Why do people deny evolution?

@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

Do some research in ethology. It has become more apparent that other animals are self-aware and mat pretty much all human behaviors have analogues in some degree in non-human animals.

That seems more than obvious to me. We are animals. We are chordates. Our whole classificatory system for living things is designed in way that lets us estimate what other life-forms experience consciously via their particular variations of apparati we have in common, albeit differently.

It gets a little more difficult when you try to imagine how creatures/systems without central nervous systems experience consciousness. Hopefully it's good to not have to feel threats and harm; though I have read some research showing that plants have something akin to pain-perception and the corresponding reflexes that go with that, and they don't have central nervous systems as we know it.

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

We are chordates.

Proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Chordates have tails, humans don’t.

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@livinglava,

Well actually I don’t mean consciousness what I mean is the real me can get entangled up in my brain.If I live in my head all the time then I call this autopilot consciousness (out of synch) .If I come out of my head and wear my body fully (as I call it) I experience manual consciousness (in synch).I call autopilot 0,0 because I am subject to autopilot thinking only i.e. under the influence of the 2 off biological computers the most.Nobody's at the wheel so to speak.

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Oh great, more morons in the thread.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

livinglava wrote:

We are chordates.

Proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Chordates have tails, humans don’t.

Chordates include all the species with vertebrae, including humans.

You're focussing on difference, but that doesn't help you think about what it's like to live in a different body/form.

Having a tail is an interesting question, though. It's obvious that dogs are happy when they wag them, but I wonder what it feels like to have those muscles working while you're happy. I.e. are they aware of the feeling of oscillation in their hind quarters, or do they just feel happy and not notice their own tail wagging?

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

Well actually I don’t mean consciousness what I mean is the real me can get entangled up in my brain.If I live in my head all the time then I call this autopilot consciousness (out of synch) .If I come out of my head and wear my body fully (as I call it) I experience manual consciousness (in synch).I call autopilot 0,0 because I am subject to autopilot thinking only i.e. under the influence of the 2 off biological computers the most.Nobody's at the wheel so to speak.

What do you mean by 'living in your head?' Do you mean that you lose awareness of your body because you are thinking intensely? I don't think it's possible to leave the position behind the eyes. Some people say it's possible to "go out of body," which is what I thought you were talking about.

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@livinglava,

Invincible ignorance . . . Izzy is absolutely correct. Not that not knowing what the **** you're talking about has ever stopped you.

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@livinglava,

There are very subtle differences between being in the moment or not being in the moment consciously.When you are thinking intensely is a good example of disengaging with you 5 senses,yes.You can’t think about this concept...you just notice it...become aware of it.Your consciousness state just shifts.You have to make the effort to bring yourself into the moment so that you are fully aware of your 5 senses...it takes effort.You can do this any time you want.Once in the moment you will just drift back into the default autopilot consciousness state again automatically (even if you are not thinking intensely).This is all the proof you need that most people spend their whole lives in the autopilot state and you also by the sounds of things.

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

There are very subtle differences between being in the moment or not being in the moment consciously.When you are thinking intensely is a good example of disengaging with you 5 senses,yes.You can’t think about this concept...you just notice it...become aware of it.Your consciousness state just shifts.You have to make the effort to bring yourself into the moment so that you are fully aware of your 5 senses...it takes effort.You can do this any time you want.Once in the moment you will just drift back into the default autopilot consciousness state again automatically (even if you are not thinking intensely).This is all the proof you need that most people spend their whole lives in the autopilot state and you also by the sounds of things.

It is important to have self-control so that you can choose right actions once you have made the right decision of how to act.

Exercising thought and acts of communication can be purposeful or just a reaction. The challenge is to discover the purpose of human thought and communication. We have senses, a body, and a mind to do things with. What we do and what burdens we shift outside ourselves in various ways determines how the world functions, how resources are used, and what things will be like for future generations.

One thing the internet has done for environmentalism and sustainability is that it allows us to communicate without printing on paper and/or sending paper out via truck-delivery, or sending our bodies to meetings and conferences via motorized transportation. So there is an enormous potential for resource conservation there if we learn how to use internet responsibly.

There are other things we can do with our bodies that reduce resource-waste as well. Whenever you use an appliance or tool that runs on energy that's not your own body energy, you contribute to fuel/energy waste. Some things are so much more efficient to do with a tool or appliance, that it is worth the waste. Try doing laundry by hand, for example, and you will quickly find it is worth the energy it takes to run a washing machine for 45 minutes. Try hanging up laundry on a line to dry, however, and you will find that it only takes about 15 minutes of effort, but it saves a lot of energy.

These kinds of choices we can make to reduce our use/waste of energy and other resources could add up to sustainability if the culture grows and continues throughout future generations. You may say that we can't control the future, but we can control what we do in the present, and all choices people make in the present moment ultimately accrue and add up to what kind of past people are going to have to look back at in the future.

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@livinglava,

TONIGHT on BOOK TV (a weekend C-Span2 serial of hour long book reviews by the authors). Tonight(did I say tonight?), they are featuring Neil Shubin , vertebrate paleontologist (who is also the chairman of the U of Chicago Med School). Shubin and Ted Deaschler were the co-discoverers of the fossil Tiktalik. Shubin wrote "YOUR INNER FISH" a few years after Tiktalik. It was a work on the evolution of vertebrate land dwellers from their fishy common ancestors. It was the big step for all vertebrates leaving the water and ballooning into countless other species
Tonight he will be discussing his new book "SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED" , a look at the origin and entry of self assembly in molecular biology and the roles of RNA/DNA in our evolution.

Im wondering whether he will refute or support Gould's thesis of the importance of the genome to life's occurrence and ascendance. I havent read th book yet but, spending on SHubin;s views I may have to ad it to my library and destroy it with post-its while reading.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Invincible ignorance . . . Izzy is absolutely correct. Not that not knowing what the **** you're talking about has ever stopped you.

Livinglava is absolutely correct. We are chordates.

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@oralloy,

All verterbrates are chordata. (s are sveral subphyla of animals with notochords or notochords only in the nymph stage) Set was certain that chordates have tails. Hes right. Except humans only have a post anal embryonic tail that gets resorbed. lthough there are a few (about 1/20000000 tht retain a few caudal bones after birth.

Animal classification unr the Linean system is rather Creationally "lumpistic" , theyve tries to "lump many Phyla" by temporary features and so, the train may be going toward alphanumric classifications rather than the more poetic Linnean system. Ill be sad when It goes to bar codes or some locker combination.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

TONIGHT on BOOK TV (a weekend C-Span2 serial of hour long book reviews by the authors). Tonight(did I say tonight?), they are featuring Neil Shubin , vertebrate paleontologist (who is also the chairman of the U of Chicago Med School). Shubin and Ted Deaschler were the co-discoverers of the fossil Tiktalik. Shubin wrote "YOUR INNER FISH" a few years after Tiktalik. It was a work on the evolution of vertebrate land dwellers from their fishy common ancestors. It was the big step for all vertebrates leaving the water and ballooning into countless other species
Tonight he will be discussing his new book "SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED" , a look at the origin and entry of self assembly in molecular biology and the roles of RNA/DNA in our evolution.

Im wondering whether he will refute or support Gould's thesis of the importance of the genome to life's occurrence and ascendance. I havent read th book yet but, spending on SHubin;s views I may have to ad it to my library and destroy it with post-its while reading.

Sounds interesting. I wish you'd just post the relevant differences of perspective, though, instead of just saying that you "wonder whether he will refute or support Gould's thesis of the importance of the genome to life's occurrence and ascendance." The way you right is like a teaser-trailer that forces me to read the book if I want to know what the exact contention is or would be between the two theories.

Somehow between the time people write their books/articles/lectures and when they end up as wikipedia entries, it becomes easier to explain the critical points they make in their work with just a few paragraphs, it that. Today we all revere Newton and Einstein and Maxwell and Planck, etc. but we can explain their contribution to physics in a few sentences.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

All verterbrates are chordata. Set was certain that chordates have tails. Hes right. Except humans only have a post anal embryonic tail that gets resorbed. lthough there are a few (about 1/20000000 tht retain a few caudal bones after birth.

You are taking the discussion of chordates out of the context in which I was using it. The only reason I used the term was to say how humans have an easier time identifying/empathizing with the experiences of another animal with a spine than one like an insect, crustacean, worm, or jellyfish that lack internal skeletons. We can still sort of imagine what these spineless animals experience to the extent that have central nervous systems with brains, senses, etc. but the more differences in body structure, the more challenging it is to imagine what consciousness experiences within those forms.

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@livinglava,

Without getting technical, Stephen Gould had always downplayed the significance of the genome. He and several others felt that the genes were inserted after significant evolutionary changes had already occured. We know this from several ways that macro evolution can often express itself (with or without genomic expression ).
SO Gould's actual statements were that
"Genes are nothing more than the bookkeeping of evolution"
It was always a teaser in itself. We could always find xamples of evolution without genomic expression but sooner or later (Darwins finches as studied by the Grants over at Princeton), the genes would show up on their "stems".
Thats all I meant, Several people here have been interested in the subject and already knew what I was talking about. Its not a hidden debate.

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@livinglava,

Quote:

You are taking the discussion of chordates out of the context in which I was using it

I hadnt addressed you in anything. I was merely reinforcing what Ollie said,while still recognizing validity in sets point (Actually it was Izzy who posted it and set just sorta agreed with him and snotbagged you.)

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Without getting technical, Stephen Gould had always downplayed the significance of the genome. He and several others felt that the genes were inserted after significant evolutionary changes had already occured. We know this from several ways that macro evolution can often express itself (with or without genomic expression ).
SO Gould's actual statements were that
"Genes are nothing more than the bookkeeping of evolution"
It was always a teaser in itself. We could always find xamples of evolution without genomic expression but sooner or later (Darwins finches as studied by the Grants over at Princeton), the genes would show up on their "stems".
Thats all I meant, Several people here have been interested in the subject and already knew what I was talking about. Its not a hidden debate.

I'm interested in what you're talking about because I never knew there was any possibility for body structure to change without corresponding changes at the genetic level.

Doesn't each offspring contain a mixture of its parents' genes, and thus a (slightly) new genome?

How would changes happen first and only get recorded genetically later? Genes are decoded and made into proteins that build up the organism in the fetal stage and later. I understand there are environmental factors that control how genes are expressed, but are you talking about some other genetic level different than the one where offspring contain the recombined gametes of their parents?

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:
You are taking the discussion of chordates out of the context in which I was using it
I hadnt addressed you in anything. I was merely reinforcing what Ollie said,while still recognizing validity in sets point (Actually it was Izzy who posted it and set just sorta agreed with him and snotbagged you.)

So you weren't even trying to discuss the chordate issue in the context of why I used the term to begin with? You just wanted to turn it into a platform for debating the category generally and whether it applies to humans or not and why?

You think that because some chordates have tails, that humans and other tailless vertebrates should be excluded from the phylum? If so, what phylum would they be then?

Also, fish have tails and so do dogs as well as lizards, but those are all different classes within the same phylum, so you can't have a single phylum that applies to different classes, when class is a subset of phylum.

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@livinglava,

Quote:

I'm interested in what you're talking about because I never knew there was any possibility for body structure to change without corresponding changes at the genetic level.

Well thats where the debate had come from , which came first an evolutionary change or some genetic mutation? or did a mutation occur that merely ALLOWED for some change to slip in there.
Im on no side because arguments abound on either pole

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@livinglava,

you are a real fuckin idiot. I saw izzys comment about chordates and I disagreed with his disagreement with you. Set is just set and will say anything if it uses more than two syllables. Basically both set and Izzy were sorta incorrect but actually misinterpreted what the word "tail" can mean in anatomy. When olli agreed with you , I agreed with him . I have you on ignore and I only caught the argument that izzy and set had made. I actually PMed them to correct them so it wouldnt become an interminable multi page Frank Apisa style BS argument.

Looks like I fucked that up. If you wanta rage at the harkening of the plight, sont talk to me, I just like to keep the facts right. So in my world. I only agreed with Oralloy and corrected set and Izzy earlier, YOU, I have nothing involving me in your debates with whoever.

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Why do people deny evolution?

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