What do YOU believe in? (Aquatic Ape Theory poll)

Baur, FUNNY POST

there goes some positive karma for you !!!


BRAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!

I tend to think that its possible to believe in the savana and AAT. I've read some AAT theory and its got some glaring holes in it but what theory doesnt? They are both, after all, just theory's and will most likely never be proven.

As far as the Creationism I'll not comment on that as I have pretty strong views on what religion has given the world.

funny how spike managed to express his opinion

about religion while "not expressing" it.

I have seen first hand what ATHEISM has given to the world and I have to say, it wasn't pretty.

Those who strive for the edification of mankind realize that 'good' and 'evil' are evenly distributed thoughout the world's peoples - it is only the mechanisms that vary. Any other conclusion is both hypocritical and dangerous - evil in its own right.

" ... it is only the mechanisms that vary"

However some "mechanisms" are "optimized" for the distribution of evil and others excel at distribution of good.

It has become intellectually fashionable during the past 100 years or so to emphasize generalization (i.e., pattern recognition) at the expense of discrimination. Both cognitive functions have obvious survival value. Examples:

Generalization: "Large, agitated sharks are dangerous"

Discrimination: "Red light -stop. Green light: go."

Disconnects from reality happen when the discrimination-generalization function is not optimized with respect to real-world contingencies. The usual cause of this is optimizing the function with respect to some other criterion - often ideological.

Thus, it is now popular to describe similarities and unpopular to identify differences - without regard to the subject matter or to the empirical facts.

It is fashionable to say thinks like " All peoples are really the same" and unfashionable to say " Those people are really rather different from these people over here." It is fashionable to homogenize, unfashionable to individuate.

In certain circles, as it were.

Fashion is not a thing of reason - that's how come we call it fashion. It does not address the outcomes of it's products. It is orthogonal to empirical reality. The one has nothing to do with the other.

Those whose ideological mandate has them err on the side of generalization shall pay costs particular to that type of error. Those who err on the side of discriminating pay a characteristic price.


Each error type has a particular benefit set associated with it, as well.

To those who would have all people and societies be homogenous - good luck ! You'll need it. So far, people and societies seem to be quite firm about retaining and articulating their individuality. That which makes them different from the others.

Reckon this was imbedded in the genome during The Big Swim ?

Paul: it seems to me that both generalization and discrimination are valuable tools to all species, regardless of environs, and they certainly describe behaviors found in all manners of life, from single-celled organisms on up.

If you mean to suggest that the aquatic period could be the beginning of discrimination based on social group, I would say that it probably occurred much sonner. Modern discrimination is based on characteristics that are much finer and superficial than something as important and defining as land vs. water.

Also, as an unrelated note, generalization requires discrimination. You need to be able to tell a shark from a sea-cucumber before you can have the rule that large, agitated sharks are dangerous. Does the converse also hold? Do you need generalization for discrimination? Can they evolve separately?

Alein - Well said, and sound.

I'm certain you're right - since reproduction of viable offspring has historically been supremely difficult, and since reproduction is by definition an intra-species capability, it really could not be other than that organisms act to maintain proximity with those like them and distance from those unlike them. Species that don't do that are the ones that aren't around any more. The evolutionary premium on fruitfulness and multiplication being as terribly high as it has been, it is an evolutionary waste of time ( and a losing adaptive strategy) for lions, as an example, to invest even a second on chatting up tigers. Given the severe penalities associated with failure to multiply, one would suppose that succesful species err toward excessive discrimination: rejecting viable mates for differences which would not effect reproduction. Perhaps this is the origin of what some call racism nowadays. I'm not sure that's the right word : aren't '-isms' to do with cognition, belief, etc. ?

I have no dog in the aquatic ape debate. I've said I like the theory for esthetic and hedonistic reasons, but as a scientist I take it and all other theories on a provisional basis pending more data !

ksnana

a particle of time in sanskrit.

The premise is the presumption of ostensible continuity.

From that; noise or wonder. We ride that presumption into increasing complexity and abstraction. Looking to what 'comes' from what 'has been'...as though....as though...
The definitive gesture; blurred in all the apparent motion.

"Since we have seen eachother a game goes on
Secretly I move, and you respond
You're winning
you think it's funny
But look up from the board
Like how I've brought in furniture to this invisible place
So we can live here." -Rumi

It's funny - I mean our whole rig here depends on our capacity to live between breaths. :mute

Hope I didn't piss anybody off
:head:mute :mute

Paul: It would not be at all unreasonable to say that the importance of recognizing one's own group, being as valuable as it is from an evolutionary standpoint, is a starting point for racism. After all, I can only tell that somebody is the same species as I if he (she, in my case) looks quite a bit like I do. And in cases where subgroups of a species have been separated geographically for long periods of time and have thus gained different appearances, it is not surprising that there would be a perceived difference in "race". Of course, I also think that such racism is based on reliance on social groups; you know you can trust members of your own clan, but not necessarily any outsiders. This is just discrimination on a much higher level.

Anyway, as interesting as this is, I think it's unfortunately straying quite a bit from the original topic of this thread

-Adam

even more off topic.

On the other hand, scientists (some of) claim that we are more prone to attract to different "races" in our own specie, since there's less chance for hereditary deseases and it seems that gene diversity is usally something good in the gene pool.
Even in the way we make our reproductive cells there's a larg random reordering of genes so it'll have genes from both grandmother and grandfather (recombination).
If there's an instinct that tells us not to trust some one from a different clan/race, I think it also tells us to kidnap her (well mostly) and "forcefully make offsprings with her".
I think there are enough historical evidence for such happenings. Though you can say it was just the bad nature of the aggressors.

To me, There is no evolution, man was created in God's image.

Also...

...even though this thread has gone a long ways, it still needs to be moved to the correct spot. So...

Thread moved to The Beach Bar