Phi for All

! Moderator Note OK, not Science News, not a theory, but the start of a Speculation, so that's where this is being moved to. Remember to back up your idea with as much supportive evidence as possible, and also that people are allowed to attack your idea, but not you personally. If you have some way to test your idea, this will really help people discuss it more meaningfully.

But that's NOT true for everyone. The evidence is all around, lots of people of both genders attracted to one another but look totally different from each other. And speaking personally, the men that strike me as particularly good-looking have darker hair and a slighter build than I do, so no, your concept isn't for EVERYONE. I'm not sure why you claim this is universal. Misery loves company?

Lots of animals have opposable thumbs. Lots of primates even have opposable thumbs on what we call their feet as well as their hands (two sets!), but they still walk on all fours primarily and thus don't get the benefits. I'm not comfortable with the "top of the food chain" concept either. It assumes the humans have everything they need to hunt, which in our case is several other humans, terrain that favors us, and at least some rudimentary tools if not modern firearms. Would you be "at the top of the food chain" if I dropped you alone near a waterhole in the African savannah? Citation needed. Some snakes only eat other snakes. The insect world can be extremely violent towards same species. Birds kill each other over territorial disputes as well. Considering chickens outnumber humans almost 3:1, and nobody investigates the death of a chicken, I'd have to say there is a lot more possibility for genocide in animals than you may think. Speciation: the chicken egg that got laid by a creature that was almost a chicken.

More confirmation bias going on here. Too many people preconceive a notion about science, in this case vaccinations, and the result is that the more data and supportive evidence you show them, the more convinced they become that you're covering something up. Conspiracy theorists have turned out to be doubly dangerous. They prefer fear to rational supportive evidence, and they make everyone numb to things we might actually need to be concerned about.

It's all too clear that you have some basic misunderstandings about science, coupled with a fervent aversion to learning what they might be. This is an unbeatable combination when it comes to discussion, and I wish you the best of luck wherever you go from here. I would recommend that you start a blog, since it's easier to ignore people trying to have a conversation with you.

I think anytime there is a great change that takes place out of sync with the rest of your life experiences, you fall back on on your preconceived notions of the right way to behave. Normally, you work and save to get money over time, so your whole life is synced to that process, and windfalls upset that. Your first time being fired, your first close death, your first car accident, these things take us by surprise and so we often handle them badly. Hopefully our friends will take this into consideration and not consider it intentional abuse if we act erratically.

I didn't think the tower was supposed to be an obeisance to God, I thought it was the opposite. God commanded the people to spread across the Earth but the tower builders wanted to centralize their religion in a single place. I don't really buy into the whole "stairway to heaven" part, since the plain where the tower was built was ringed by mountains, which anyone could see would give you a huge headstart on trying to reach the heavens. Imposing is contextual, but the context I was talking about is appealing to ignorant worshippers. In that sense, the things they generally find imposing are somewhat universal. Things made of gold, really tall ceilings that seem to magically NOT fall down, officials dressed in splendid colors and rich fabrics, real glass in the windows stained with pictures and patterns, and above all the concept that the god actually resides in the edifice all help to provide conditions where the common man would be humbled by the imposing power of his deity.

"Cruel" has an emotional element to it that makes it a human concept, imo. It's not harm or destruction, it's ignoring suffering with no remorse. Plenty of animals seems cruel by this definition, but again, I think the emotional element is a completely human one. There's a danger in assuming our intelligence makes us better than other animals, as others have been reminding me. We're different, but most of those differences are variations on animal behavior we observe and then paint over with human emotions and justifications. Our reasoning is more sophisticated, but there is little difference in the underlying mechanisms. We're animals too. Well, evolution doesn't focus on a single attribute. Many traits are dependent on the presence of other traits. But I think if you were to look at a single event that helped make all the others possible, it would be freeing our hands for carrying, tool use, building, digging, communicating, throwing, better field of vision, and a whole host of other benefits. We were smart enough to figure out that running on two feet was faster and let us grab more resources and run back to shelter with them, but walking upright helped us develop nimble hands for exploration and manipulation, and that made us even smarter. Our intelligence didn't reach its real potential until we mastered agriculture and animal husbandry. Not having to roam the countryside looking for food constantly gave us the time for specialization and then our intelligence really grew. But intelligence grew right alongside our other traits, they all fed off each other. And none of that would be possible if we were still walking on all fours. As much as any single trait can be a game-changer, I think walking upright is the precursor to how well all our other traits developed.

People?! I see a single poster who thinks he can form a TOE without math, has claimed that no teacher can teach him anything (so much for "willingness to learn"), and now wants to corrupt the history of a great mathematician to justify it.

Perspective. You think this makes you cool and edgy because of the whole "outside the box" analogy. It gives you an excuse to reject what's hard to learn. Accumulated mainstream science knowledge, the broad merging of multiple disciplines, is more like a mountain pass. Sure, you can find another way across the mountains, but the scouts who were there before you found the best, most trustworthy way to do it. They started a path that became a trail until enough people saw its merits and turned it into a road. So instead of helping everyone else mark out the road a little clearer, you've chosen to start your own path. And you keep yelling ahead to the rest of us, asking how we got all the way up here, but when you're given directions, you ignore them because your "box" makes you feel better.

I was having a pretty good day until I read this argument. Too proud to build upon the work of others. Assumes nobody else has ever been smart. Wastes all the efforts of those who came before. If you're leading science from square one, why are you asking for help from those at the head of the pack?

Criticizing the enormous body of accepted science without learning it first shouldn't be such a point of pride.

But even a clone wouldn't understand your body's response to stimuli as fully as you do when masturbating. The experience would be similar to any other homosexual experience, imo. The qualifier seems to be, for the OP at least, that the same gender person is attractive because he resembles us extremely closely. My point is that somewhere out there most of us have someone who looks just like us. If that person is compatible in other ways, the OP seems to suggest that it's acceptable to have an intimate relationship with a same gender person like that. It seems a bit narcissistic, but I suppose I have no real problems with the logic, or the relationship. Tolerance costs me nothing and brings many benefits.

! Moderator Note And this is why so many here are asking for the math, because none of THAT will be pointless. Let me give you this perspective. Science, with all its fields and disciplines, attacks knowledge like an onion, peeling each layer back and trying to understand it as fully as possible before moving to the next layer. In fact, it's like a jigsaw puzzle cut from the skins of an onion, layered and interlocking all the way to the core. People spend their whole lives trying to methodically piece the whole thing together, looking for the most trustworthy explanations they can find. You've only pulled away the papery outer layer of the onion and are now claiming you know how the whole thing is put together, something even the pros working most of their lives have never done. And you're trying to explain this to others using a foreign language (math is the language of physics). This is why you're getting so much push-back from the other members regarding the math. Debate on this has passed. You're absolutely right, more conversation is pointless. Take the time to work on some calculations before you post again. This will keep the thread open. And thanks for understanding why we need to be rigorous about ideas.

I think the edifice was much more important to earlier churches, when they were trying to solidify concepts. If you want to show stability and trustworthiness, build something that will last. If you want to make it attractive, put things inside that people don't get to see very often. If you want to make people humble before their god, make the building intimidating so they'll respect it. I think the more sophisticated the culture, the less they need the physical reminders.

It took me a while to figure out what you mean here. You claim to be homophobic, but you also claim that you'd find it acceptable to be attracted to another man, if he was exactly like you. Since you have conditions by which you could be attracted to another man, I don't think you're really homophobic, or androphobic. Why do you think an intimate relationship with your own clone isn't a homosexual experience?

Once again, I think the culprit here is confirmation bias. We have preconceived notions of how a person in a relationship should act, or what millionaires do with their money. When we encounter a similar situation for the first time, we act the way we think we're supposed to, which rarely reflects the way experienced people behave. Relationships are more difficult as we combine them. Learning to be a friend is like juggling with one ball. Learning to juggle multiple friendships takes experience. Toss an intimate relationship in there and now you've got a ball, two grapefruit, a couple of bowling pins and a chainsaw to juggle. And remember that just about every part of society reveres the intimate relationship over the friendship. The pressure to find a mate is often seen as a priority. Money is funny. We all have notions about how rich people spend it. If we suddenly come into a lot of money when we had little previously, the only blueprint for behavior we have are these notions. And they're mostly wrong, and often ludicrous. Rich people don't stay rich if they go through their bucks like lottery winners do. But the media glamorizes the lottery winners/sports rookies/young inheritors who buy out hotel floors or walk around with posses of posers, and it all looks like so much fun and money is power and makes you important. And when you're used to making $5000 last all month, $1,000,000 seems like it's never going to run out. So, in essence, I think the reason it feels like you lose those people is because they aren't acting like themselves. They're acting the way they've seen others in similar situations, but without the depth of experience a veteran to such situations has.

Your understanding of both religion and science is flawed if you can make this statement. In my experience, this means, "I gave up studying math but kept speculating in science using only words". Words ultimately are not precise enough for science, where numbers can easily show you that an idea is unsound. Again in my experience (ten years here at SFN), this means, "Everyone told me that my ideas were trivially falsified mathematically, but when they also tried to use just words to explain it to me, it didn't make sense, so those explanations don't count". When you're trying to explain a concept with only words, you're subject to differences in language, dialect, inflection, context, and a whole host of other problems that numbers ignore. I don't ever see anyone who understands the math disagree with GR and QM. It's the lingual approach that confuses so many.

Some churches are more congregational, built as a gathering place as you mentioned. Others are meant to be awe-inspiring works of intimidating grandeur, a place where lowly creatures can come closer to their deity in an atmosphere of reverence and respect. I think it's the approach of the religion that dictates the edifices they build. One seems more attractive (in that it seeks to attract) and inspirational, the other somewhat oppressive and somber, but again, some religions focus on the love of God, others on the wrath of God.

Another problem I have with this perspective is that it's far too black and white in terms of what's beneficial or not in a selected trait. It almost never works that way, traits have strengths and drawbacks. Cruelty sounds harsh but has applications for defense, especially in humans who have a higher intelligence and perhaps a deeper understanding of what it means to face a cruel foe. If your tribe has a reputation for cruelly destroying tribes that resist you, how many lives are actually saved because they're all afraid to fight you? Essentially, the perspective in the Opening Post is cherry-picking the aspects of a trait and judging the whole by a part, sort of a Poisoning the Well argument, or a reverse Composition fallacy. Cruelty/hostility is always bad, kindness/caring is always good. We know this isn't true, especially when we're talking about the survival of the whole species and not just individuals. I'm also uncomfortable targeting individual traits and making sweeping judgements about them. It's obvious that no single trait is responsible for how we've developed (with the possible exception of walking upright, imo). It's all intertwined and cumulative. As CharonY and Ophiolite have pointed out, much of what we do as humans has roots in the social behavior of of many other species, and we need to look at ourselves in that light. Life is much more nuanced than this perspective allows for. I'm learning to reevaluate my assumptions along these lines, and it isn't always easy. Take lying for example, we assume it's a bad thing in humans, but for our children, lying signals a huge developmental marker. Lying is a sign that the child is thinking ahead to the future to ensure a better outcome, and that's just one aspect of a skillset that's very important to us.

I agree that the roots of such behavior are the same, just that our particular combination of selected traits seems to enhance some of this social interaction to a level other animals can't reach. I suppose it's not really fair to look at it that way, since our abilities match our environments just like any other species. I don't think that at all. Humans are extremely cooperative, and cruelty is at odds with that. We may be cruel to those we aren't currently cooperating with, but I think our social structures tend towards nurturing and mutual benefit. In general, the cruel and unkind are punished in human societies. Noted, and thanks to you and CharonY. I should have taken the time to be clearer about what I meant to begin with. The OP suggests we're savage and cruel right out of the box, but I think our high intelligence gives us a substantially deeper understanding of the benefits of cooperative societal behavior than other species. Chimps can be loyal to their tribe, but will the chimps from Selous Game Reserve willingly donate resources/defend/help the chimps from the Moyowosi Game Reserve simply because they're all Tanzanian chimps? Perhaps it's simply unfair to compare us to other species in this light.

Point taken. Perhaps I'm placing too much emphasis on how our high intelligence can distort what would be normal in other species. We're certainly not the only animals that show loyalty, but I think we take loyalty to a degree other social animals don't. There are other humans defending me right now that have never met me, never will, who would risk their lives to ensure that I'm safe. I'm willing to share my resources with those humans and I've never met them either. And I'm willing to extend that loyalty in varying degrees to hundreds of millions of fellow humans. If the whole planet were threatened, there could be billions of us working as a species to meet it.

We're pretty self-sufficient, even without all the obnoxious, post-in-a-thread type ads I see on so many other sites. Everything is volunteer as far as staff goes, so we do as much here as time allows, which never seems enough. I've been here ten years and there are always new things to discuss. As far as new directions, I've always wanted to start a campaign to enlist new members who are doing field work so we can live vicariously through them. We had a guy here once named Steve O'Shea who joined and kept us posted on his research into giant squid. I thought that was an awesome use of discussion, and might attract those who like to talk but don't like to blog. I'd love to do more projects like that, but time is so scarce and anything more I do takes away from what I'm already doing.

I don't like the perspective from here. The selection for high intelligence brought both good and bad, which is common among traits. And some of the traits we consider good can be bad as well, and I think that's the perspective needed here. Humans form loyalties more strongly than other animals, even loyalties to other humans we've never met, and those loyalties cause us to fight beyond where other animals would run away to lick their wounds. Humans will often fight until death is the outcome, and continue to fight even then. It's our loyalty to family, friends, country, even concepts like liberty that sometimes push us to extreme behavior. Our intelligence also helps us understand how ethical treatment between humans stems from our cooperative and collaborative natures. So yes, raising children to recognize the need for caring and kindness is essential, because it's a big part of what keeps all our marvelous traits working together so productively.

I'm pretty sure most men are neutrally attracted to other men, not viewing them as potential mates but not being disgusted either. What you're describing sounds like a phobia to me. Seriously, you don't look half the people on the planet in the face because they disgust you?! Is it gay men or all men? Homophobia or androphobia?