Why are we here?

One might say, Herald, that we are here, from the Queen of England to a Kalihari bushman's under-strapper, to lead a life in the light of what it means.

Hence affectations and delusions of grandeur are a sign of not knowing why we are here so it is foolish of you to expect any satisfactory answers.

"Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:" Sir Alfred said. Not to pose as a historian when you don't know history from your elbow.

I don't know about Herald but you for one are not kicking any ass, Set, you're just fantasizing about it.

I proved beyond reasonable doubt that sapiens' technological progress and expansion into Europe were concomitant with neanderthal's demise, and that climate change had nothing to do with it. Since it could hardly be a coincidence, the most probable explanation is that Neanderthal disappeared because Sapiens was marching in. You can bitch about the details, e.g. how much actual warfare occurred as opposed to competition and forced displacement from the most productive gaming grounds, but the big picture is that Sapiens has successfully erased other human species, whatever the means used.

You on the other hand argued that Neanderthal was not eating enough carbs for his own good... That was funny.

I am told Set is a 'he', although like you I keep thinking of him as a 'she' for some reason.

Primitive plants did not need pollination, being without flowers...

Most of the CO2 reduction you talk about was brought by blue algae aka cyanobacteria, the first photosynthetic organisms and something like 90% of the biosphere before the Cambrian period.

You are assuming your conclusion --- that there was a purpose, and a consciousness devising this purpose or "job", in the first place. But there wasn't. There never was a "purpose" or "job" in the first place. All there was were a number of nonrandom, yet unconscious physical laws, which in sequence just happened to get us from the Big Bang to where we are now:

• In the beginning, protons and neutrons formed out of quarks as an unintended consequence of the Strong Force.
  
  
• Next, hydrogen and deuterium cores formed out of protons and neutrons as an unintended consequence of the Weak Force.
  
  
• Next, amorphous clouds of hydrogen and deuterium collapsed into themselves as an unintended consequence of gravity.
  
  
• Next, nuclear fission ignited in some of the collapsed-into-themselves clouds but not others, as an unintended consequence of thermodynamics, gravity, and the Weak Force. The objects where fission ignited are what we call "stars". The objects where fission didn't ignite just kept sitting there and cooling off again. We call them "brown dwarfs".
  
  
• Next, the chemical composition of stars changed as an unintended consequence of fission, as it kept generating heavier chemical elements out of lighter ones. The energetics happen to work out in such a way that producing iron is possible, but heavier elements are not.
  
  
• Next, the fission process in some of the stars ran out of fuel. The unintended consequences of running out of fuel vary greatly, depending on the mass the star happens to have. To explain why we are here, it suffices to observe that some stars, the especially heavy ones, detonate in the most violent explosions in the universe, which we call "supernovae". Supernovae release so much energy that the laws of thermodynamics and the Weak Force can produce, as an unintended consequence, all the remaining chemical elements.
  
  
• Next, the fallout from one supernova (there might be more, but we only know of one) accumulates into meteroids, then asteroids, then planets, as it reaches another star we now call "the sun". All this happens as an unintended consequence of gravity.
  
  
• Next, the geology on one planet (that we know of --- again, there might be more) spawns auto-catalytic chemical reactions. How exactly this happened is unknown, but there are several candidates, and they are would work as unintended consequences of physical processes running by themselves.
  
  
• Next, the autocatalytic chemical reactions develop some form of heredity. Once again, we don't know how it happened, but there's no reason it couldn't possibly happen as an unintended consequence of unconscious chemical processes.
  
  
• Finally, the environment of these self-replicating molecules kills some replicants but not all. In this way, a process called "natural selection" bootstraps itself, producing cells, then multi-cellular organisms, then nervous systems, then consciousness --- all as an unintended consequence of a nonrandom physical process. We just happen to be a few of these multicellular organisms who happen to have nervous systems that happen to have spawned consciousness.

This story may flatter our vanity as much as the story where the universe has an all-powerful creator who deliberately made us in his image. But as best I can tell, it's the truth. I suggest that you deal with it. There simply was no 'job' at the beginning of the universe. And there was no 'employer' who assigned this 'job', either.

Archaea and bacteria are capable of photosynthesis, yet do not require pollination. As for plants, not all of them require pollination through insects, either. Some can get themselves pollinated by just the wind. And as for insects, the oldest fossils we have date back some 400 million years ago. So they would have been present for much of the time span we talk about.


Negative feedback:

1. The more insects you have, the fewer plants you get because plants get eaten.
   
   
2. The fewer plants you have, the fewer insects you get because insects starve.
   
   
3. The fewer insects you have, the more plants you get because plants grow up and multiply without getting eaten.
   
   
4. The more plants you have, the more insects you get because insects have enough food to grow up and multiply without starving.
   
   
5. Go to step 1.

This cycle of negative feedback, in which the insect population and the plant population stabilize each other, is a well-understood biological phenomenon called the predator--prey cycle. To learn more, I suggest you search the web for "Lotka--Volterra equation".

I omitted a step in between: "Next, hydrogen and deuterium formed out of electrons, hydrogen, and deuterium as an unintended consequence of the electro-magnetic force."

You proved nothing at all. You offered no evidence, just speculation, and poorly founded speculation. You had no clue about population figures for the periglacial eras. You had no clue about when humans began to practice agriculture. I, personally did not mention climate change, other than to note that i speculate (note that when i speculate, i say so) that h.n. over a very long period of time proved not have adapted sufficiently to the periglacial climate.

You didn't prove that any warfare took place. You not only didn't prove that anyone was driven from "gaming grounds," your ignorance of population levels showed that you didn't understand that there was game available on orders of magnitude greater than needed by both species combined. You certainly never proved that h.s.s. "erased" any other human species. You presented zero evidence, it is hilarious to see you claim that you proved anything.

I did not at any time mention "carbs." As for being funny, you bore the bell away with that.

Have you got anything to say on the topic of this thread, especially as regards the current discussion? Or did you just come here to take cheap shots, which seems to be all you can do with any facility?

I won't rehash that discussion. If you did not understand it the first time around, you won't understand the evidence brought forth a second time. All you can do is state stuff you can't understand, let alone prove, like you baseless paleontological demographics or that idea that Neanderthal had a poor diet. And find what others are saying "hilarious". :-)

I already stated what I had to say on the topic of this thread: we are here because there's enough information around to make information-crunching a viable Darwinian strategy.

It keeps getting funnier. There were bifido-bees in the Archean or did I jut make that up?

It keeps getting funnier. There were bifido-bees in the Archean or did I jut make that up?

And where did the energy of this strong force come from ... in the beginning.


Do you have this in a lab experiment ... or it is just unplausible theory.


And where did the gravity come from in the first place?


How and by reason of what?


Can you do this a lab ... without test setting.
Big bang is everywhere and is 'still in operation'. It should take control over the things and should control the experiment automatically. The claim is that these things happened without any intelligence or intelligent setting, right?


If some component in a given theory is unknown or not knowable the whole they becomes invalidated ... to the clarification of the case.


.. and if this was the case at all.


If this works the way you explain it it should work everywhere ... and with everything.
If this bootstrap evolution means 'getting better at getting better', how many positive mutations (radiation resistant individuals) has the operation of the natural selection done so far with the personnel of the NPPs, for example? You have everything there that may cause mutations and trigger the natural selection ... to appear in full glory ... and nothing of the kind is observed.

RE: the prehistoric plants
As about the prehistoric plants, have you verified whether they can withstand to acid rain of 7000 ppm CO2 in the air (we are not talking yet about the sulfuric acid that might have been dissolved in the CO2) ... and about the CH4 and NO2, etc. Or maybe the photosynthetic bacteria didn't have nitrogen ... somehow.

With or without blossoms there have been insects ... at least in the end of the period in question.
For further details see: Devonian Rhyniognatha hirsti (396?! mya)
Ah-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha . . .
Woo-hoo . . .
By the way you are confusing psychic pressure with sound scientific arguments.
Ah-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha . . .
Woo-hoo . . .

You didn't bring forth any evidence--which seems to be the part that you don't understand. The population estimates were from a genetic study conducted by two respected Harvard geneticists, for which i provided a link. The relative (i didn't use the term poor, you keep throwing out adjectives which i haven't used) paucity of the Neanderthal diet in comparison to to the h.s.s. diet came from a comparison of middens at a site where h.n. and h.s.s. lived side by side, and it was the statement of the Israeli archaeologists who excavated to which i referred. I linked that, too. All you came up with was some pictures of stone tools, which has absolutely no relevance to what the tools were used for. Yes, i think it's hilarious that you speculated from you jaundiced view of humans, but rather than stay you were speculating, you stated it as though it were fact. Called on it, the best you could come up with was a reference to the paleolithic tool kit of h.s.s., which doesn't tell you what it was used for, and certainly not that it was used to exterminate h.n. That was hilarious. You came up with a speculative population density map of western and central Europe (not, of course the only places that h.n. or h.s.s. lived), which i don't doubt had a sound scholarly basis--but which was essentially meaningless if one doesn't know what the population was. So you started babbling about the population of h.s.s. 20,000 years after h.n. disappeared, and made a complete ass of yourself with your statement about when agriculture began. I showed that that was not true, and linked sources for that, too.

From start to finish, you provided no direct evidence for your claim. But it gets even more hilarious when you now start attempting to claim that you proved anything. You're like Winston in 1984, you're rewriting history.

Basically, though, you came here to take a cheap shot at me. Then you belatedly realized that you had to put a fig leaf over you invidious remark, so you made a feeble reference to the thread's topic. The thread has moved on well beyond the titular question. But the discussion has moved into scientific realms, and given your performance with your idiotic claim that h.s.s. exterminated other human species, for which you provided zero evidence, i don't wonder that you want to remain vague about the discussion.

It's rather pathetically and ironically funny for you to speak of sound scientific arguments. Since you arrived at this site, about all you've done is flog your anti-atheist and anti-big bang arguments, while spouting utter nonsense which you claim is scientific evidence. You've done it time and again in this thread. Your argument about the big bang in the context of this discussion is just about identical with that attempted by young-earth creationists, who also don't seem to get that evolutionary biology is not concerned with cosmic origins.

You've got no business criticizing others about "sound scientific arguments." Tells again about no photosynthesis without insects to pollinate plants, Mr. Science.

The Harvard study did not provide any data about demographics, other than an absolute minimum population at some undated low point in the past 80,000 years, if memory serves. What we would need to substantiate your claims is the population density arond the time neanderthal disapeared.

Your Israeli study gave an indication on the diet of ONE band of Neanderthaliens licated in the Levant, around 70,000 yrs ago. Very flimsy evidence to explain why the whole species collapsed 30-40,000 years later.

So you provided no evidence at all for your claim that there could not have been competition between the two species for food.

The fact is that Neanderthal recinds at the same time as Sapiens invades Europe, right after Sapiens made a technological leap called Aurignacien. Neanderthal seems to have survived longer in the Iberic peninsula and disappeared soonest in the Levant, so the extinction progressed from east to west, just as Sapiens was progressing from the Levant to the West of Europe. The coincidence in time and geography provides strong indication of a link between those events.

Another piece of evidence is the very small amount of interbreeding that occured, leaving a mere 4% of Neanderthal's genes among the Sapiens population around 80,000 years ago, and also limitted in time. This fits the idea of a war between the species breaking up at some point.

First, your memory does not serve you well. Since my experience is that you won't go to any trouble to back up your BS, here, once again is a link describing the genetic study.

Second, you really shouldn't have brought up the Israeli archaeologists, since a new study suggests that h.n. and h.s.s. lived together in harmony. You can of course, dispute that if you like, but that constitutes evidence, something with which you have not bothered.

At no time did i claim that there could have been no competition between h.n. and h.s.s. I simply pointed out that given the probable population density, calculated at the upper end, there would not have very likely been competition for resources, and that there would not have been "scarce resources," which is what you were claiming. You're the one who has been making wild claims in this matter, and providing zero evidence.

I don't know what you think the English word rescind means, so i don't have any idea what you think you are saying--and i don't care. Your "strong indication of a link" reminds me of the tale of a rooster who thinks the sun rises because he crows. Correlation is not automatically evidence of causation.

The percentage of h.n. genes in the genome decreases. This is what Farmerman was talking about that you completely failed to understand. You just kept babbling about genes not disappearing, and completely missing the point that when new sources of a particular genetic material are lost, simple math means that over time, the proportion of that material decreases.

I con't have a problem with your blood-thirsty, killer ape scenario, although i think it is ridiculous. My problem is your insistence upon acting as though your opinion is fact. Once again, you have presented zero evidence. It's your claim, you have to support it if you expect to be taken seriously. You haven't done so.

Populations can decline from natural causes Ollie. The giant Panda is in intensive care for reasons which make a nonsense of evolution theory.

Non viability can be caused by a lack of breeding capacity.

Thanks for the link but it seems my memory served me well: no indication here of when this demographic minimum occurred, and no way to infer population densities at other times.

I meant Neanderthal 'retreated' from East to West, rather than rescinded.

The two species may well have lived in harmony at some point, especially before the Aurignacian when Neanderthal might have been unbeatable for the smaller Sapiens. But even that supports the idea that the two populations were dense enough to interact frequently. Making competition for resources alm the more likely.

The giant panda is disappearing because mankind is destroying its habitat. Same with gorillas, chimps and orang outangs... No natural causes here.