Area54

I'm told that when naked mole rats sit around shooting the breeze, they discuss how they are a clear aberration. Apparently domestic cats hold much the same viewpoint. Not to mention African Greys. It seems its a tendency of any reflective species to view itself as unique and special. You can probably eliminate any single species from the planet and the biosphere will continue pretty much as it was apart from some small, local readjustments. So you can replace the word "humans" in your statement with the name of any species . If you don't feel a Great White is not a super-fish would you like to take one on in unarmed combat. I suggest it won't be long before you are truly unarmed. Moontanman has mentioned examples of intelligence and tool use, etc. There are plenty of examples of animals that are faster than us, or anything else,have better vision than us, or anything else, can endure lower temperatures than us, or anything else. And so on. If we insist on comparisons that focus on our strengths and ignore our weaknesses it is difficult to not to consider us super, but that seems a biased approach. Overgrazing is common. Predators sometimes kill too many of their prey. The Great Barrier Reef is being destroyed by one of its inhabitants. There are, I think, numerous examples of this. We are better at it than most, but I don't think most of us want to boast about that.

Science tends not to deal with 100% certainties. I see Moontanman has already mentioned that. I understand your phrase "x is the source of y" to be the same as "x is the ancestor of y". (That would be the more usual way of putting it and so if you see that phrase you know it is referencing the topic you are interested in.) We can establish these sorts of relationships with a good probability of success, but no single technique is used to establish these relationships. Rather comparison of genotype (the DNA of living specimens, or geologically recent specimens), anatomy, embryology, geographic distribution, behvioural traits, etc. are all in the mix. Keep in mind also that we are building on and steadily improving two or more centuries worth of obsevation, collection and analysis. I appreciate that this is not the clear cut answer you are looking for, but the net result of these approaches is that we can say - with 100% certainty - that amphibians evolved from fish, that reptiles evolved from amphibians, that mammals evolved from the synapsid reptiles and so on. As we get more detailed we are more likely to be in the position of saying that x was the ancestor of y, or closely related to the ancestor of y. I hope that clarifies rather than confuses. As koti said we have no doubt at all that dogs evolved from wolves, for here we have the luxury of being able to examine the DNA of both. In a similar way we know that some humans, primarily Europeans have a few % of Neandertal DNA, indicating cross breeding between the two species in Europe. This conclusion is possible because some Neandertal fossils contain enoough residual DNA for analysis.

Clearly you have never experienced the midges of the West Coast of Scotland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_midge You will never convince me that they are not evil. In fact I am sure they are on the payroll in hell. I am disappointed by most of your thread. If you feel myprior explanations for that disappointment are unclear go ahead and ask me to clarify.

Because some people believe that heaven is only populated by humans it does not exclude the possibility that heaven, if it exists, is also populated by pink unicorns, manatees, slugs and ostriches. How could we decide which version of heaven is the correct one? Well the scientific method won't work, because that requires evidence in order to reach a conclusion. So we have to fall back on unsupported speculation. In such a case my pink unicorn/manatee/slug/ostrich infested heaven is at least as likely as yours. I would say more likely since I know I often get things right, whereas the evidence on this forum suggests you often get things wrong.

@Ali NasserEddine I belive that your question is fundamentally "How does cladistics operate?" My biology is largely self taught and so has large gaps and probably lots of misunderstandings, but I think a look at cladistics would help you. Cladistics is an effective approach at biological classification that explicitly deals with the sort of relationships you are asking about. Try these links and come back with any questions that arise from them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics http://palaeos.com/systematics/cladistics/cladogram.html https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cladistics

Yes, I agree with you. I think my own posts on the thread show we have a similar position. It's just if you read through it, trying to put yourself in his shoes, we look like a bunch of squabbling twelve year olds and I wonder if he will distinguish between 1x0 and the rest of us.

Well, we've all done a fine job of demonstrating to billasker what a childish bunch of argumentative twits grown ups are. Full marks to 1x0 for starting the avalanche rolling downhill, but our responses have not, in my opinion, helped. Consequently, I've reported one of the posts to draw attention of this train wreck to the mod team. And, yes, I know that 1x0 is talking misleading nonsense and that the counter arguments have been solid, but a single post to that effect should have been sufficient.

@billasker May I presumptuous and give you a small piece of advice. While 1x0 is probably a throughly decent, hard working, nice human being his misunderstanding of maths is profound. This is not in itself a problem. As I noted earlier my grasp of maths is seriously deficient. The difference between myself and 1x0 is that I recognise my deficiencies and do not seek, in my ignorance, to declare that maths must be wrong because I cannot understand aspects of it. The points made by Koti and Strange, while they may seem harsh, are accurate.

You say you are sixteen so you've probably learned about one or two years less maths than I did, but at least it is fresh in your mind. At best you and I have only scratched the surface of the vast field of mathematics. Ignorant as we both are, it is probably unwise to reach any conclusions about the subject, except that, whether it is perfect or imperfect, it is a vital and effective tool of science.

. As you wish. Text of the Report. "I recommend that Scotty 99 not only have this thread closed for persistent refusal to present evidence but that he be permanently banned from the forum, primarily for being a devious, ignorant asshole." But you aren't telling us anything. That will change formally shortly, I hope.

I am specifically interested in your thoughts, your beliefs, your evidence, your reasons for reaching your conclusions, your interpretation of items such as the documentary you reference. Agree to start delivering specifics here, or I request immediate closure and recommend you be banned. Enough equivocation is enough! It is discourteous in the extreme.

So, this has been nothing more than an exercise in self-gratification, ignorance and arrogance. Put up or shut up!

Answer me this, before my patience wears out completely, how can I possibly look at the problem if you won't clearly state it and provide the associated evidence? I am willing to consider your hypothesis with an open mind, but you need start delivering more than "You need to believe me, because I am right."

If I understand you correctly you have made that argument before and others disagreed with the accuracy of your evidence. So this time you've decided to present your argument without the evidence in order to avoid controversy. How's that working out for you?

Scotty, consider the following: I have been contemplating the meaning of life, the origin of the universe, the role of humanity, and the like for half a century. It has taken a major effort to determine what is relevant and what is not and assemble it into a cohesive whole. With that work complete it is apparent that by adopting methdological naturalism, humanity has obscured the importance and reality of teleology in the emergence first of structure, then of life and finally intelligence and self awareness. The source of the guidance and direction of evolution, in the general and the biological sense, I have determined to be recursive action by what humanity will become, influencing the universe from its very earliest moments. Faced with that statement would you not be inclined to ask for evidence? If the author of the statement replied the evidence was too much for this place, what would your reaction be? The rational reaction would be to say, "Fine. Thank you very much. If you ever change your mind let me know."

Yes, this is one way of doing things. It is the scientific way. It is because many thousands of individuals did things this way that we are able to converse with each other today, And that is boring compared with what the scientific way has revealed about the mysteries of the universe. But that is rather the point - it has revealed some of those mysteries by being rooted in validated observations, not engaged in imaginative speculations that lack any evidence. Find a website where such conversations are acceptable, post a thread with your ideas, send me a pm and I'll be happy to discuss them there.

It seems to me quite limited in space-time to my computer screen No. It's not limited. You just keep going round the figure-8 for ever. That is an infinitely long way.

The question has not been dodged. It has been addressed directly by three members. Speculation about something for which no evidence exists is simply not something that falls within the purview of science. Science is not equipped to deal with it. Science is not interested in dealing with it. You don't go on a forum devoted to scuba diving and complain that no one wants to talk about the breeding of Koala bears. Scuba diving has nothing meaningful to say about the famously terrestrial Australian mammals. Likewise, asking people to discuss in a scientific way the nature of heaven, when such a conversation is impossible, is either very foolish, or very arrogant. And yes, when the scientific mind is operating as a scientific mind, it only thinks of issues that are amenable to scientific discussion. If I am on an Art forum, discussing Jackson Pollack, I don't go there with my scientific mind, I go there with my artistic mind. Further, you appear to have an almost unwavering belief in how you imagine the after-life to be. Frankly, this is delusional and ludicrous in equal measure. Edit: Damn, Strange, you beat me to it again, and once more with fewer words. Am I following you around?

I understand there is still significant debate about what exactly intelligence is. (In lay discussions I see many people seem to conflate or confuse it with consciousness.) Given those apparent uncertainties might it be that the behaviour not only seems intelligent, but is intelligent? Frank Herbert's book sprang immediately to my mind also.

@1x0 What Strange said. It is bewildering to me why you don't get it, but I am happy to persist in trying to help you understand. Consider again your question, why are there no physical signs of infinity? The universe is larger than what we can observe. Light from the unobservable portion cannot reach us, since space there is expanding, relative to us, at a speed greater than that of light. We do not know whether this unobservable portion is finite or infinite. Which part of this explanation, badly worded as it is, do you not understand? And if you want a physical sign of infinity, how about this one? ∞

Here are two "If" sentences. One of them falls within the scientific domain. The other one doesn't. The follow up questions and observations should illustrate why one is acceptable to science and the other is not. If Oumuamua, the interstellar object currently passing through our system, were an artificial construct, how might we determine this? Here are some possibilities: Look for an elevated temperature above that of an object from deep space. Look for EM emissions, especially those with non-random variations. Look for otherwise inexplicable alterations of trajectory. If there is an afterlife how might we determine its characteristics? Sceances have been shown to be fraudulent, mediums have been shown to be fraudulent or delusional, ghosts, as departed spirits, have no meaningful evidence in support of them. All the means by which information about the afterlife could allegedly be obtained have been discounted by investigation. Thus any discussion of the afterlive is entirely speculative with no observational or evidential foundation whatsoever. It is not science. At best it is science fiction. Edit: I see while I was writing that Strange said much the same thing, but with fewer words.

When I was in business I operated on the mantra Implement, Improve, Perfect. The unspoken amendment to that was that Perfection was an ideal that defined our objective, not a true goal. There were always new solutions demaning implementation and improvement. I haven't checked my copy, but your recollected expression sounds like something Tom Peters might have said in In Search of Excellence a first rate (OK, an excellent), best selling, 1980s book on what practices made companies successful.

Thank you CharonY, but my views were formed independently of anything Pinker published. They simply happened to be the links that came up when I looked for supporting material for Ten oz. I have only my standard pack of permanent doubt concerning any provisional conclusion (and all conclusions are provisional). Apart from that the weight of evidence is not just that violent deaths per capita are lower -with decadal smoothing - but there is sound evidence that less violent behaviour tends to accompany better economic conditions. And you pointed out, correctly, that global poverty has been reduced. So, thank you for the addditional links, but I shan't be taking another swing at it, or at Ten oz (the Ignore button does work). My final comment in this thread - I decry equally the naive optimism of the OP and enraged pessimism of others. We should take heart at the progress that has been made and redouble our efforts to deal with the part of the quagmire that remains.

Look at the data, not the author. Are you denying the data? Tell you what Ten oz, my earlier remark regarding religious fervour now seems more accurate than ever. You are bound and determined to believe that you are correct. You insist on the gloom and doom worldview and hide from any contrary data. I could put two hundred sets of data assembled by one thousand researchers and it wouldn't alter you viewpoint. I had put you on Ignore and twice made the mistake of "releasing" your post. I shan't make that mistake again.

Ten years, one thousand years and any period in between. That was why I used such as general term as "in the past". Considering it took me less than thirty seconds to retrieve the following that would seem to be your fault as much as mine. When I see a doubtful assertion I check it out and only if I find no significant corroborating material do I ask for supporting evidence. History and the Decline of Human Violence The VIsual History of Decreasing War and Violence Globally, Deaths from War and Murder are in Decline The Decline of Violence The World is not Falling Apart