Darwin's Illusion

[metis]

It is observable because it happens so suddenly.

Nope, that's not how it works as Dan stated.

When and how do you believe humans as defined by human behavior arose?

It probably was a gradual process, so it's an unanswerable question. But we do know it did happen based on what we find with early human fossils such as with an absence of sophisticated tools. Also, brain size increased VERY significantly, which logically must have happened for a reason.

 

[cladking]

You are claiming, in essence, a non-human gave birth to humans.

You have a wonderful day.

I asked an individual with training and experience in anthropology and some knowledge of evolutionary biology how and when he believes humans arose.

Speciation does not happen suddenly. You have refused to demonstrate that it does or even to show that it is possible.

All observed change in life is sudden. If Evolution is real then it's the o0nly change that is not. I don't believe it is real.

Of course, you refuse to define what you mean by sudden.

I've defined it many times. For most practical purposes it is instantaneous and happens as fast as the flower is pollinated or an egg is fertilized. It will usually take at least several generations for all the changes to shake out.

Sudden means exactly that; sudden. In the life of a species the shake out period is insignificant and the real change occurs instantaneously in individuals and in less than half a generation for the species.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I asked an individual with training and experience in anthropology and some knowledge of evolutionary biology how and when he believes humans arose.

So?

All observed change in life is sudden. If Evolution is real then it's the o0nly change that is not. I don't believe it is real.

No it is not. You keep repeating that claim like it is a mantra, but you fail to provide evidence to support it and have never provided any cogent response when others point to evidence that so easily and clearly refutes your claim of across the board, sudden change.

Evolution is one of many examples of change in living things that is not sudden.

That you do not believe something and deny the evidence is not basis for anyone to consider your claims are valid.

I've defined it many times.

No. You have not.

For most practical purposes it is instantaneous and happens as fast as the flower is pollinated or an egg is fertilized. It will usually take at least several generations for all the changes to shake out.

Pollination and fertilization are examples of things in living systems that occur quickly, but not instantaneously. Including only examples of processes of quick occurrence while leaving out other examples of slower occurrence seems good example of cherry picking only those things that support your claim. Migration is a change in living things that often occurs over long periods of time. A lifespan is a very important aspect of living things and varies markedly with species and circumstance. Some as short as 20 minutes and others as long as 5,000 years or longer.

I understand that you do not have a great knowledge of science or biology, but much of what you claim you could determine to be wrong on your own with just a trivial review of the literature available to the general public.

Sudden means exactly that; sudden. In the life of a species the shake out period is insignificant and the real change occurs instantaneously in individuals and in less than half a generation for the species.

Sudden can mean many things and is relative. What is a shake out period? Yet a new term with no explanation or definition. What is real change? A further new term with no explanation or definition.

What is half a generation? You keep saying things that you do not explain or define. It is a noted characteristic of your posting. Is that supposed to be a timespan or are you saying that speciation occurs within the generation in which the mutations occur? In either case, the evidence does not support your claim and the theory of evolution doesn't posit that sort of change or explain the change we do see in such irrational terms.

Perhaps it would be best if you studied what is known before you start trying to re-invent the wheel.

 

[danieldemol]

Do you really believe there has been any substantial change in the veracity of the statement since it was made?

I dont know because I'm not a palaeontologist, but as I pointed out to LIIA, the existence of even one node refutes intelligent design, so why don't you tell me how many nodes we have on the latest evolutionary tree and we can examine intelligent design in the light of all those nodes?

In my opinion.

 

[gnostic]

A pure materialistic interpretation entails that moral values are meaningless products of randomness. There is no place for it in the first place, neither right nor wrong, neither good nor evil, neither justice nor injustice. These are moral values that are not explained by matter but only a product of random process of genetic mutations that made humans assume that there is good, hence they love that imaginary good and that there is evil, and in turn they hate that imaginary evil.

Richard Dawkins was asked about the concept that rape is not wrong but rather completely arbitrary and he concurred. That is because it is possible for the random chance to take another path, which results in the person feeling that there is no mistake in the rape, so the matter is completely arbitrary, neither of the two feelings can be described as right or wrong. But beyond feeling or imaginary morals, the survival/dominance of the fittest is the rule of nature. The fittest is entitled to do as he wishes no matter what this wish is (rape, torture, dishonesty, etc.), This is the only rule that leads to a series of miserable confusion, nothing can be described as being praised or blameworthy.

According to Darwin, conflict is the law of nature. Survival of the fittest means endless conflict with other lower creatures in the evolutionary ladder till they get exterminated and replaced.

Darwin’s evolutionary view is extremely racist. He said in his book (The Descent of Man), “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.”

Forty years after Darwin's book (The Descent of Man), the First World War broke out. Among the most important reasons was the spread of social Darwinism, which prepared many Europeans who saw themselves as superior to others to enter the war, and behave like wild animals. Conflict and bloodshed are the law of nature for them.

Hitler adopted the social Darwinist take on survival of the fittest. He believed the German master race had grown weak due to the influence of non-Aryans in Germany. To Hitler, survival of the German “Aryan” race depended on its ability to maintain the purity of its gene pool.

Social Darwinism - HISTORY

Social Darwinism | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1) (1914-1918-online.net)

This Darwinian role in war has been mentioned by many writers. CNN published a report entitled “Wars - A Manifestation of Social Darwinism” which concluded with the following statement “With Social Darwinism at play in the jungle of international politics, wars seem to be inevitable.”

Darwin also taught that women are inferior to men. In his book (The Descent of Man) he held a chapter entitled (Mental Powers of Man and Woman), in which he said about some of the traits of women "are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization.”

Darwin’s ideas fired the bullet at the humanity of man. In Darwinism, there is no justification for any morality. Rather, the Darwinian struggle requires the ethnicities that see themselves as the most advanced of evolution to have the morals of selfishness, greed, and exclusivity, and attacking the lower races in order to annihilate them and multiply at their expense which paved the road to carry out genocide and ethnic cleansing campaigns, against other races perceived as lower in the evolutionary ladder or closer to animals.

The campaigns included the removal of large numbers of indigenous Australian children from their families by the government. The children subjugated by this genocide are commonly referred to as the “Stolen Generations”.

According to Darwinism when you adopt human values in dealing with all races without discrimination, and when you adopt the value of mercy for the weak, you would have practiced schizophrenia and betrayed materialism because you allowed lower beings on the ladder, to breed at the expense of higher beings.

Darwinian evolution confirms that all beings including man are in constant development, and this necessitates a higher and lower variants in the current human races based on the evolutionary differential criteria, which inevitably leads to the hateful discrimination, escalated conflicts and wars.

Wow...

A post so full of gross misinformation.

Wars and genocide and murders have happened long before Darwin, but let’s get a few things straight.

For one, the term “Survival of the fittest” is often misunderstood and misuse through misinterpretation, especially by people who have never learned any sciences, and I am not just talking about biology. I am talking about all sciences, both -

• Natural Sciences (eg physics, chemistry, Earth science, astronomy & biology) and
• Social Sciences (eg psychology, anthropology, archaeology, etc, there are too many to list here before I become very bored, Social Sciences have to do with anything about human behaviour, human cultures, human ethics, and human achievements).

The point being, Darwin didn’t even coined this phrase “Survival of the fittest”.

The phrase was coined by Herbert Spencer, who was Darwin’s younger contemporary.

I wrote Spencer’s name in large letters, because all creationists seemed to have this same ignorant and dishonest traits of never doing proper researches and never learning from one’s own mistake.

Darwin was more of naturalist, who focused on geology, botany and animal biology. Darwin was never anthropologist or archaeologist.

While Spencer was did dabble in biology and Spencer wrote Principles Of Biology (1864), and he did read Darwin’s On Origin Of Species (1859)...but it was Spencer coined the phrase, not Darwin. In fact, it was coined In Spencer’s Principles Of Biology.

While On Origin may have inspired Spencer to write his own book about Darwin didn’t actively contribute Spencer’s own writing.

But the points being, Spencer have not only dipped his toes into biology as well as Darwin’s Natural Selection, Spencer’s main interests were in philosophy, sociology and anthropology, and it was again Herbert Spencer who came up with “Social Darwinism”, not Darwin.

Darwin played no part in writing Spencer’s own work, even though Spencer named Social Darwinism after Darwin.

Lastly, you are trying to blame Darwin for racism, for Social Darwinism, for war and genocide in World War II (because you have mentioned Hitler), but wars, genocide and racism have all predated Darwin for several thousands of years.

Are also going to blame Darwin for genocide found in the Old Testament too?

Examples, Jericho in Joshua, the Levite and tribe of Benjamin in Judges or God ordering King Saul to murder every man, woman and child in 1 Samuel 12. Are these also Darwin’s faults too? If not, will you blame God for genocide that God ordered in books of Joshua and 1 Samuel?

No where in On Origin Of Species and the Descent Of Man did Darwin write anything about politics and genocide in wars.

This post of yours is an example of ignorance (you didn’t know about Spencer), misinformation and propaganda.

Have a good dishonest life, LIIA.

 

[cladking]

The point being, Darwin didn’t even coined this phrase “Survival of the fittest”.

More semantics.

 

[gnostic]

More semantics.

Not semantics, cladking.

It was Herbert Spencer who coined "survival of the fittest" (as I said in his book Principles Of Biology in 1864), and it was Spencer again, who was author on Social Darwinism.

Darwin didn't write either.

Second, Darwin contributed to early Evolution, providing the general framework for the Natural Selection, so the mechanism is called "Natural Selection", not "Survival of the Fittest".

Plus over the decades in the last century, Natural Selection have been expanded, improving the knowledge to include modern genetics and DNA testings, as well as correcting any mistakes Darwin may have made.

I think Darwin's greatest weakness was his explanation on genetics. He was contemporary to the Austrian-Moravian priest, Gregor Mendel (1822 - 1884), who did experiments on the genetics of peas, from 1856 to 1863, the Mendelian Inheritance which was the start of modern genetics. I don't think Darwin was aware of Mendel's works.

Like LIIA, you are ignoring who wrote WHAT. I don't know if you are just being dishonest or ignorant. It could very well be both.

Likewise, people make the wrong assumptions that Lemaitre coined the name - the "Big Bang", but that name goes to Fred Hoyle in 1949, an anti-BB, because Hoyle had his own theory Steady State Model.

Are you so willfully ignorant that you are going to ignore who wrote what?

Go look up Herbert Spencer, or Principles of Biology. It is all there.

 

[cladking]

Are you so willfully ignorant that you are going to ignore who wrote what?

Just like you believe Peers define reality you apparently believe that argument is semantical. Words are irrelevant to reality as surely as the opinion of Peers is to reality. You might win a debate playing word games but not an argument.

 

[gnostic]

Just like you believe Peers define reality you apparently believe that argument is semantical. Words are irrelevant to reality as surely as the opinion of Peers is to reality. You might win a debate playing word games but not an argument.

Seriously?

You know that you are projecting, don't you?

You are playing words games, or are you forgetting the Ancient Language BS, which no one can translate or read, and yet you say it is "metaphysical language". What did you base that assumption on?

It is very clear to me, you are making up things in which you have no evidence for. You cannot even read this Ancient Language that you keep harping on since you have joined this forum.

The Ancient Science, in which you think existed 40,000 years ago. Again, what do you base that on?

You don't understand sciences and you don't understand the needs for evidence, when you make up more of these imaginary claims.

And then there is the Homo sapiens vs Homo omnisciensis, in which you believe the later were people who came AFTER the Tower of Babel, which don't exist except in Genesis myth. That's word game, you are playing, where you invented a Homo omnisciencsis which don't exist except in your fantasy.

You don't understand what Peer Reivew do, no matter how many time other members tried to explain to you, your false assumption.

But the fact is, no one want to publish your "theory" of your deluded fictional reality.

We are not getting aware, and you refused to learn from your mistakes, so I am not going to waste any more time with you in this thread.

 

[cladking]

You know that you are projecting, don't you?

[sigh]

I don't need a Peer to tell me 2 + 2 = 4 and if one told me otherwise I wouldn't believe him. By the same token I know you can't add apples and oranges so if a Peer told me two apples plus two oranges make four automobiles I wouldn't believe that either.

So when you play word games as you do with "metaphysics", "paradigm", and now even "survival of the fittest" it has even less bearing on the argument or reality than does the misapplication of modern knowledge to understanding things like "change in species", "the tower of babel", or even the nature of mathematics.

"Ancient science" was natural science just like 'bee science" or "beaver science'. It was human science and it works because the language in which a species is born thinking is by nature logical. Babies are still born thinking in Ancient Language! Before the language became too complex they grew up communicating and "thinking" in this language. It is natural science that led to the invention of beaver dams as well as agriculture and cities. All complex behavior results from complex knowledge and this is derived from theory. Animals lack sufficiently complex language to accumulate knowledge over the generations but humans did not and were able to study what they could see from the shoulders of giants. This knowledge was then added right back into language making it increasingly complex. When humans began being incapable of learning this language a speciation event was triggered that was unlike any other in earth history. People had to learn a new language derived from the vocabulary of Ancient Language.

The evidence is very extensive but homo omnisciencis can't see because we don't want to believe. We want to believe we are more intelligent than termites. we want to believe Peers are generally correct about everything. We want to believe that human progress is linear just like evolution. We want to believe reductionistic science is already up to understanding any question. We want to believe all extrapolations and interpolations of experiment are perfect reflections of reality. We want to believe in peons dragging the tombs of their betters up ramps as a microcosm of survival of the fittest. We want to believe any crackpot who doesn't blindly accept dogma is, always has been, and always will be wrong. We each want to believe that individually we know everything and that collectively we are the very crown of creation.

We do not want to be told there are no two identical things in existence and math is merely a quantification of the exact same logic manifested in nature. Most of us certainly don't want to believe there is far more truth in the Bible than in any text or tome about ancient Egypt. We are happy in our chains and the certainty that masquerades as omniscience.

 

[cladking]

You are playing words games, or are you forgetting the Ancient Language BS, which no one can translate or read, and yet you say it is "metaphysical language".

If you were able to understand Ancient Language you would understand that you are not reading it. As they said the meaning appeared like the "rising up of a lotus from the water". "Reading" is parsing. Just as we parse everything we hear we also parse what we read and parsing Ancient Language destroys the meaning. There are several reasons for this but the most easily understood is that "parsing" is by definition the selection of word meanings that make a sentence intelligible. But every word in Ancient Language had a single meaning so when a sentence is parsed the meaning of the sentence is destroyed.

Through understanding word meanings the meaning of each sentence is implied. It helps to understand that the meaning is literal. The structure of a sentence implies the meaning if it is taken as literal. When they said "bring to the king the boat that flies up and alights" this is exactly what they meant. The boat that took the dead king up the pyramid flew up the pyramid and alit like a heron on the top of the first step. He needed the boat to "climb up on the hips of nephthys".

Language is metaphysical when it contains knowledge. Our language contains no knowledge. Beaver language does. The formatting and grammar are knowledge itself and reflect reality. It can not be parsed.

 

[LIIA]

You appear to be latching onto a word from Gould's sentence and ignoring the context.

So let us revisit what Gould said,

'The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.'

So sure he used the word "rarity" but he qualified how rare by reffering to the data at the tips and nodes of the evolutionary branches on the evolutionary tree.

So do you really think he was reffering to only one example? Do you know how many nodes there are on the evolutionary tree?

In my opinion.

My argument here is about the facts not biased interpretations.

As an established palaeontologist, I’m quoting Gould only to establish the fact of extreme rarity of what can be considered as a transitional form in the fossil record. This is the point and its already established.

The interpretation of this fact (or any other observation for that matter) by any proponent of evolution is typically loaded with bias, simply because they hold the evolution as an axiom. You’re no exception.

Your argument here is not rational. You cannot use the very statements made by Gould to confirm the extreme rarity of transitional forms as your proof of the contrary. That is totally illogical.

You imply that there are many tips and nodes which you neither know the number of nor what does it mean, and in what way it may or may not support your argument.

Gould was talking about “The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks". Tips of the branches are typically present species today. (In the case of humans, the tip is “H. Sapiens”). The nodes are the earliest common ancestors (just before the split). Which are all hypothetical. The transitional form is necessarily required to prove that the hypothesis of the common ancestor is true. Without the intermediates, you’re left with nothing but the tips of the present species, hypothesized common ancestors at the nodes and the rest is inference which is “however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils” as stated by Gould. In other words nothing is left other than inference and hypothesis.

 

[ppp]

The interpretation of this fact (or any other observation for that matter) by any proponent of evolution is typically loaded with bias, simply because they hold the evolution as an axiom. You’re no exception.

That is a false statement. Which destroys the rest of your argument. Regroup and try again.

 

[LIIA]

I believe that you are approximating a definition for "consciousness" here.

People believe "intelligence" is a condition but no such condition exists. Rather it is an event that comes more frequently to to the quick than the slow witted. There is almost no such thing as "intelligence" at all and it is a delusion created by our beliefs that cause us to see what we expect to see and by our learning which we acquired not by "intelligence" but by language. I believe this is exceedingly important to understand because without this understanding it is more difficult to understand life/ consciousness and how species change.

Consciousness and intelligence are inseparable. Consciousness is the root. Intelligence is only one of the manifestations of consciousness. Without consciousness, there is no intelligence.

I don’t know what is your definition of intelligence or why you deny it but before you deny it, you need first to identify your understanding of what is considered or referred to as intelligence and then explain why you don’t consider it as such and what is the justification of your view.

But this can be a separate discussion since the focus of this thread is about Darwin’s illusion.

 

[LIIA]

That is a false statement. Which destroys the rest of your argument. Regroup and try again.

Why should I or anyone take your meaningless denial seriously?

Don’t you as other evolutionists, hold the evolution as an axiom? If you do, bias is inevitable.

 

[LIIA]

My premises are fixed and have been for a very long time.

started with different premises so have reached a point I see different things.

We’re born with certain axiomatic foundations integrated in our consciousness that structure the characteristics of our awareness. Its what allow us to gain knowledge and grow (which would be otherwise impossible). It’s similar to the example of BIOS or operating system in a computer, without it the computer cannot process any data or have any function other than being an expensive paperweight.

Once a child learns how to talk, his first question is always “why”. You don’t need to teach a child that a cause is necessary but from the very beginning, the child is always trying to establish causal relationships between all entities that he observes. His consciousness is wired that causality is a trusted necessary axiom (self-evident with no need for a proof). He will grow and learn but will continue to ask why to the end of his life. Will never lose trust in the necessity of causality and will always have this intrinsic nature similar to a compass that point him in that direction to search for the cause even before he starts gaining his first knowledge. The chain of causes must end with a brute causeless fact. No other end is possible. See #490

I was trying very hard NOT to learn anything false long before I couldn't unlearn things and before I knew much of anything at all. My premises are fixed and have been for a very long time.

Your pure self can drive you in the right direction even before gaining any knowledge. You have what it takes to get there but down the road we get corrupted, confused and lose sight. We may adapt a false premise, insist to follow it and lose the ability to see things clearly for what it is. It’s a matter of choice.

Your ultimate success in life is to see the truth as truth, then follow it, and to see the falsehood as false and avoid it.

 

[LIIA]

Because it is easily observable and is testable, such as with the speciation we've seen.

Speciation - Wikipedia

You’re making a logical error. Do you understand what an axiom is?

An axiom is necessarily self-evidently true. It’s a starting point/principle that can be used to draw conclusions but the conclusions as the end product, don’t give the axiom its “self-evident” status. That doesn’t make any sense.

Again, what gives evolution the status of an axiom (unfalsifiable hypothesis)?

 

[LIIA]

The above is simply not true, so let me suggest you consider getting a subscription to "Scientific American".

BTW, I taught an anthropology course for 30 years, and I never had any shortage of material that I could have presented but I simply didn't have enough time to do all of it.

Life forms evolve over time, and that should be obvious.

Live forms adapt as a result of directed mutation, which would cause a variant.

If a variant losses the ability of interbreeding with original species then the process is called speciation but is it really a new species?

Galápago finches have different beaks, they are considered different species but they are all finches (variants of finches), it will never be anything other than finches. It’s always a variant of the same species.

You’re an Anthropologist; you’re knowledgeable and I sense that you’re an honest person. Let’s consider the example of humans as the dominant form of life on earth. I’ll discuss it in multiple steps for clarity. Forgive me for the elongation.

From the last common ancestor, the alleged human evolutionary family tree splits to two branches, one for H. sapiens and another (that splits further) for chimp and bonobo.

Speciation is the proposed mechanism for the hypothetical change from the last common ancestor to present species today at the tip of both branches.

The process is slow and gradual, Speciation should have took place endless times along the ancestral line from the common ancestor to H. sapiens and the same would be true for the other branch leading to chimp and bonobo.

Speciation is not a reason for original species to go extinct. Similar to the example of Galápago finches, they all coexist.

Today the 7.7 billion people on earth are all the same species “H. sapiens”. As an Anthropologist, can you explain why none of the intermediate hominin species on our branch of the hominoid tree (after the split with the chimp & bonobo line) are all extinct today? Why none of these endless hominin species survived but the chimp & bonobo survived?

If endless Speciation took place from the common ancestor to H. sapiens, then we must see multiple hominin species (from our own branch) coexisting today. They cannot all just disappear or go extinct. The only explanation would be that no speciation ever took place, if this is the case, why do we see multiple species today (H. sapiens, Chimp & Bonobo) that allegedly originated from the same common ancestor? If speciation did happen then why chimps survived but not a single intermediate hominin species did? As an Anthropologist, what is your understanding?

The fact is that age, location and characteristics of the alleged fossil of hominids such as “Homo antecessor", " Kenyanthropus platyops" & “Toumaï” do not allow the establishment of any evolutionary development line. How they are related and which is a human forebear if any is debated. See # 326 & # 327.

 

[ppp]

Don’t you as other evolutionists, hold the evolution as an axiom?

I already said that your claim that we do is false. You are asking a question in response to the answer to that question. Which is a silly thing for you to do. Do better.

 

[LIIA]

Starting off with a no true Scotsman fallacy. Excellent.

You can see the truth in what I said. Don’t you? Why do you insist to deceive yourself? Is it to win an argument? Is it worth it?

Do you deny that the evolutionary view eliminates the justification for any morality?

Do you deny that the evolutionary ideas supported the view that divides humankind into biologically distinct groups and validate racist world-views, based upon belief in the existence and significance of racial categories and a hierarchy of superior and inferior races?

Do you deny that the evolutionary ideas supported the racist view that human race is divided into categorized groups of distinct biological phenomenon rather than a sociopolitical phenomenon?

Do you deny these statements by Darwin “ “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.” ? Do you deny the impact of these statements on validating racist views against human groups judged to be inferior or promoting those judged to be superior?

Do you deny that the evolutionary view dehumanized man, eliminated any basis for moral values and replaced it with conflict/survival of the fittest as the law of nature?

Be honest with yourself.