The meaning of life

If your interest doesn't fit anywhere else, leave it here.
Wintran
Posts: 75
https://cutt.ly/meble-kuchenne-wroclaw
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Post by Wintran »

andyville wrote:The more I came to understand the topic, however, I became convinced that the traditional mechanisms underlying evolution - natural selection, survival of the fittest and so on - are becoming outdated. It is my conviction that we are standing on the verge of a new phase of evolution; with the developing techniques of biological engineering, neuroscience, nanotechnology and so on, we will soon be able to either design ourselves, or create new beings with certain qualities.
This is a very interesting topic which I've also given some thought.

As our traditional evolution works, the most fit individuals for the current environment are those who survive and mate. Generally, among both animals and humans, physical attributes have been valued highly, as this generally means stronger survival skills and withstanding of sickness. However, intelligence has also proven to be of very high value as a survival skill, which humans are a proof of.

Today, humans in general have no serious everyday threat that would require extreme intelligence or physical fitness to survive, which means that most of us are able to live and spread our genes regardless of if we're more "fit" than others or not. This means that our evolution has practically stopped, as there's no fair way of controlling sexuality so that only the most fit people would be allowed to have children. Especially as "fit" is such a relative term.

What we have now is technology and science, which currently seems like the only path that can help us survive in the long run, or even evolve us further (we already have medicin and vaccine that help protect our bodies, and computers that help us think). Especially looking at our current situation of overpopulation I'd say we definitely need a way to spread to other planets. I also think our general knowledge and awareness need to be increased as much as possible, to avoid extinction of nature, war and conflicts that could cause our own destruction.
Hannes
spring
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01

Post by spring »

andyville wrote:
spring wrote:We are nothing more than a bunch of minerals, much like the minerals you find in the dirt.
I do not agree with this view. There are obvious differences between humans and "the minerals you find in the dirt"; humans are capable of free will, creativity, perception, emotion and so on.
Free will and creativity and so on are the result of physiological/biochemical processes that are carried out by complex aggregations of minerals in our body. We are the same as a collection of minerals you find in a dirt heap, just that the minerals in human's case have been organized differently through a process of evolution to work as a system. But in terms of what we are, we are the same in terms of the elements we find in the minerals on the ground. They too contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, (and also iron, cadmium, cobalt etc).

Just the fact that we evolved as an 'accident' of nature into a complex system and those minerals on the ground skipped the evolutionary path doesn't mean we are spiritual in being or anything cosmic or inexplicable in ourselves.
spring wrote:Or complex machines made by chance.
I do not agree with this either. Evolution is a not a random process, but a very complex one. Through sexual selection and survival of the fittest, the human race has evolved to a degree of complexity which makes us the most sophisticated species on Earth.
It started off being random as I said by an aggregate of minerals that by chance formed the perfect combination for biological beings to get evolved from. There is no clear demarcation between inorganic and organic in actual fact. If there is such a demarcation being made, it is artificial and arbitrary. Evolution doesn't affect just humans, it affects everything 'biological', including the simple one-celled organisms or even life-forms that are below that, prions (?). Do you think prions have spirituality? Or even ameba? Because if you say humans do by virtue of their complexity then so do ameba. They may be less complex than humans but they are far more complex than non-reproducing elements in our world.
spring wrote:Not much different in essence to the machines you find that have been made by man.
There is a very fundamental difference between the design of humans and that of machines; machines have been constructed by man, in order to be used for certain tasks. We have designed the machines to fill our needs. Humans, on the other hand, have evolved through the before mentioned mechanisms of natural selection and survival of the fittest. There is no purpose of this process that I am aware of, as in the case of the machines; or, rather, it is up to ourselves to define that purpose.
Duh, don't you get it? I said we are 'machines' made by nature in an accidental way. Made by human, made by nature, we are the same in essence, there is no spirituality added to the mix just because humans are made differently (by evolution) to how machines are made. That's why survival of the fittest comes into it when we talk about biological organisms, and it doesn't when it comes to machines.

But we are machines the same as computers or such: the differences are we, humans and other biological beings, came about in a different way than man-made machines. We aremachines in the sense that we are made of the minerals that exist on earth (from base elements) and that we have a complex system that produces something or has a function.

This thing about man being different, we are different even to animals is all hocus. That's what most of the religions have been on about: that man is spiritual and higher than other life-forms, ie. based on faulty understanding of our origins and the process of evolution. We aren't: we might be more highly evolved although that is really in doubt too as even simpler organisms such as bacteria or virii can get the better of humans and some animals are hardier than humans eg.cockroaches surviving a nuclear holocaust, but in the essentials we are the same. We were not even around for most of the history of the earth. Animals like alligators and sharks have been around for a lot longer than we have.

We have evolved from fish and before that from worm-like animals. We are the same yet different. The difference comes in the complexity of our evolution and in the direction our evolution has taken. We are not even unique as some humans like to think we are: we share 95% of our genes with chimpanzees who also show the same traits that humans have of being capable of emotion and so on. Most animals that have a nervous system have this ability. Emotion is just a cerebral response to a stimulus after all.

The major thing that distinnguishes us is we possess a bigger brain than most other life-forms, except for some whales and dolphins (I think), and which makes us 'more intelligent' - it gives us the ability to shape and control our environment, more of this ability than other species of life-forms.

And this will be our downfall, just as the dinosaur's strength (their size) became their weakness and caused them to be extinguished.

Our superior intelligence will be our downfall because this strength is actually a weakness. We think we are in control of our environment and nature but we aren't. Humans cannot defy the laws of physics no matter how intelligent we are. We are seeing the effects of what our intelligence does to us everyday: the degradation of our environment, the cancer, the blighting of our food supply, our water supply, the disease, overcrowding, lethal warfare, the release of manmade chemicals into our environs and nuclear radiation - none of this is really reversible - and our bodies show we cannot cope - cancer, genetic defects, disease, degeneration .... not to mention the ultimate destruction that might come to earth - a nuclear world wide war - a product of man's intelligence.

If anything man's intelligence has hastened the process of entropy, and that is why man's greatest strength and why he is arguably the dominant species (others may disagree and say viruses etc are the dominant species) on earth today will be the cause of his extinction. Unfortunately, man is taking down many other species at the same time with him. Man is certainly no "better" being than other species, no more spiritual ... if you say that about man, you will have to say that about dinosaurs, because today man is the equivalent of what dinosaurs were in their heyday.
spring
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01

Post by spring »

And this is where the western philosophies including western religions differ from eastern or other non-western (African for example) philosophies or beliefs. Western religions center around man as a different sort of creation to other beings, God is human-like in form and so on ... humans have an after-life, other creatures don't, the sun revolved around the earth (although that became de-emphasized with the beginning of the Enlightenment) - in other words these religions are human-centric.

Religions like Buddhism don't even have a god, and the focus of meditation is to think of nothing - in a way I think this is more 'spiritual' because if we came from an inorganic origin, a bunch of minerals, that is what our present and our future is - being a bunch of inorganic minerals - that is, our 'existence' as beings is nothing more than an illusion, we came from nothing and we will return to nothing, our existence as a separate special identity is nothing more than an illusion. We are a bunch of minerals, albeit minerals organized perchance into a complex functioning system, and we as a bunch of minerals shouldn't give ourselves airs that we are nothing more than that. Our consciousness is just the interplay of the intricate physiological and biochemical processes of - you guessed it - minerals in our system.

African religions or beliefs like animism are similar to Buddhism in this respect. They are more wholistic and less human-centric and therefore more faithful to the real place of man in our world, than western religions are.
spring
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01

Post by spring »

Wintran wrote:
andyville wrote:The more I came to understand the topic, however, I became convinced that the traditional mechanisms underlying evolution - natural selection, survival of the fittest and so on - are becoming outdated. It is my conviction that we are standing on the verge of a new phase of evolution; with the developing techniques of biological engineering, neuroscience, nanotechnology and so on, we will soon be able to either design ourselves, or create new beings with certain qualities.
This is a very interesting topic which I've also given some thought.

As our traditional evolution works, the most fit individuals for the current environment are those who survive and mate. Generally, among both animals and humans, physical attributes have been valued highly, as this generally means stronger survival skills and withstanding of sickness. However, intelligence has also proven to be of very high value as a survival skill, which humans are a proof of.

Today, humans in general have no serious everyday threat that would require extreme intelligence or physical fitness to survive, which means that most of us are able to live and spread our genes regardless of if we're more "fit" than others or not. This means that our evolution has practically stopped, as there's no fair way of controlling sexuality so that only the most fit people would be allowed to have children. Especially as "fit" is such a relative term.
This is not correct. How can you say evolution has stopped? Our environment is not the same as it was when we were cavemen but we still have pressures on us to adapt all the time. And how can you determine who is more "fit"? Smarter women reproduce later in life and have fewer children. Women, according to scientists, who have children earlier in their lives than the average are more genetically 'fit'. It doesn't look like intelligence is a good adaptation for propagation of the species, does it?

And intelligence comes in many forms, you can't categorize the myriad ways in which intelligence can be shown, it is like trying to put all the functions of the brain into neat slots, it doesn't work that way. There is physical intelligence, muscles are controlled by the brain as well, they don't just work in isolation. There is social intelligence: a person with a low cognitive IQ can function well in society and sometimes much better than a high IQ type person if they have good interpersonal skills. There is intuitive intelligence. There is visuospatial intelligence, musical intelligence ...

And we don't know exactly which is the best combination of these intelligences that will help the individual to be the better survivor in our current environment. We won't know until many centuries have passed and we won't be around to find that out at any rate.

Adaptation and evolution is too complex to pigeonhole as you are doing. You are over-simplifying things and coming out with statements like human evolution has stopped. Evolution never stops. Because the environment never stays static. Have you heard people say, "You can always count on change to happen."?

I don't even know if the smartest people on earth are the best-equipped to continue the human race, or the strongest (biggest, fastest, most muscular), or even the healthiest (strongest immune systems) - it is too complicated to generalize like that. There is too much variation among individuals and society is too complex to make judgments like that.
What we have now is technology and science, which currently seems like the only path that can help us survive in the long run,
No, it is the opposite. Technology will be our downfall. We are not gods, we cannot control nature, we cannot reverse entropy. All the technological advances we have made have sped up the process of entropy. We cannot live when entropy has reached a certain stage. Even nuclear power has an endgame at some point. We can create all the wastes we want while the going is good and the resources are available, but one day we will run out of places to store the built up radioactive materials and materials to house them so that they don't kill humans, that is, if we haven't all died from nuclear radiation from leaks and accidents before that.

If man had lived like caveman as old up until now, man's future would be brighter. We still would not live forever, we would eventually go extinct, but the day that happens would happen later than sooner compared to the situation man finds itself now. Look at America. Since the arrival of white man, the land has been despoiled irreparably. There has been more environmental destruction in the space of 200 years than has happened in the 10,000 years prior to that. At this rate, America can't last much longer - it will become an apocalyptic situation with massive cancer rates, obesity rates, poisoned water, droughts. floods, desertification, deforestation, demineralization of the earth. The wars being fought in America's name at the moment are all about resources, about dwindling resources. I can foresee more wars in the future as the country with the highest consumption rate in the world needs the raw materials and energy to keep up its consumption rate. The consumption rate hasn't been getting lower or even kept steady, it is increasing. Even if Americans used only the resources found in their country - and the US is abundant in resources relative to many other countries around the world - one day it will have found it is running out and then it will be on the push to acquire resources from elsewhere - and you get war.

Don't forget we aren't robots, we are organic machines and we need the biosphere to support our life.
or even evolve us further (we already have medicin and vaccine that help protect our bodies, and computers that help us think).
The medicine and the vaccine only serve to weaken the species as a whole, physically speaking. If there had been no medicine and vaccines, mother nature would have weeded out the sicker and weaker more quickly and we would have a much healthier (naturally) population than we do now. If anything technological advances in this area has made us evolve into a physically less fit population, maybe more intelligent (cognition-wise) population though. But it has also made our societies more complex. People think of health care as a right these days, and society has to spend a large proportion of its budget on health care for its population. Then you have the rise of Big Pharm and the creation of a drug-dependent society. Only a few centuries ago, there were no such thing as a hospital. You got sick, you died, just like when the Bubonic Plague hit Europe.

This is the same principle that is seen in operation in the horse-breeding world. Because of the availability of vet medicines, the thoroughbreds have been selected for just speed and these horses are the least hardy of the species. One slight illness could kill them if they didn't have meds and vet care to prevent that. Their offspring then become animals that are dependent on vet meds to survive. We humans are becoming much the same.
Especially looking at our current situation of overpopulation I'd say we definitely need a way to spread to other planets. I also think our general knowledge and awareness need to be increased as much as possible, to avoid extinction of nature, war and conflicts that could cause our own destruction.
What makes you think that if we can't make it here, on earth, in an environment where we have evolved to fit in with, with its abundance of water, food, trees, nature, a favorable climate (relatively speaking) and atmopshere that supports respiration - all the things we need to survive, that we can make it on a planet where none of these things are in existence?

Do you know how much materials and resources and energy and technology went into putting some people on the moon for a few hours or minutes? You are like many people I have come across that naively believe that living on another planet is the solution to the survival of the human race as this planet becomes increasingly unsupportable for life.

We might as well stay here and live here because living on earth takes up fewer resources than living on another planet. These would-be space dwellers or people who think a human civilization on another planet is feasible need to face the truth that as biological beings humans aren't suited to living anywhere else except planet earth. We have one stab at it and that's it.

Western civilization is spectacular in human achievement but when it comes to evolution and the survival of the human race, it is a major step backward and spells the early doom of humans (now measured in tens of millennia as opposed to millions of years before western technology rapidly spread over the globe). Western philosophy is tied in with this - it is a NOW philosophy, it doesn't think ahead in terms of thousands of years, but more of - can we make money from it now? This short-term thinking and planning will utlimately bring a swift end to the planet because it is like a civilization that poops in the water that people drink because it's cheaper now than doing it elsewhere, and besides it's other people's drinking water, not the people's who are doing the pooping. Although we are all ultimately connected in this bioweb. The strong faith in technology and the belief that technology will save the world are all part of this western outlook on life.
andyville
Posts: 142
Joined: Fri 19 May 2006 14:06
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Post by andyville »

spring:

Thanks for the replies. Apparently you and I differ in our views of evolution. Or are we just using different labels for the same underlying concepts? I do not know.

What I do know is that we have different outlooks on the future of technology; I personally have great hopes in the rapid progress that is made in technology today. The greatest mistake that humanity could ever commit, in my opinion, would be to try to stop progress. Rational progress, where we try to learn from past mistakes, must be the only way forward.

There are some obvious problems with the capitalistic system, for example when it comes to ecology, which is a factor that is not considered in most economical theories. This is a very important issue to solve. However, it is my conviction that more scientifical and technological progress might very well eliminate many of the problems that are facing us today. Obviously new problems will arise, but again - progress will turn out to be the only answer, over and over again.
Wintran
Posts: 75
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Post by Wintran »

I think my belief is similar to andyville's in this, but here's a longer answer anyway. :)
spring wrote:And intelligence comes in many forms, you can't categorize the myriad ways in which intelligence can be shown, it is like trying to put all the functions of the brain into neat slots, it doesn't work that way.
I think it's generally believed that it was mankind's intelligence (such as the ability to use tools) that made us survive in the long run and evolve to what we are now. Of course there are many aspects of intelligence, and social intelligence has of course been a very important trait as well, to be accepted socially and chosen by the opposite sex.
spring wrote:Adaptation and evolution is too complex to pigeonhole as you are doing. You are over-simplifying things and coming out with statements like human evolution has stopped. Evolution never stops. Because the environment never stays static. Have you heard people say, "You can always count on change to happen."?
I'm definitely generalizing, and I'm probably doing it from a developed country's point of view. Yes, I agree that "fit" is a relative term that's difficult to define. However, from what I've understood, evolution (or rather natural selection) is all about reproducing. Those who survive the environment, and/or are most sexual attractive, are those who manage to reproduce, thus spreading their genes which are more apt for the current environment. Another part of evolution is the random mutation which sometimes produces a more pronounced variation of a species. If this mutation is better suited to the environment, it'll reproduce more, until we suddenly have an ape-like being with a very large brain later to be called human, who incidentally could use this brain to survive. Evolution is said to be a very slow proccess, and totally dependent on the species rate of reproduction. Virus and bacteria and such can reproduce extremely quickly because their lifespan is shorter and they reproduce at great speed, thus adapting themselves to the environment much faster than most animals.

If I use the above knowledge and logic and I take a look at the life around me, that's when I say that Darwin's kind of evolution has almost stopped. I don't mean that there's anything wrong with that, just that this is a natural outcome of mankind becoming the dominating species on earth, creating a society with laws that attempt to give all people equal rights. As a result of this, most people die of age, and most people are able to reproduce in a humble manner (I believe most stick with two children and one partner). We (thankfully) no longer have an environment that kills those who cannot adapt, and we (thankfully) no longer have males running around killing each other just to go to bed with the most attractive woman. Sure, we have lesser variants of this, and our environment poses many other problems that challenges the quality of our lives, but I see nothing that could evolve us much further using Darwin's definition of evolution.
spring wrote:No, it is the opposite. Technology will be our downfall.
Yes, it probably will, if we don't learn to control our needs. We must understand that more is not always better, and we must understand our dependence on nature. Until we do that and manage to find a way to reduce pollution and waste to an amount that the nature around us can handle, then this planet is probably doomed.
spring wrote:The medicine and the vaccine only serve to weaken the species as a whole, physically speaking. If there had been no medicine and vaccines, mother nature would have weeded out the sicker and weaker more quickly and we would have a much healthier (naturally) population than we do now.
Do you mean that instead of using our full potential as a species to help each other survive, we should let people die so that only those with the natural protection against this desease can reproduce? To me, that would be unnatural and inhuman, like trying to go against the laws of nature. Our deepest instincts tell us to survive. Evolution is just a natural outcome that help us avoid the same destruction twice. If we could instead choose to fully avoid this destruction, we would of course choose to. Going against this further, we could decide to put up rules that state that only those we consider "higher-quality" humans are allowed to have children, to keep the human species evolving into more "pefect" beings. Wouldn't that be quite absurd? Which human has the right to decide something like this? Now that would truly be "acting God".

I do agree that there can be too much of the good in the case of medicine. Personally, I don't take medicine for headaches or minor sicknesses because I want to train my body to heal itself (and because there might be unknown sideeffects of those medicines). I also try to avoid overusing soap and similar. However, through time there have been some diseases that the human species probably wouldn't survive if we didn't have medicine. Again, thanks to our intelligence and technology we manage to protect ourselves from predators and threats, that in those cases might've been viruses. That this type of intelligence and technology as a survival method wouldn't be considered natural compared to, say, an antelope running from a lion, doesn't make sense to me at all.
spring wrote:What makes you think that if we can't make it here, on earth, in an environment where we have evolved to fit in with, with its abundance of water, food, trees, nature, a favorable climate (relatively speaking) and atmopshere that supports respiration - all the things we need to survive, that we can make it on a planet where none of these things are in existence?

Do you know how much materials and resources and energy and technology went into putting some people on the moon for a few hours or minutes? You are like many people I have come across that naively believe that living on another planet is the solution to the survival of the human race as this planet becomes increasingly unsupportable for life.
You got me wrong. I don't mean that spreading to other planets would be a solution to our destruction of nature - we still have so much to do on earth, and so many things that could be better utilized etc. I was only referring to the increasing risk of overpopulation, and that the only solution to this in the end would be to move to other planets. But you're totally right that we probably should fix the problems on earth before we start considering something like that.
spring wrote:The strong faith in technology and the belief that technology will save the world are all part of this western outlook on life.
Yes, you're probably right. Personally, I think technology is a tool that can help humans to survive, as long as we realise that we can't live on technology alone. We also need our bodies and our natural environment, and we definitely need to stop killing each other. :?
Hannes
johndela1
Posts: 968
Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006 03:54
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Post by johndela1 »

spring wrote:The meaning of life is to reproduce? I think black widow spiders are bitten to death and eaten by the female after they have mated as their work is done, their purpose in life fulfilled.

Childless people? The meaning of their life is to help make the world a better place for other people's children, mostly the children of their kith and kin.

I think it's a biological thing. That's why we are organic and not organic. There were no organic things on earth once. By a combination of fate, mathematically ordained, that is inevitable after millions, billions of years of existence of the planet earth given the conditions earth found itself in - the right combination of energy and minerals and water, a collection of atoms came together. They formed clusters that were able to reproduce simply, much how like crystals can take growth even though inorganic. This became more complex with systems developing that functioned like organs. Then after this the simplest of organic structures developed although there was no clear delineation between inorganic and organic as such. Reproduction was asexual at first and then through evolution reproduction became sexual ...

This means that if we take evolution back to its logical origins, we came from nothing more than carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. And when we die, we return to that state, ashes to ashes, dust to dust ....

Sorry, we are just giving ourselves delusions by thinking we are spiritual beings and we possess a soul and so on, we are as much spiritual and soul-possessing as a brainless microbe, a nervous system is just a product of evolution, is all ...
I dont' have a strong sway to one side or the other, but since you are stating that people who don't believe like you do are delusional I just wanted to ask if you agree with me that what you believe is possible similar to what you call dillisional. I mean you have faith in what you say, you can't prove it scientifically. by this I mean in a repeatable observable way.

I'm trying to say that people who believe in evolution have much faith, too.

I know you aren't blindly beliving it and have many reasons that make you believe it, but it is still faith. Many religiouis our spirtitual people also have reasons for what they believe. You and I may not agree but that doesn't change the fact they many people who believe differently have reasons and arn't just blindly following something.

It seems kind of onesided to say peoplel who believe differently are dillusional, when no one really knows for sure many of the answers to these cosmic questions.
spring
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01

Post by spring »

It's fact. Evolution is a science that is accepted by the scientific community, just like they accept that earth revolves around the sun and that we evolved from fish and before that from worm-like creatures and before that ... all the way back to minerals when there wasn't anything else on earth. All scientists agree that there were no 'biological' life-forms at one point in earth's history and that all biological life-forms evolved from inorganic minerals.

I don't have to BELIEVE it, it is a matter of science, just as there are 123(?) elements in the periodic table - it's not a matter of blind faith to understand the existence of these elements - it's established science. The only people challenging the theory of evolution and the origins of life-forms as minerals, are creationists and other religious people, not scientists.

If it conflicts with your religious beliefs, change your religious beliefs, don't try and change science to fit in with your religious beliefs or keep it to yourself because this is a board that is based on scientific enquiry about diet and health, and is not a board that follows any particular religious belief. Not everybody subscribes to your religion as the truth but many people subscribe to science as a truth.
Wintran
Posts: 75
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Post by Wintran »

What is not yet proven by science is why the first lifeforms appeared. Yes, it might've been a result of a certain collection of atoms coming together under the right circumstances that created this ability and the need to reproduce, but why would this possibility or need even exist in the first place? Some insist that the move from nonlife to life was completely random and that there is no logic behind it, others believe that life was created on purpose by an omnipotent being, such as God.

Still others (like I) believe that life was formed as a result of fundamental forces, or laws of nature, either one of the known forces (such as electromagnetism or gravity) that has an unknown function, or a yet-to-be-discovered force that seeks to generate life whenever possible (or something in that direction). If so, it would definitely be interesting to know if there's a greater goal ahead, or if the goal is simply to create as much life as possible. One idea I've been playing with is that the laws of the universe are all there to generate activity of some kind, and that life is a higher sought-after state of activity, which is why both nature and life itself is trying to transform nonlife into more life.

In either case, this will all just be speculations until we know the exact details of the origins of life, and we probably need even more answers than that... (Could someone please tell me why we have things like gravity? And by the way, what happened before the Big Bang, and before that?) :P
Hannes
johndela1
Posts: 968
Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006 03:54
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Post by johndela1 »

spring wrote:It's fact. Evolution is a science that is accepted by the scientific community, just like they accept that earth revolves around the sun and that we evolved from fish and before that from worm-like creatures and before that ... all the way back to minerals when there wasn't anything else on earth. All scientists agree that there were no 'biological' life-forms at one point in earth's history and that all biological life-forms evolved from inorganic minerals.
Can you explain to me the origin of matter? You believe that we came from rocks? I find if fare more believeable to think we where seeded by aliens than to say we came from rocks.

spring wrote:II don't have to BELIEVE it, it is a matter of science, just as there are 123(?) elements in the periodic table - it's not a matter of blind faith to understand the existence of these elements - it's established science. The only people challenging the theory of evolution and the origins of life-forms as minerals, are creationists and other religious people, not scientists.
I do believe what the periodic table says, it is observable in nature. I'm not challenging your held theory, just stating that it isn't science until you can reproduce it and observe it. by the way many scientists debate how we can to being, they are not all in argreement. Just because a lot of people believe somelthing doesn't make it science. Please keep this in mind. You may want to refer to 'the scientific method' so you understand what I am talking about when I say science.
spring wrote: If it conflicts with your religious beliefs, change your religious beliefs, don't try and change science to fit in with your religious beliefs or keep it to yourself because this is a board that is based on scientific enquiry about diet and health, and is not a board that follows any particular religious belief. Not everybody subscribes to your religion as the truth but many people subscribe to science as a truth.
This board has nothing to do with speculation, you are right, so please stop speculating on how we came to be. I dont' have any religious beliefs... I'm an atheiest. I can admint I dont' know. I never accused you of having blind faith like you state here. I said you have good reason to believe, yet still have to believe, because you can not reproduce the creation of life and observe it. If you could then I would say it would be fact and not thoery...Science. Until then, we can just speculate. By definition evolution isn't science. It is not observable. I don't think we share the same definitions. There is no need to be hostile. You seem upset. If you are not, and it is just me being to sensitive forgive me.
andyville
Posts: 142
Joined: Fri 19 May 2006 14:06
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Post by andyville »

I agree with you, johndela1; it is important to try not to be hostile during a conversation like this. I used to be the kind of person who became very hostile when discussing concepts I really felt strongly about, such as evolution. but I am trying to be a bit more open minded nowadays. When you become hostile what happens is that you close yourself off to opposing ideas of other people, which is both ignorant and stupid, because you might miss out on knowledge that could help you in your understanding of life.

The problem with the creationist view, is that their theory is based on no solid science at all, that I am aware of. On top of this, many of them feel threatened by the view represented by evolutionists, because the theory is not compatible with their religious beliefs. This is certainly a very problematic scenario; trying to discuss science, when one has to conform to an underlying, religious agenda.

I do not have a problem with people believing certain things to be able to deal with life; some people, for instance, need to have faith in some kind of supernatural being, in order to see a meaning in their lives. In my opinion the problem arises when a scientifical, religious and political agenda is created, that you try to turn into universal truth. Look at the religious, conservative right in the US, who have succeeded in taking the concept of evolution off the school agenda in many states in the country. This is not a good representation of progressivism or rationalism.

I think that Richard Dawkins made a very interesting point in the preface to a recently released edition of "The selfish gene". I do not remember exactly how he put it, but his point was that what he is trying to obtain by writing his books, is not setting up moral values for how the world ought to function. What he is trying to do is describe how the world works, based on findings that are available through the scientifical method. Those who do not understand this very important distinction (what is, as opposed to what ought to be) will probably feel offended by scientists such as Dawkins forever.
spring
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01

Post by spring »

johndela1 wrote:
spring wrote:It's fact. Evolution is a science that is accepted by the scientific community, just like they accept that earth revolves around the sun and that we evolved from fish and before that from worm-like creatures and before that ... all the way back to minerals when there wasn't anything else on earth. All scientists agree that there were no 'biological' life-forms at one point in earth's history and that all biological life-forms evolved from inorganic minerals.
Can you explain to me the origin of matter? You believe that we came from rocks? I find if fare more believeable to think we where seeded by aliens than to say we came from rocks.
It's not what you find 'believable' - it's what has been proven. Evolution has been proven. We have fossil records to show how more evolved and complex organisms developed over time. And this is only one example of the 'proof' out there. If you think evoloution is a true science then the logical conclusion is that we came from minerals. This is inescapable. On the other hand, if you question evolution and don't think it is a science, you are going on your own path whatever that may be, because conevntional science accepts the theory of evolution (monkey to man, and minerals to organic life-forms). Look it up if you don't believe me.

spring wrote:II don't have to BELIEVE it, it is a matter of science, just as there are 123(?) elements in the periodic table - it's not a matter of blind faith to understand the existence of these elements - it's established science. The only people challenging the theory of evolution and the origins of life-forms as minerals, are creationists and other religious people, not scientists.
I do believe what the periodic table says, it is observable in nature. I'm not challenging your held theory, just stating that it isn't science until you can reproduce it and observe it. by the way many scientists debate how we can to being, they are not all in argreement. Just because a lot of people believe somelthing doesn't make it science. Please keep this in mind. You may want to refer to 'the scientific method' so you understand what I am talking about when I say science.
Just because YOU can't see it happening right in front of your eyes doesn't mean it's not a scientific truth, and evolution is accepted as a scientific truth these days, just as particular physics and astrophysics - which have concepts that you can't see with your own eyes.

It's not just 'a lot of people' "believing" in it, it's a lot of scientists believing in it. There is a lot of evidence for evolution. We can see the process of evolution in all life-forms, including things like bacteria - the more drug resistant strains survive and become more numerous, the 'weaker' strains don't get to reproduce, for example.

It is a science and it was not accepted at the beginning because of people's religious beliefs, but now only religious fanatics or uneducated people or uninformed people (because education in an institution is not the only way you can acquire information) don't 'believe' in it. There may very well people who don't believe the earth revolves around the sun or that man evolved from apes because they think this goes against their religion. That's all very well - they can believe whatever they like but they shouldn't go around attacking the science of evolution because it is an established branch of science.
spring wrote: If it conflicts with your religious beliefs, change your religious beliefs, don't try and change science to fit in with your religious beliefs or keep it to yourself because this is a board that is based on scientific enquiry about diet and health, and is not a board that follows any particular religious belief. Not everybody subscribes to your religion as the truth but many people subscribe to science as a truth.
This board has nothing to do with speculation, you are right, so please stop speculating on how we came to be. I dont' have any religious beliefs... I'm an atheiest. I can admint I dont' know. I never accused you of having blind faith like you state here. I said you have good reason to believe, yet still have to believe, because you can not reproduce the creation of life and observe it. If you could then I would say it would be fact and not thoery...Science. Until then, we can just speculate. By definition evolution isn't science. It is not observable. I don't think we share the same definitions. There is no need to be hostile. You seem upset. If you are not, and it is just me being to sensitive forgive me.
[/quote]

Well, you started the hostility by saying I called people 'dillusional' [sic]. I never used that word to describe anyone.

Well, it looked like you were a religionist of some kind because you said you don't think the theory of evolution is an established theory. It is and only the religious fanatics/fundamentalists (and uneducated/uninformed people) who pooh-pooh the theory, and I didn't think you were in the latter group, but now I don't know.
spring
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01

Post by spring »

Well, I shoudl amend the last statement and say that there are a lot of 'uninformed people' around, people who refuse to believe we came from rocks/minerals. I didn't make this part up. I learned this from a young age when I read up on evolution and saw a series on TV about evolution that was narrated and written by a top scientist in the field, I think he is dead now, I can't recall his name. And the series explained everything very well, scientifically. And there is 'proof', we share 95% of our genes with our closest cousins, the chimpanzees, and scientists have drawn up a genetic tree showing how the simian family tree includes humans. There is "Lucy" and other humanoids whose bones have been discovered and studied. The Neanderthals were one branch of humanoids that either went extinct through decline in numbers or interbred themselves with homo sapiens into extinction. We have fossils showing primitive life-forms, and the further you go back you can see that life-forms were less evolved. There were no mammals at one stage. Before that there were no reptiles. Before that there were no fish. Before that there were no nematodes .... etc etc until you reach the stage of minerals. Birds evolved from dinosaurs as well.

Look it might appear to many humans that it is impossible that we came from minerals (but not to me, this makes perfect sense, our bodies are composed of minerals as are all life-forms), but just because the information is 'unbelievable' to you, it shouldn't mean you should reject the science of it. And this has been accepted science as I have said for a long time, just as accepted as nuclear physics or inorganic chemistry etc ....

Science can't accommodate all the people who find 'this' and 'that' unbelievable. Some people might find it hard to believe matter is composed of energy, others might not believe that genes between humans and chimpanzees are shared ... and so on .... it is not up to science to make people comfortable with the scientific theories that it unbares, it is up to people to adapt to these notions. A few centuries ago, people found it unbelievable that the earth revolved around the sun, and before that the earth was anything but flat ... it's time to move on from that style of thinking. If you can attack the science because of flawed methodology or faulty reasoning or the research is invalid, go ahead and do so .. but don't do it here ... do it in Scientific American - because if you can disprove these accepted scientific theories then you are Nobel Prize material because the top scientists (Nobel Prize winners) accept these sciences, including the theory of evolution.

It is like I was criticized by Wintran (?) when he said I was wrong in saying that medicine etc has weakened the genetic potential of man because we are now having generations of people who depend on medicine to live, like the thoroughbred horses I gave as an example. I DIDN'T say we should stop giving people medicine, I was just stating a scientific observation, not formulating policy. Wintran is the one who made that leap. It is like making the observation that Africans are more muscular on average than white people; and somebody interjecting and saying I suggested white people should not breed any further because they are physically inferior with respect to muscle development ....

There is no morality in science. Nature doesn't care about morality. I am not going to refrain from speaking up about a scientific truth because some people say that that is immoral. Too bad. If we persist in this sort of thinking, suppressing the truth because it makes us uncomfortable or we think the conclusions are 'immoral' then we might as well go back and live in the Dark Ages because that's how people used to think.
Wintran
Posts: 75
Joined: Sat 13 Aug 2005 00:01
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Post by Wintran »

I'm sorry if you took my comment personal, I wasn't trying to critizice you at all, I was just trying to post an answer to your opinions, stating my own opinion. If you read my comment again I'm not trying to defend medicine or technology with moral, I'm trying to defend it with reasoning (and science). I reacted on your comment on medicine which sounded like we would be better of without it. Looking back at our posts, I'm guessing you were speaking in theory and I more in a practical manner, but please don't take my comments as criticism. I just want to get somewhere in the discussion (regardless of if I'm right or wrong), and a great way of getting there is by questioning each other's reasoning. If you want me to believe like you, then re-read my post, and tell me exactly why you don't agree.

When you say that we're doomed because of technology, that's as much speculation as me saying that humans have a future if we just learn how to control it. And in opposite to you and johndela, I definitely think this board has place for speculation. Maybe not everywhere, but in the General Discussion forum when we're just chatting about the meaning of life, then I believe speculations should even be encouraged, or a thread like this would never survive. The danger is when people start stating speculations and opinions as facts, refusing to accept that other people might have a different notion.
Hannes
andyville
Posts: 142
Joined: Fri 19 May 2006 14:06
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Post by andyville »

andyville wrote:"I think that Richard Dawkins made a very interesting point in the preface to a recently released edition of "The selfish gene". I do not remember exactly how he put it, but his point was that what he is trying to obtain by writing his books, is not setting up moral values for how the world ought to function. What he is trying to do is describe how the world works, based on findings that are available through the scientifical method. Those who do not understand this very important distinction (what is, as opposed to what ought to be) will probably feel offended by scientists such as Dawkins forever."
spring wrote:"There is no morality in science. Nature doesn't care about morality. I am not going to refrain from speaking up about a scientific truth because some people say that that is immoral. Too bad. If we persist in this sort of thinking, suppressing the truth because it makes us uncomfortable or we think the conclusions are 'immoral' then we might as well go back and live in the Dark Ages because that's how people used to think."

Seems like you and I agree on the importance of making the distinction between what is and what ought to be, spring.
Post Reply