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DividedQuantum
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Registered: 12/06/13
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Evolution
#23614844 - 09/05/16 01:35 PM (7 years, 4 months ago) |
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I just finished reading Tom Wolfe's new book, Kingdom of Speech, in which, to put it briefly, he outlines the disconnect between the Theory of Evolution and human language, noting that after over a hundred years of study, we still know jack about the origins and true nature of language.
Anyway, he makes the following statement about Darwin's theory. I found it very interesting and was hoping to get some opinions on it here, as I think they would also be quite interesting.
Here's the quote:
Quote:
"There were five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Had anyone observed the phenomenon -- in this case, Evolution -- as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper's "falsifiability" test)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution...well...no...no...no...no...and no."
It seems obvious to anyone but a fool that biological evolution is taking place, through the avenue of heritable genetics. But what's untrue about Wolfe's statement? Personally, I feel the bare bones of the theory are correct, but that neo-Darwinian theory as it stands is incomplete. I wonder what y'all think.
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Dim ethyl
As below so above



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Personally I think sience finds it hard to study or replecate metaphysical phenomena.
-------------------- “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.” -Bill Hicks
 
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OrgoneConclusion
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Tom Wolfe is not a biologist. Full stop.
Rather than doing a point by point rebuttal, I only need to refute one point. No predictive power? Um... flu vaccines.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: ...
Quote:
"There were five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Had anyone observed the phenomenon -- in this case, Evolution -- as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper's "falsifiability" test)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution...well...no...no...no...no...and no."
,,,
wrong:
Had anyone observed the phenomenon -- in this case, Evolution -- as it occurred and recorded it?
observations of speciation and observations of a fossil record combined with observations of isolated locations with different life forms such as australia and galapagos. also mutations in most species had been observed.
Could other scientists replicate it?
many already had observed mutations, the fossils, and the species in variance in different locations.
Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper's "falsifiability" test)?
No facts exist that contradict evolution
Could scientists make predictions based on it?
they can predict extinctions, and they can predict that new life forms will manifest when inheritable mutations are successful
Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science?
clearly people (not scientists) are still baffled
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DividedQuantum
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Good stuff from you two.^^
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psychobla
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Post deleted by psychobla
Reason for deletion: hax
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OrgoneConclusion
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Quote:
However, it certainly seems to paint an incomplete picture.
No scientific discipline claims such, so how is this even a point?
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DividedQuantum
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Quote:
psychobla said: I'll be the last guy in the room to argue against evolution, but I absolutely agree that Darwinian evolution is just the tip of the iceberg.
Life didn't even always exist in our universe according to a modern scientific view of history. From atoms evolved chemicals. From chemistry evolved life and biology. From biology we now have language, psychology, comedy, music, art, consciousness, economics, politics, etc. I can't argue against survival of the fittest. However, it certainly seems to paint an incomplete picture.
That's my thinking as well, and that's exactly what Wolfe argues in his book vis-a-vis language. After over 100 years of trying, we still don't have a Darwinian explanation for language. Here's another fun quote from his book:
Quote:
"...speech, language, is not something that had evolved in Homo sapiens, the way the breed's unique small-motor-skilled hands had...or its next-to-hairless body. Speech is man-made. It is an artifact...and it explains man's power over all other creatures in a way Evolution all by itself can't begin to."
He argues that language is not comparable to, for example, birdsong, but is an artifact in much the same way as man's other tools are, and which did not directly evolve from anything. It's an interesting book.
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
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well we still don't have a way to put knowledge directly into people's heads somehow they have to thirst for it. strange.
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OrgoneConclusion
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If science was for realz we would be able to teleport to Hawaii for lunch.
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nuentoter
conduit



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But we can observe and recreate these effects. It's called experimental evolution. We have been doing it to yeasts, bacteria, viruses, flies, foxes, rodents, guppies, and probably more. Altering their environment and seeing what happens to the offspring and their genetics.
30 years of research into a single population of flies resulting in the book Methuselah Flies by Michael Rose.
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The geometry of us is no chance. We are antennae, we are tuning forks, we are receiver and transmitters of all energy. We are more than we know. - @entheolove "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" - Georgia O'Keefe I think the word is vagina
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
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survivable mutation in offspring is key, especially if it has a competitive advantage.
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Kickle
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In case you guys missed this interesting find from 2015:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_naledi
I was listening to a talk by one of the cavers who uncovered these bones. Her view? That we have no effing clue what is going on in the human timeline. They have been unable to properly date the bones so far and give estimates anywhere from 950,000 to 2 million years old. Very precise
But more-over this speaker describes how it messes with all the knowledge that is out there currently. How it requires a re-assessment of our view because we have been taking large speculative leaps to create an evolutionary timeline. And with these bones that timeline largely goes out the window. She suspects that these bones will end up requiring a re-assessment of all prior bones to recreate a new timeline, which in turn will still be highly speculative.
Kind of interesting IMO that we really have no idea what the human timeline looks like and pretty much make it up as we go along with the incomplete information we have.
Edit: Found the talk http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/ng-live/160829-sciex-nglive-elliott-homo-naledi-lecture
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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DividedQuantum
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Re: Evolution [Re: Kickle]
#23617545 - 09/06/16 09:27 AM (7 years, 4 months ago) |
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Very interesting, Kickle. 
Yeah, it's an interesting branch of anthropology. The imprecision of the science is extremely frustrating, though. We know a bit less than we think, to put it mildly.
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Edited by DividedQuantum (09/06/16 09:28 AM)
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Evolution [Re: Kickle]
#23617606 - 09/06/16 09:47 AM (7 years, 4 months ago) |
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Too many people seem surprised that scientific knowledge is not all-encompassing and omniscient.
It is like getting 12 pieces of a 1,000 piece puzzle and trying to extrapolate a clear and finished picture. Can't be done, but each piece gets us closer.
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nuentoter
conduit



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Re: Evolution [Re: Kickle]
#23617797 - 09/06/16 11:05 AM (7 years, 4 months ago) |
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Awesome article. Makes me contemplate clans and tribes of that era, the travel responsible to mingle and crossbreed. The climate and landscape and biomes of those tribes. Would a generic difference of a few handful of tribal members be shunned or revered into a separate tribe? What would that do to genetics?
These are all questions on such a grand timeline it is almost unsettling in a certain way, like the first time you went past where you could touch bottom in a lake or ocean. A humbling feeling of our place here and the thin thread on lineage on the tapestry of all life.
I selfishly would love to see our history as a species to be fully revealed in my lifetime. Such things may never be known. Reading foundation series by Asimov earlier this year made me think about that slot too. The longer take us to develop technology to date our past, the further and more obscure it becomes.
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The geometry of us is no chance. We are antennae, we are tuning forks, we are receiver and transmitters of all energy. We are more than we know. - @entheolove "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" - Georgia O'Keefe I think the word is vagina
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Kickle
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said: Too many people seem surprised that scientific knowledge is not all-encompassing and omniscient.
It is like getting 12 pieces of a 1,000 piece puzzle and trying to extrapolate a clear and finished picture. Can't be done, but each piece gets us closer.
I think the problem is in calling it knowledge then. It isn't/wasn't knowledge if it describes/described a falsity.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
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I think perceptual influences lead to the development of languages so it'd be more important to figure out how perceptions and new perspectives evolved rather than how language evolved.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Evolution [Re: sudly]
#23618891 - 09/06/16 04:41 PM (7 years, 4 months ago) |
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Basically we know that our species has direct and similar ancestors that could be as old as 2 million or as young as 600,000 years. The humanity of our ancestors would be stone age and probably tribal in either case. In view of the total timeline of the planet we are still way shy of twentieth of 1% of the age of earth. This is the perspective we need to use.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


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Or we should focus on hominids from the last 30,000 years wherein the volume of our brains has increased substantially.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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