The swimming ape theory

Doesn't everyone know that God just put those dinasaur bones in the earth to confound people?

It cannot be, I tells ya!

Ted / Eric / Anyone – I’ve been wanting for ages to meet someone knowledgeable about evolutionary theory who could answer a couple of questions for me. The subjects have already been brought up in this thread, so even though they’re nothing to do with freediving I’ll stick them in here and hope.

The thing with the eye. I’ve heard the same arguments, both for and against (eye being useless unless it’s perfect, no that’s not true etc), but one thing that no one’s raised is that surely (common sense says) any stage of light perception etc is going to be useless unless the creature has also evolved the instinctive capacity to make use of it – and if either one happens without the other, the natural selection argument says that it will be a useless mutation and the creature will not survive. Same goes with wings for gliding – unless the creature has the instinct to make use of them, which must evolve separately, it will not make use of them, and will not survive.

Another example of “if it’s not perfect it won’t work” which has always impressed me is a kind of orchid I saw on a nature programme years ago. I can’t remember the species. It looks exactly like the female of a certain kind of wasp (or enough like it to fool the wasp). The orchid is pollinated by the male wasp trying to mate with the flower – the action of “mating” causes the flower to bend at a particular point, which dips the end of the abdomen of the male wasp into a vat of pollen. When the wasp has finished with the flower, it goes off to find another one, does the same thing, and that’s how the orchid is pollinated. But it seems that unlike the case of the eye, there must be perfection here for it to work. If the orchid does not look sufficiently like the female wasp to fool the male, OR if it isn’t structured in such a way as to hinge in the right place and dip the wasp’s rear into the pollen, no pollination could take place and the orchid could not have survived. Both developments must be present in full. It is difficult to see how any halfway house could have led to pollination.

I’m not proposing any particular theory here, because I don’t have one. But I can’t accept natural selection unless it can explain examples like these as well as the more run of the mill ones.

Bryan

. And as a last note, please refrain from discussing the validity of evolutionary theory (bringing creationist beliefs and the like) as I (at least) would find that very uninteresting and besides the issue. [/B][/QUOTE]
I usually don't get in on these disscussions but I'm a little perplexed by this last statement. We're not allowed to discuss the "validity" of evolutionary theory nor are we allowed to bring in other POV's. Hmmmmm. Glad you're not a lawyer or maybe you are.
Jay

Evolution is positively anti-science.science deals with things that are testable,observable, and demostrable. To call evolution "science is to confuse fairy tale with facts.

Biochemist Michael Behe ( author of Darwin's Black Box) says that modern science has made the Darwinian explanation of the origin of complex life forms much less believable than it was in Darwin's day. In 19th century,it was believed that a cell was just" a homogeneous globule of protoplasm"
They did not know about DNA or the complex processes that go on inside a cell. Blood clotting sistem transport ,vision,and the body's method of figthing diseases are "irreducibly complex sistems" which could not possibly have evolved.
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To be properly educated.we must seek to master three books:The book of nature the bible and the book of humanity. A scientis studies the book of nature and a psychologist the book of human nature,but is they ignore God's Book ,their conclusioins may be wrong. Keep balanced

saludos

Daniel.

The standard theory of evolution assumes that an organism will do everything possible to survive. Humans also fall into that category, and ironically that is one of the reasons that the theory may be weak.

Here is an example. The dean of physics at CalTech performed an experiment where he had subjects gaze at an 'anomalous gas discharge chamber.' The data showed that while any human was gazing at the chamber, the number of random electrical discharges in the chamber increased dramatically. The dean followed all scientific protocols, and published the data, without any conclusion about the magnitude or meaning of the experiment. It was simple a scientific experiment, the type of experiment that science is supposed to do. The dean was immediately fired. There was no problem in the way the experiment was performed, but his peers had to fire him because if 'the dean is right, then we're all wrong.' They told him this was a stupid experiment which should never have been performed. Quite simply, they feared for their jobs, they feared for their careers. They feared that their institution would be ridiculed, and they feared that as a result they would lose their credibility, and lose their ability to be employed.... in short they feared for their survival. Given that an organism will do anything for its own survival (as standard evolutionary theory says), then these scientists did what evolution predicted they would do; they did everything possible to suppress any data against mainstream ideas. If you know where to look, you will find that there is a lot of data going against all mainstream ideas in all fields of science, and this data almost never gets publicized or published, and you'll never see it on the news. I got my physics degree at UBC, which was supposed to be a 'respected' institution, and I witnessed this first hand. I left with my degree, and I left with extreme disappointment at the amount of dogma in science, dogma based upon fear for people's own careers, for people's credibility. The human factor is too strong. People are not objective because they fear for their own survival. For this reason, modern science as we know is not objective, it is extremely biased. While I was still in school, I listened to the lectures filled with dogmatic theories, and I sensed that something was being withheld. I went home and performed a simple experiment (similar to the gas discharge experiment) and proved to myself that what I was being taught was either wrong or dramatically incomplete.

Likewise, when a human skeleton is found fossilized inside a 2 million year old rock, it means either that the human race is far older than previously thought, or it means that radio carbon dating is inaccurate. Neither of those choices are acceptable to mainstream science, so this type of data is 'pushed under the rug,' and will only be found by those willing to dig, and this data is conveniently ignored by anyone arguing for the mainstream evolution theory.

So, an organism will try to do everything to survive, and that includes suppressing information, changing data, lying, and concealing the truth. Is it thus any wonder that almost every major discovery has come from OUTSIDE mainstream science? Mainstream science is too full of dogma to allow for revolutionary ideas, because once again, 'if he's right, then we're all wrong.'

Isaac Newton, in possibly his greatest foresight, said 'I believe that light will be bent by gravity. I have the most wonderful explanation for this, but I keep it to myself for fear of being humiliated by the ignoramuses.'



Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

I agree that many claiming to be scientists put their own agendas and interests above the search for truth. Pure science, perhaps like the example given in the previous post...perhaps not, is very hard to come by these days because those writing the checks expect results (or better yet - profit). There is a lot of 'dead wood' floating about in the worlds higher education system that needs to be removed.

History is littered with notable scientists that had their original ideas shot down, or silenced by dogma (it comes in many forms). But, to be fair, many of these ideas did not pan out. All hypotheses should be given their shot, but conclusions must be evaluated and scrutinized based on the merit of the experiment. Michael Farraday's experiments were deemed 'wasteful' when he was performing them. Who knew that his field equations wouldn't proove 'useful' (and profitable :hmm) for more than 100 years - without the use of Farraday's findings, your computer (and the majority of the rest of your electronics) would not exist.

Science, when compared to reality, seems childish and oversimplified, but it is the most precious thing we have. - AE

It is the method I defend, not the men.

And now, without surprise, this thread seems to have lost any hope of being productive and has begun to shift into hostile territory, so I will politely bow out.

BryanW: I still have every intention of answering your 'orchid' question. I will send you a private message within a day or two.

Ted

Hi

"The cell is as complicated as New York. It is more complex than anything known to man"

one scientist

Don't leave us Ted, or religion will have driven us back into the "dark ages" once again. :head

While many scientists may be putting forth questionalbe data to make a buck (isn't that how Martha Stewart got in trouble?) they have done far less damage than some of the religous zelots who have persecuted scientists, and those of other faith's, since the begining of civilization. We have something of a "holy war" brewing right now.

Eric mentioned that people will do whatever is best for their own self interest. Even if that means that they will continue propogating a silly story about an apple orchard and a snake. The mere fact that the creationists push this whole issue almost proves that the whole evolutionary theory must be correct on some level- or they wouldn't care about it enough to comment.

If we DO go down the path of creationism, than we have even more fairy tales (oops, I mean "theories") that we can look into.

Seeing as I am from Wisconsin, I prefer to believe in the one put forth by the Menomonee Indians, the oldest tribe in Wisconsin. They believe the Earth is only 4,000 years old, so carbon dating doesn't really matter , and that our world is built upon the back of a turtle. Turtles can swim really well, and they can hold their breath for a really long time. I'm all in favor of spending my spare time professing the positve virtues of the turtle. Seems like they would be perfect for the freedivers out there- which is what type of forum this happens to be.


Eric, it's been a long time since I took an Archeology class, but I remember that there were at least 6 different ways to date something. Carbon 14 was only one way. There were also dendrocronolgy, potassium-argon, fission-track, uranium series, electron spin resonance(ESR), and some others that may be new since I took that last class.

I still like the naked-ape theory for the simple reason that you can't evolve if you can't mate.:inlove

Who would some pretty, prehistoric, female want to jump in the sack with more readily, some apeish goof running through the desert, dripping with sweat, and covered in body lice; or, slick, Sven-like, surfer dude with a great tan, awsome bonfire on the beach and a lobster dinner waiting for his mistress. Unless the apeish one has already invented beer, in that case all bets are off.

Just a few things from the other side of the fence that maybe the "hard facts" of evolution can answer.
1.Just by statistics, no bias either way, it is statistically impossible for the earth and all it's systems to be where they are now just by "chance".
2. What do all the dotted lines mean in the evolutionary tree between species and why are they there?
3.Where is there proof that one species has transmutated into another species?
4.How can you have a fossilized tree going up through layer upon layer of sediment and each layer is suppose to be 1,000's of yrs old?
5.Human footprints in sediment along w/ dinosaurs?

It seems to me it's far easier to hold to the evolution theory-yea, why is it still just a theory if there's all this good science to back it up, where everything just "happens" than to accept the Creation model.
I don't think you can truely look around on a perfect spring day in the country or in the crystal clear waters of the tropics and say to your heart of hearts that all this "just happened". But if you can, then that's your choice and I'm not here to change it.
Jay

In the spirit of Eric's unconventional theories...

My problem with homo aquaticus is firstly his neglect, considering how recently he existed to leave any evidence (as has been stated) and secondly for the complete absence of occipital adaptation, which should be the first adaptation for marine behaviour. (e.g. correctable focal length, mechanisms to prevent hyperstatic damage)
The problem with a more primordial explanation for MDR is that there isn't one. Aquatic mammals (as evidenced by digital skeletal structure of flippers etc) are descended from marine mammals, not the other way round.

The explanation may be simpler than both of these.
Firstly, I submit that the collecion of functions compiling MDR are all consequences of one of those functions, namely vasoconstriction. Vasoconstriction will 'shunt' blood to internal organs, increasing internal blood pressure in doing so. This and the concommitent decrease in demand for O2 (caused by the vasoconstriction) causes the bradycardia, which progresses in a compound fashion (the more the heart slows, the less O2 it needs, so the more it can slow). Bradycardia must in turn stimulate the vagus nerve to dilate the carotid artery, maintaining a constant cerebral bloodflow. These are the main known symptoms of the MDR.
Now vasoconstriction is primarily a survival mechanism for low temperatures, and evolved as such. There is another mammal that exhibits this same response, and with far greater similarity than otter or seal. Yes, there is a good reason why the Deepest Bear kicks our ass in statics - he practices all winter.
Empirically primeval man had far more similarities to Pooh Bear than Flipper. We lived in caves in order to escape cold and may have even hibernated to some extent ourselves.
An event such as the iceage could have caused a rapid evolution, convergent to the bear. Or maybe all mammals have a latent 'MHR' - mammalian hibernation response.

How would apnea stimulate the same response as hibernation? As yet tests still haven't given a conclusive mechanism for stimulation of this mammalian response - cold water, hypoxia, water flowing over leg hair are some. It may be that there are many. However lying weightless on the surface requires the minimum muscular effort and cardiovascular effort (pronate position) similar to sleeping. Maybe the response also takes its cue from rate of respiration, and complete respiratory cessation stimulates the compound bradycardia mentioned above.

Before you pooh-pooh, here is a last piece of evidence. The best sleep in the world is supposedly to be had in a Nordic ice hotel, while in Northern Sardinia, where it is 30 C at night, I sleep like a shark (rarely and always moving about)

Reading back over this I can see it is an embryo of a theory at best, but I have only been ruminating on it for one afternoon. Feel free to burn it down though...

Everytime I jump into a local lake and see, yet, ANOTHER invasive species kicking the butt's of our native ones, I am reminded of Darwinism and the theory of evolution. If this weren't the case then, we would have more crappie, than carp, to shoot and I would be able to swim through a clear lake without getting tangled up in Euorasian Milfoil.

Evolution/ mutation is something that has played out many times in our history. I remember reading about a white moth in Europe that had slowly mutated into a grey one because of the factories spewing out smoke. It seems that as everything got covered with soot the pure white moths got picked off by the birds, while their mutating brethern were able to escape due to camoflage.

I still like the idea of the "turtle story" to explain everthing. I find it much more interesting.

Jon

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To be properly educated.we must seek to master three books:The book of nature the bible and the book of humanity. A scientis studies the book of nature and a psychologist the book of human nature,but is they ignore God's Book ,their conclusioins may be wrong. Keep balanced
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Oh, please. The bible is no more God's book than the Koran, the Tora or Das Kapital. The only part of the bible worth spending serious time on is Ecclisiastes, the rest is myths and legends where you might as well read Tolkien. Wake up, looser. George Lucas got closer to 'the truth' than Abraham, Moses, Jesus or Mohammed.
'God' is not a conscious being, it's a force in Cosmos. The only reason we have invented a God is because we're a pack animal that need a strong leader to look up to before we behave properly.
God don't care about you, don't care about me. We be, that's the onliest thing it did. The rest is entirely up to ourselves. That's why Audrey Mestre died, there was no God to protect her, no matter how much Pipin loved the ocean.

DAMN, that was good to get out!

hi

Preaching is not ignorance if we have discerned our hearts-the most important thing is to be sure that what we preach has a good foundation and has the best effect on people's lives.

Otherwise we shoudn't feel embarrassed of making a mistake.

I have learned something- Only God does the best job- the best miracle- and guides us to what is truth.

"We can't do anything against the truth but for the truht"

Maybe I have to pay a price- get offended but even so I will see the hope that someone will believe not because of my words but because of the words that God said since the beginning.

Amigo te amo aun con tus imperfecciones- yo las tengo tambien

saludos

Daniel.

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I have learned something- Only God does the best job- the best miracle- and guides us to what is truth.
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You got a beautiful woman in your life, right? What ever, I don't blame you. I don't know if I should try to tell you an updated truth or let you live in happy ignorance. I don't know if I should tell you that the real truth hurts like hell.

Sancti simplicitas. You, amigo, represents the attempt to return to the stage before the apple, before intelligence. To return to the dumb ape acting only on its instincts and not on reasoning. To return to virginity. I can't help thinking you are bloody stupid, but I don't blame you.

What ever. Give me the ocean, and my instincts are fulfilled adequately.