How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

[Purple Knight]

This is not a question of whether or not evolution is crazy, but how crazy it seems at first glance.

That is, when we discard our experiences and look at claims as if through new eyes, what do we find when we look at evolution? I Believe we can find a great deal of common ground with this question, because when I discard my experience as an animal breeder, when I discard my knowledge, and what I've been taught, I might look at evolution with the same skepticism as someone who has either never been taught anything about it, or someone who has been taught to distrust it.

Personally my mind goes to the keratinised spines on the tongues of cats. Yes, cats have fingernails growing out of their tongues! Gross, right? Well, these particular fingernails have evolved into perfect little brushes for the animal's fur. But I think of that first animal with a horrid growth of keratin on its poor tongue. The poor thing didn't die immediately, and this fits perfectly with what I said about two steps back paying for one forward. This detrimental mutation didn't hurt the animal enough for the hapless thing to die of it, but surely it caused some suffering. And persevering thing that he was, he reproduced despite his disability (probably in a time of plenty that allowed that). But did he have the growths anywhere else? It isn't beyond reason to think of them protruding from the corners of his eyes or caking up more and more on the palms of his hands. Perhaps he had them where his eyelashes were, and it hurt him to even blink. As disturbing as my mental picture is of this scenario, this sad creature isn't even as bad off as this boar, whose tusks grew up and curled until they punctured his brain.





This is a perfect example of a detrimental trait being preserved because it doesn't hurt the animal enough to kill it before it mates. So we don't have to jump right from benefit to benefit. The road to a new beneficial trait might be long, going backwards most of the way, and filled with a lot of stabbed brains and eyelids.

Walking backwards most of the time, uphill both ways, and across caltrops almost the entire trip?

I have to admit, thinking about walking along such a path sounds like, at very least, a very depressing way to get from A to B. I would hope there would be a better way.

[Sherlock Holmes]

I agree with Eloi here, we are regarded as apes because the definition of ape has been made broad enough to include humans.

No ape can cook and no ape keeps pets no ape can drive a car or play chess, but these fundamental differences are excluded from the standard biology definition of ape.

I regard these and other differences as sufficient to not lump humans in with apes.

The question "Is a human an ape" is unanswerable in any objective sense because the chosen definition itself is arbitrary, one either accepts some definition or they don't.

[Eloi]

It is too obvious that we humans are totally different from any animal that exists, because we are much more than a body that reproduces. In fact, we share 50% of our DNA with bananas. Are we 50% bananas?

Is it enough for all the time of existence that is calculated for the material Universe so that, for example, thousands of different flowers came out from a single specie? And then how will it be possible to make a modern human being emerge from some animal?

And if we go further, how long does it take for life to emerge out of inorganic material? Too much time...which evolutionist don't count on in the first place. They are just fairytales.

[Eloi]

(...) the fossil record and genetics have demonstrated conclusively that moden Homo sapiens evolved from a great ape ancestor (...)

And again, and again, and again ... That is not true. Do you believe that by repeating a lie so many times it becomes a truth?

[Sherlock Holmes]

It is too obvious that we humans are totally different from any animal that exists, because we are much more than a body that reproduces. In fact, we share 50% of our DNA with bananas. Are we 50% bananas?

Is it enough for all the time of existence that is calculated for the material Universe so that, for example, thousands of different flowers came out from a single specie? And then how will it be possible to make a modern human being emerge from some animal?

And if we go further, how long does it take for life to emerge out of inorganic material? Too much time...which evolutionist don't count on in the first place. They are just fairytales.

These are fine questions, far too often treated as mere routine.

I've always been taken by the fact that human civilization seems to have just popped up in a few thousand years too, so much achieved in only the recent past.

Like writing for example, oldest examples we have are like less than 6,000 years ago, odd, very odd, I'd have expected this to have developed and have evidence going back much farther.

[Jose Fly]

The nervous system is near the heart of what makes a human, a "person"

Are you referring to consciousness?

whereas taxonomy is simply interested in categorizing the human being in relation to the external flesh and bone material which encases the nervous system.

Taxonomic classifications are based on more than just "external flesh and bone". If the human nervous system were significantly different than that of all the other primates, that would be factored into their designation. But since it isn't (they're actually quite similar), it fits very nicely with all the other data that feeds into classification.

The flesh and bone material does influence a persons idea of who they are, but without the nervous system, the person would not exist as a personality...so taxonomy can only offer an incomplete picture - surface scratching rather than digging deeper into what is beneath the surface. That is why the expression "Humans are Apes" is incomplete - gives an incomplete picture and defines according to that incompleteness.

Where did you get the idea that taxonomists never consider nervous systems in their work?

In appearance, humans are more related to what Jellyfish look like - re the nervous system...once the flesh and bone are removed to reveal said system.

Um....no, not at all. Where did you get that idea?

Consciousness goes even deeper than the nervous system, and cannot easily be pictured. I would say that consciousness does not reside only with the brain but throughout the nervous system...mostly operating without the personality being conscious of said operations, and in relation to subconscious operations [re psychology/ the human mind] the personality can connect and interact with said subconscious activity, thereby learning from that vast resource...
{SOURCE}

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So noted.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Eloi in post #1144]

It is too obvious that we humans are totally different from any animal that exists, because we are much more than a body that reproduces. In fact, we share 50% of our DNA with bananas. Are we 50% bananas?

The main differences between humans and our closest cousins (chimps and bonobos) are that we evolved a much larger and more complex brain that is about 80% neocortex, we are fully bipedal (not unique to humans), and we have opposable thumbs. The brain and the high intelligence level it provides is the key difference though, and is what has allowed us to become what we have become.

You're completely misunderstanding the 50% DNA with a banana thing. That doesn't mean we are "50% bananas." It means that bananas and humans have a lot of genes that code for common proteins. There are proteins in bananas that carry out similar functions in humans, which is exactly what you'd expect if all animal (and plant) life arose from a common ancestor. It isn't a fariytale ... it is our best explanation of how things actually did happen ... and it makes sense. Being poofed into existence as special creatures by a mysterious god being is much more in the fairytale category.

[Jose Fly]

No ape can cook and no ape keeps pets no ape can drive a car or play chess, but these fundamental differences are excluded from the standard biology definition of ape.

Those criteria are not used in taxonomy. Never have been.

I regard these and other differences as sufficient to not lump humans in with apes.

That's hardly surprising, given your creationist beliefs.

The question "Is a human an ape" is unanswerable in any objective sense because the chosen definition itself is arbitrary, one either accepts some definition or they don't.

You actually think taxonomic designations are arbitrary? Taxonomists just make things up as they go along, with no standards or rules at all?

Tell me....just how much experience do you have in taxonomy?

[Eloi]

No one can determine the origin of things just by looking at the final product and comparing it to other existing objects.

I could say that many living beings and plants share certain characteristics because their designer was one, the same.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Eloi in post #1145]

And again, and again, and again ... That is not true. Do you believe that by repeating a lie so many times it becomes a truth?

No more than the constant denial of evolution by creationists despite the massive evidence for it. Fortunately for science, these denials are likely to continue to be ignored until someone can show that they have any merit. Simply calling it a lie doesn't make it a lie, and evolution has not been toppled as the most reasonable mechanism for how life diversified on this planet once it did originate (and that mechanism, of course, has nothing to do with evolution).

[Eloi]

[Replying to Eloi in post #1145]

And again, and again, and again ... That is not true. Do you believe that by repeating a lie so many times it becomes a truth?

No more than the constant denial of evolution by creationists despite the massive evidence for it. Fortunately for science, these denials are likely to continue to be ignored until someone can show that they have any merit. Simply calling it a lie doesn't make it a lie, and evolution has not been toppled as the most reasonable mechanism for how life diversified on this planet once it did originate (and that mechanism, of course, has nothing to do with evolution).

If there is that "massive evidence" why not all scientists are convinced of it?