think he's right as it explains a lot

I mean kicking off as starting off, not literally 

@Danny1969 - I think you mean Erich von Daniken, a Swiss who wrote "Chariots of the Gods".

Interesting chap, apparently jailed in the 70's for fraud involving falsifying credit references so he could get money to fund his travels and research...

Sambostar

I just washed my jacket, pants and underpants in the bath before putting them on a wash because I feel in that 4 metre deep pool of doom in the middle of the oak woods in the middle of the night, in the dark, half cut without a torch on Friday night in subzero temperatures with frost on the ground and apart from the leaves and the green slime and the little leaches, this 2 inch long black dragonfly like larvae thing crawled out of my underpants so I washed him down the drain.  I feel that this is testament to the durability of insects and stupidity of mankind. 

As a human being with as much intellectual capability as anyone else, I really should feel remorse or worried that I had to swim for it with my Carharrt jacket on at -2C in the pitch darkness after being lost in the woods, same as I should feel concerned that a class II HGV buzzed me from 2 metres away, whilst I took a piss against a fence after losing my bearings and unknowingly crossing the main road in the darkness after blagging a lift home, again when I was half cut.  But I don't, they give me a little buzz, same as getting out of control on the beer and then trying to fight to gain control the next morning gives me a warm little buzz and I repeat them.  Probably in the same vein as people watch horror movies or like fairground rides.  You do learn a little, like it's safer to walk than get a lift home though but aisde from that I'II dry out my Carharrt and carry on where I left off until I can't anymore.

Do insects don't feel any of these things or do they just survive?

Perhaps if we had wild predators still roaming about in the UK like grey wolves and grisly bears and less numbers of humans, I think we'd all change our lifestyles and our attitudes to human capability and specialised niche behaviour.  I would have probably been eaten by now for starters or been shot by someone else who thought I was a bear.  Urban and tamed rural environments are not really the best conducive environments for clear thought on philosophies of human capability. 

We all have that wild animal in us still that we fight to put it away in a box every day.  We are not pinnacles of evolution.

Danny1969

Nitefly said:

Danny1969 said:

There was a guy, Dutch I think,  who wrote a series of books about aliens actually kicking off the human species on this planet. I like to think he's right as it explains a lot

I mean kicking off as starting off, not literally 

@Danny1969 - I think you mean Erich von Daniken, a Swiss who wrote "Chariots of the Gods".

Interesting chap, apparently jailed in the 70's for fraud involving falsifying credit references so he could get money to fund his travels and research...

Ah yeah that's the guy .... thanks

Sambostar

The Illuminati is real then?

I really don't believe it, I still think the conspiracies are the same as the Silicon Valley Scientists ideas on it all being a simulation.  People are too wrapped up in modern life and it's in secular niches to see the wood for the trees.  It's like Jack Nicholson in the Shining.

Although I wouldn't rule out the alien theory.

ToneControl

Sambostar said:

I just washed my jacket, pants and underpants in the bath before putting them on a wash because I feel in that 4 metre deep pool of doom in the middle of the oak woods in the middle of the night, in the dark, half cut without a torch on Friday night in subzero temperatures with frost on the ground and apart from the leaves and the green slime and the little leaches, this 2 inch long black dragonfly like larvae thing crawled out of my underpants so I washed him down the drain.  I feel that this is testament to the durability of insects and stupidity of mankind. 

As a human being with as much intellectual capability as anyone else, I really should feel remorse or worried that I had to swim for it with my Carharrt jacket on at -2C in the pitch darkness after being lost in the woods, same as I should feel concerned that a class II HGV buzzed me from 2 metres away, whilst I took a piss against a fence after losing my bearings and unknowingly crossing the main road in the darkness after blagging a lift home, again when I was half cut.  But I don't, they give me a little buzz, same as getting out of control on the beer and then trying to fight to gain control the next morning gives me a warm little buzz and I repeat them.  Probably in the same vein as people watch horror movies or like fairground rides.  You do learn a little, like it's safer to walk than get a lift home though but aisde from that I'II dry out my Carharrt and carry on where I left off until I can't anymore.

Do insects don't feel any of these things or do they just survive?

Perhaps if we had wild predators still roaming about in the UK like grey wolves and grisly bears and less numbers of humans, I think we'd all change our lifestyles and our attitudes to human capability and specialised niche behaviour.  I would have probably been eaten by now for starters or been shot by someone else who thought I was a bear.  Urban and tamed rural environments are not really the best conducive environments for clear thought on philosophies of human capability. 

We all have that wild animal in us still that we fight to put it away in a box every day.  We are not pinnacles of evolution.

we have lots of wild boar already, they can kill you I think??
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-9fyfc5
http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/forest-dean-rangers-target-cull-wild-boar/story-28485375-detail/story.html
https://en-gb.facebook.com/ForestofDeanWildBoarSabs/

RandallFlagg

Sambostar said:

RandallFlagg said:

Well that is something we can all be relieved to hear

Nazi. 

Well I am flying fo Berlin tomorrow for the week

Chalky

Drew_TNBD said:

For godsake people... can you not even start the criticism at the right fucking place?!

How about this...

NO-ONE EVER SAID THAT THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES IS CORRECT! NOT EVEN SCIENCE!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/what-darwin-didnt-know-45637001/

There were big gaps in Darwin's knowledge. He did not know anything about 'inheritance' for example. There are mistakes in the Origin of Species and that is what science even to this very day are working on improving.

It's not a fucking bible!!

Perhaps the science zealots can expand on, for example, what Mr Darwin changed in his second edition from the first edition and why?

The modern post-Darwinian theory of evolution is a very good model on which to base further study. But suggesting only details are left is nonsense.  It beats Creationism and Lamarkism hands-down, but it is not a mature and complete theory. Widely accepted, yes, and for good reason.  Hopefully, in 200 years, scientists will look back and smile that we were "close but no cigar" on our evolutionary understanding.

ICBM

Chalky said:

The modern post-Darwinian theory of evolution is a very good model on which to base further study. But suggesting only details are left is nonsense.  It beats Creationism and Lamarkism hands-down, but it is not a mature and complete theory. Widely accepted, yes, and for good reason.  Hopefully, in 200 years, scientists will look back and smile that we were "close but no cigar" on our evolutionary understanding.

In the same way that Relativity builds on Newtonian mechanics, and corrects some of the flaws in it without invalidating the original theory.

Chalky

ICBM said:

Chalky said:

The modern post-Darwinian theory of evolution is a very good model on which to base further study. But suggesting only details are left is nonsense.  It beats Creationism and Lamarkism hands-down, but it is not a mature and complete theory. Widely accepted, yes, and for good reason.  Hopefully, in 200 years, scientists will look back and smile that we were "close but no cigar" on our evolutionary understanding.

In the same way that Relativity builds on Newtonian mechanics, and corrects some of the flaws in it without invalidating the original theory.

Exactly. Couldn't have put it better!

Drew_TNBD

Chalky said:

Drew_TNBD said:

For godsake people... can you not even start the criticism at the right fucking place?!

How about this...

NO-ONE EVER SAID THAT THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES IS CORRECT! NOT EVEN SCIENCE!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/what-darwin-didnt-know-45637001/

There were big gaps in Darwin's knowledge. He did not know anything about 'inheritance' for example. There are mistakes in the Origin of Species and that is what science even to this very day are working on improving.

It's not a fucking bible!!

Perhaps the science zealots can expand on, for example, what Mr Darwin changed in his second edition from the first edition and why?

The modern post-Darwinian theory of evolution is a very good model on which to base further study. But suggesting only details are left is nonsense.  It beats Creationism and Lamarkism hands-down, but it is not a mature and complete theory. Widely accepted, yes, and for good reason.  Hopefully, in 200 years, scientists will look back and smile that we were "close but no cigar" on our evolutionary understanding.

You have very little understanding of what you're talking about. Neither do I really, which is why I can't answer your questions specifically. But at least I admit it, whilst you just castigate people using dullard terms like 'science zealots'.

The world around you exists because of scientific thinking. Without it you'd be eating your own shit in a mud hut, and cutting off the clits of baby girls in the desert. End of fucking story.

Sambostar

ToneControl said:

RandallFlagg said:

So has our accelerated metal ability upset the theory of evolution as we now can change the environment around us so dramatically? Rather than it taking millions of years for us to adapt to the environment we can change the environment to suit us in a very short space of time, how does the human continue to evolve and in what direction if we keep changing the environment we are in?

my metal ability has waned as I've mellowed with age 

That went totally over my head.  I still like WASP though, it's probably down to my accelerated metal ability.

holnrew

axisus said:

Some of you are forgetting, a monkey made it into space 12 years before us humans. I think that says something.

Actually it's more like 12 weeks

First chimp in space (Ham): 31st January 1961
Yuri Gagarin's flight: 12th April 1961

ICBM

holnrew said:

axisus said:

Some of you are forgetting, a monkey made it into space 12 years before us humans. I think that says something.

Actually it's more like 12 weeks

First chimp in space (Ham): 31st January 1961
Yuri Gagarin's flight: 12th April 1961

Ah, but a *monkey* (rather than an ape) was sent up in 1949.

Sadly he was also the first spaceflight fatality.