The human brain is not part of of the natural organism

You say we're now in the third ice age, but many scientists tell us we are getting hotter. They show us the polar ice melting, and glaciers disappearing. When did this third ice age begin?

Oh ****. Where's the key to my underground bunker?

No sweat, Boss . . . this tempest in a teapot hardly warrants a thermonuclear response.

Excellent book: The Long Thaw by David Archer, or you could just wikipedia "ice age." But then you wouldn't get the low-down on how increased Co2 levels may effect the timing of the next glacial period.

The great ice age we're in started about 2.5 million years ago.

Good, I'm out of peanut butter.

So you're insulting me because you feel I've insulted you?

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. My statement was supposed to be neutral, something which, as you've discovered, I have difficulty with.

The fact is, as you've admitted, you're not taking this very seriously, or something. However, I am also at fault. I tend to, as you've discovered, deal poorly with such things.


I do find it interesting that you enjoy saying meaningless things.


I also find it interesting that after I called you on several things, you finally came up with a reasonable objection.


You did not ask for evidence. I assumed that means you were aware of the phenomenon. I would have gone to find some had you asked before you started insulting me.

In fact, I will supply it anyway. My emphasis.

""Humans evolved their cognitive abilities not due to a few accidental mutations, but rather, from an enormous number of mutations acquired though exceptionally intense selection favoring more complex cognitive abilities," said lead researcher Bruce Lahn at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute."

"The researchers found that brain-related genes evolved much faster in humans and macaques than in rats and mice. Additionally, the human lineage has a higher rate of protein changes than the macaque lineage."

If you don't like this example I will find others. As I say, I see it all the time.


Well, an improvement in survival, yes. The adaptive process needs some difference to hook on to. Otherwise you're left trying to describe our more than threefold brain size increase as random drift.


I agree.

Who and how did they determine we're now in the third ice age? One author does not make it factual. What scientific support does it have beyond "increased co2 levels?"

The following is from Wiki:

I'm new to the discussion but a couple of thoughts come regarding your OP.

There was a major cold spell that happened about 12000 years ago called the Younger Dryas. It happened as the climate was coming out of the last glacial period. There was a fairly abrupt swing back into glacial climate followed by a just as abrupt swing back to the climate we have now, which has been unusually stable for the last 10,000 years. Since this roughly coincides with the advent of agriculture, there's been speculation about how this cold spike might have effected human life.

The advent of agriculture profoundly affected humans.

Off the wall, but personally significant speculations:

Agriculture coincided with a profound alteration of the human mind, creating the dynamics of much of what we now call thought. Agriculture brought new stresses which were resolved by the use of abstraction. The solar calendar is an example. The idea of "home" emerged and a separation between agrarian and nomadic people which allowed both to gain identity by virtue of each other (stole that out of the book of Genesis)

There's also the Roger Penrose thing where the human brain may contain superconductivity. He wrote a book called Shadows of the Mind... it's on my list. If you read it first... a review would be appreciated.

We're in a great ice age, dude. What is commonly called the last ice age was the last glacial period. We're in an interglacial. The climate goes back and forth. When the climate doesn't do that it's called a hothouse climate.

I think there have actually been five great ice ages. But don't quote me. The book I read focused on the last 500 million years.

Birth hips are often mistaken for hips having a big inner hole, when it's Anteria superior or was it Lium which is overgrown (can't really remember the name) but however the size of the outer bone has nothing to do with the innner hole.
Besides, when giving birth you release an enzyme to losen the tissue to losen the vagina to make it expand, sometimes women can't release this enzyme ..and that is more critical than having birth hips or not.

You should add Guns, Germ, and Steel plus Farewell to Alms to your list. Both address exactly that question, from different angles, and are good books even when they're not on that topic. Both Diamond and Clark like beating a point into the ground, though, and one needs to be wary of political bias in both.

I think it's conceited to assume our kind of thought is all that new. It may be true, but it follows the pattern of self-flattery that I first noticed as anthropocentricism. I would easily accept it changed how thought was used, however - essentially your conclusion with a modified premise.

You've reminded me I should read something like that, but a review isn't necessary, google books has a substantial portion of it for free.

Ah, I see: the soft tissue is the main thing, and next the inner hard tissue. Thanks.

Yea whatever.

This is arguably the most profound thing which has been said in this thread.

I'll leave aside your childish and irrelevant remarks about what you assume are my motivations.

The quotes you have provided do not support a claim that human evolution took place rapidly. At most, there is a statement about the relation of human and macaque evolution to that of some rodents. That in no way authorizes your silly pontifications. Your comment about "random drift" does not address the relative speed with which these changes took place. Given that millions of years were involved, i don't accept a claim that this took place rapidly.

I'm glad, though, that you agree that it's a shame you needed to have these things explained to you. However, there's no evidence that your grasp of rhetoric has improved as a consequence.

Guns, Germs and Steel is, from an historical and historiograpic point of view, a seriously flawed work. For as impressive as Mr. Diamond's writing is, his thesis is not supported by the historical evidence. Either he is naive and shallow in his historical analysis and synthesis, or he was so eager to forward his thesis that he was willing to ignore some rather obvious objections to his work.

Historically, he plays fast and loose with the truth. Pizarro arrived in the heart of what we call the Inca empire with 212 Spaniards. In the midst of tens of thousands of aboriginal troops, who were veteran and who had already survived an epidemic (probably smallpox) before the arrival of the Spaniards, Pizarro and his men were able to seize, hold hostage and then execute Atahualpa. The fragile nature of the hierarchy of their society was the culprit. The rebellion of the Peruvians within a generation was ample evidence that they lacked nothing in courage or the willingness to fight if properly lead. The Spanish just barely survived that rebellion, and only did so because they were already well enough established.

His description of the conquest of Mexico by Cortés is even more flawed. Cortés only conquered Tenochtitlan after a bitterly-fought siege of 22 months duration, and with the support of thousands of aboriginal American allies. Aboriginal Americans who learned to read and write Spanish and became clerics in the Church in the generation after the conquest make numerous references to epidemics of European diseases before the Spanish arrived. Cortés was successful because of his diplomatic skills and his ability to form and maintain a coalition of aboriginal allies who had resented the Mexican (Aztec, if you prefer) hegemony for a century before the Spanish arrived, but who had never organized to resist it.

But it is from an historiographic point of view that his thesis is the most flawed. Guns, germs and steel don't explain why Europeans conquered south Asia and east Asia (roughly, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and China). The domestication of animals and the exposure to epidemic diseases arising in domestic animal populations was as prevalent in those societies as it was in Europe. Metallurgy was as ancient and as sophisticated in those societies as it was in Europe. Gunpowder was known longer in those societies than it had been in Europe. As early as the 11th century the Arabs were writing of gun powder and recipes for its manufacture. There is a treatise in Arabic from the early 13th century which lists dozens of recipes for gun powder and their specific uses. Gun powder entered European society outside the Iberian peninsula after two English observers saw the impact of gun powder based artillery used in Andalusia in the mid-13th century, and reported the information to Edward Plantagenet, soon to become King Edward I. Gun powder based artillery became a significant factor in what we call the Hundred Years War in the 14th and 15th centuries. What mattered was the application of the technology. For all that the Arabs knew of gun powder, and for all that Muslims were using gun powder based artillery in Andalusia in the 13th century, it did them precious little good in facing societies which exploited such technologies to the fullest while they wallowed in dreams of their former greatness.

The difference between Europeans and the peoples whom they conquered was in social organization and the impact of individualism. Clive succeeded in India because he took personal initiative, and exploited the lack of unity and social organization there. China invented many, many bold new ideas (particularly gun powder) long before Europeans, but made nothing of them, in a society which stifled or even prohibited individual initiative. The only society of eastern Asia which was able to resist the Europeans and to become a successful military peer of them was that of Japan. The social organization of the Japanese after the Sengoku period and during the Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji restoration was such that they were able to exclude most Europeans and to tightly control those who were allowed into Japan to trade. Faced with the European exploitation of China, and the impositions of the United States Navy, the Japanese responded in a typical manner by learning the new technologies and exploiting them just as effectively as did the Europeans.

Mr. Diamond's book is entertaining, but historically, it is a work of fiction.

So, the guy who tries to apologize gets insulted again. Okay. If you really want to prove my points for me, go ahead.


Don't forget: insulting people makes you right.

See? No debate integrity: no mutual respect. I just called it sooner, rather than later.

I have the power to interrupt a flame war. As much as Setanta deserves a thrashing, nobody else deserves to be subject to such a cesspool, and anyway Setanta wouldn't learn anything.
I think I will exercise this power. Well, momentarily I will.

I think a fair representation of Diamond and Clark are called for, as they're third parties.

Second, I cannot completely give up the idea of defending myself. I of course have no desire for Setanta's good opinion - indeed, I would find it troubling - but, I am concerned with third parties. This is probably a failing of mine, but nevertheless...

Dear third party, I submit today's criterion for the most able debater. May you judge me fairly.
The person who can concede points. Can admit the opponent is right, when they are in fact right. Reason: the person who can concede can go from wrong to right. The person who cannot is stuck at wrong.


....which is exactly what Diamond says. Specifically, smallpox killed their leader, and they had no framework for smooth transitions of power. Instead the place went pretty well the way of Alexander's empire.


This is true. This is also covered in Farewell to Alms. Almost like I know what I'm talking about.

Naaaaah. Can't be.


Which Clark explains. May be true, may not be, but nobody else has tried, so he wins by default.

My penchant for checking the facts will be my downfall. My willpower simply isn't up to this.

I suppose I did say I'd find others. I should reneg, but oh well. If you don't like these, tough. Stay wrong and see if I care.

"Despite the explosive growth in size and complexity of the human brain"

"The rapid advance of the human brain, the authors maintain, has not been driven by evolution of protein sequences."

"Although humans weigh about 20 percent more than chimpanzees, our closest relative, the human brain weighs 250 percent more. How such a massive morphological change occurred over a relatively short evolutionary time has long puzzled biologists."

Indeed, humans, including human brains, have evolved too fast to work the bugs out.

Why should i respect you? You've just be spewing forth ipse dixit claims in a condescending manner, as though anyone reading here should just take your word for it. Once again, i don't have much of a problem with that, up to the point at which you tell me about my rhetorical failings. The common expression from Americans for most of my life would be "You've got a gall."

No, that is not exactly what Diamond says. I have the book upstairs, and could go get you a quote, but let's examine your claim. You state: "Specifically, smallpox killed their leader . . . " Specifically, you are wrong. I doubt that even Diamond makes a mistake that basic, despite his status as an historical naif. As i say, i can go check it if necessary. However, you might consider this, from Wikipedia:



It was Huayna Capac, the father of Atahualpa who died in an epidemic (probably smallpox). His two sons, Atahualpa and Huascar then fought a civil war, in which Atahualpa was eventually victorious, in fact winning that war shortly before the arrival of the Spaniard.

For the classic account in English, I recommend the two volumes on the conquest of Peru by William Prescott, a 19th century American historian, who produced a twenty plus volume history of the Spanish conquest and the imperial monarchy of Spain. I also recommend it for the three volumes on the conquest of Mexico. Of course, the classic eye witness account of the conquest of Mexico is entitled in Enlgish The Conquest of New Spain, by Bernal Diaz, who had been chosen by Cortés to accompany him because he had been a part of two expeditions to the Yucatan before Cortés set out on his expedition. For accounts of those expeditions look for de Cordoba and Grijalva.

Prescott is certainly not the most recent historian, but he is unique for two reasons. One is that no other writer in English has produced such an exhaustive study to such a high standard of scholarship. The other is that Prescott was able to consult documents in Spain which no longer exist, having been destroyed during the Spanish civil war of the 1930s. Prescott divides his volumes into tomes, and at the beginning of each tome he provides "thumbnail" biographies of the major historical writers who were his principle sources. True to the high standards of American historiography in the 19th century, he provides his source materials and direct quotes from the originals in 15th and 16th century Spanish for crucial or controversial quotes--he makes it easy to check his work.

There is no reason to compare this to Alexander's "empire," which is evidence of your own lack of depth of historical knowledge. Alexander was only interested in the campaign, in the fight, and his "empire" existed in name only. It fragmented because he created no central administration, and each satrap simply set himself up as his own king. The Tahuantinsuyu empire, which was a genuine empire, collapsed because it was in fact too centralized, and the ravages of the civil war in the highest ranks of the military and civil administrations left the Tahuantinsuyu incapable of responding to the execution of Atahualpa.

Literally hundreds of historians have attempted, each in his or her own way, to explain why the Europeans' social, military and economic systems were superior to those of the peoples they conquered. It is bullshit to claim that nobody else has tried. The disputes which arise arise only over the details of the matter. No serious historian for generations has disputed that tiny bands of Europeans toppled kingdoms and ancient and massive empires because of a more effective social organization and the power of individual initiative.



This is the only genuine honesty in which i know you to have indulged so far.

You give me quotes from an online journalist to support you claims about the rapidity of human cranial evolution? Sad, that . . .

Once again, you are showing me nothing with which i am not familiar, and i'm not learning anything from you.