Post #184,465
11/18/04 9:11:35 PM
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Therefore we're now breeding for...
really WANTING kids badly. Even if it means compromising your own lifestyle.
People think that evolution has stopped. HAH! We are just throwing up different kinds of roadblocks.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #184,524
11/19/04 1:39:38 PM
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Uhhh...Ben...
People think that evolution has stopped. No, people think that evolution is one of several alternate, competing "scientific theories". Haven't you been keeping up? jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
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Post #184,528
11/19/04 1:56:23 PM
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Which people?
Oh. THOSE guys.
Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
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Post #184,529
11/19/04 2:22:43 PM
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Depends on which people you talk to
I am personally astounded at how many people I know who are intelligent, have reasonable backgrounds in science, accept that evolution is how we got to be what we are, but believe that somehow civilization has eliminated the process of evolution in humans.
Those are the ones that I was talking about.
If you want to talk about the ones who lack a basic understanding of science, well, I don't think that "keeping up" is the phrase that comes to mind when it comes to keeping track of them...
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #184,550
11/19/04 9:22:26 PM
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Veered off
I think it has veered in a different way than
if we weren't "civilized".
Let's face it: My genes are not meant to be
passed on. I'm fragile, weak, and certainly
could not compete or provide for offspring
in a hunter / gatherer society.
The reasons I and my kids exist are due to a
combination of a protective society and medical
science. And they will continue to breed under
the same umbrella.
It doesn't mean evolution does not happen, but
it does mean that many traits that would have
been nipped in the bud early on are allowed to
continue living. This might be good, adding
diversity to the gene pool, or this might be
bad, sucking out vital resources without returning
anything back.
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Post #184,552
11/19/04 9:39:35 PM
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And that is evolution in action
And it is a nice compensation for the several millenia of evolution that we've had for dealing with nice fast-moving plagues that are able to hit humans now that we live in large population centers.
Evolution has always had to deal with unexpected turns in what is best. In fact that is the purpose of sex - to allow quick recombining so that a population can adapt to a new situation far faster than mutation alone would allow.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #184,535
11/19/04 4:34:42 PM
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Sci Fri: Richard Dawkins + 'Intelligent Design\ufffd'
Anyone catch [link|http://www.sciencefriday.com/| these] back-back gems today?
(Briefly encapsulated [link|http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2004/Nov/hour1_111904.html| here].)
Discussion of the MO via which Creationists spawn new catchphrases / now mean to add stickers to texts, "This is just a theory" :-0 {So Don't Be Fooled!}
Simplest response I can come up with. The sticker thingie is a perfect analogue for,
Log entry:
The Captain was on the bridge. And he was sober.
Dawkins is a treat; crisp but not terse, complemented nicely by Ira's having Read His Book, The Ancestor's Tale, modelled a bit after Canterbury - thus readable in little snippets.
Makes short work of above thesis, in oblique ref to Creationists as religious ignoramuses -- pointing out that the Pope is just as exasperated with these ilk, for giving religion a bad name.. This was merely a brief diversion from much more interesting matters -- while also clarifying another staple of the ignoramus arsenal of mindfucks:
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics ---> entropy, chaos.
"Closed System" saith he, and explains.
Life: supremely non-random.
Authentic English spoken too, always a treat.
moi
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Post #184,578
11/20/04 7:14:52 AM
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Hmm.
There was some research done a few years ago about how paranormal and supernatural activity and perceptions might be explained by electro-magnetic fields on the human brain. There were some cases like where a person who said her bedroom was haunted removed her electronic alarm clock from the room and everything stopped. There were also some experiments where researchers were able to reproduce "a religious experience" by inducing certain types of electronic-magnetic fields in someone's brain which was kind of a reversal of the previous effect.
As an ultimate acid test, the documentary makers got in contact with Richard Dawkins who thought it was intriguing enough to participate. The researchers could not induce "a religious experience" - but they noted afterward that he was far from the first. A questionaire they had put together for participants showed a very strong trend of people who had few or no religious convictions were not able to be so induced. It was implied that Richard Dawkins was perhaps an extreme case of that.
However, both the researchers and the documentary makers were careful to not draw any sort of conclusion. Particularly as the researchers are not held in high-esteem for pursuing this type of resarch...
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
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Post #184,744
11/22/04 5:40:48 AM
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We may know quite too little about 'fields'
to conceive very good experiments, but it may be as good an analogy as any, for the sorts of things latent in our jelloware, and what might trigger these.
Many wondered, after Life After Life [Mood? Moody?] - whether the white/light, black tunnel effect might be hard-wired into our nervous system; then there were the correlations: of 17 IIRC items cited by his interviewees (all of whom had been 'clinically dead' for some period) there were 7-9? which were common to some %large of his samples.
I find the 'more solid' of such reports intriguing, but I doubt we shall find a transistorized substitute for {somehow working through} the metaphysical ropes - in our model-building of the largely Unknowable.
(6-D phase-space might be a bit small to play in, though -- just a guess, mind you.)
Ain't it just like! uppity bipeds to imagine someone else can do the work for us? Maybe at $7/hr, too.
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