Hi Mark, Please note that in your post below lambasting Horse for not citing his sources where you make a bunch of dubious claims, you yourself did not cite any of _your_ sources. Note also that I did cite _my_ source, and on that basis you chose not to read the quotes provided from Louis Menard and Charles Darwin (who I am pretty sure is older than you as you seem to be concerned with age).
Best, Steve On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:01 PM, 118 <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Steve, > > Thanks for asking, I will discuss some "errors" (of course the notion > of errors implies there is Truth, and we all know that such a thing > does not sit well with MoQ): > > Horse is right in qualifying the whole thing with "dependent on who > you read". I prefer peer reviewed articles rather than Wiki in which > anybody can provide some information. Therefore, I did not read what > you copied and pasted below. Please remember that the average age of > Wiki contributors is 26, so for somebody to offset any contribution of > mine, they cannot have been born yet. Most of what I read concerning > science, on Wiki, seems to be from a high school paper of some sort. > With that said: > > There is no evidence that humans and apes have a common ancestry, > anymore than humans and a snail. The homology of DNA (if we want to > use that metaphysical analogy), is pretty well conserved over most > mammals and is indeed very similar amongst most living animals. > Therefore that both apes and man have a common ancestor would be true > for squirrels and man. As such, a statement of that kind is > meaningless, and does not add any information to the content of this > forum, which is about MoQ. If one seeks to create static images and > represent them as real, then one has fallen into a major trap that MoQ > cautions against. Besides, it is difficult to point to any dramatic > evolution occurring right in species. Sure we can coax such a thing > in a test-tube, but what does that show. And please do not bring up > the evolution of rodents, that has been disproved. > > Now, any species is distinct from another species by definitions. So, > if we are talking about such a thing we need to keep in mind the > definition of species as promoted by Scientism. If we want to > converse using such mutually agreed on concepts, we need to keep > definitions in mind for-most. Again Horse refers (a second time) to > "depending on who one reads". What exactly does this mean? to > support his statement, he should at least tell us who he reads. > Otherwise it is just drivel of a drunk musician. If I am to explain > to Horse the correct way to play a slide guitar, I am sure he would > want to know where I get my information from. The same is true with > other kinds of science. When Horse states 20-some, I assume that he > means many, just as Lao Tsu talks about the 10,000 things (or maniacs > as it were). By stating 20-some, however, he is implying that there > are approximately 20 such naming of bones found in the ground. Such > naming is purely subjective, and change every day. At one point man > is said to have evolved from tree-dwelling monkeys. Now it is a > different type of ape. Just from this, we can see that nothing can be > claimed as fact, no matter who one reads. > > There is just as much evidence from DNA sequencing that man was > created through genetic engineering as through some kind of a random > process. Also, as I stated in a previous post, there is more evidence > that man evolved from dolphins than from apes, in terms of > similarities. What kind of evolutionary pressures are there for our > brains to grow? Evolution is morphology through phenotype display. > It is the effect of the outside changing the inside. There is no > pressure for creating a self-destructive species, and such > self-destruction is not just a by-product of increased intelligence; > just the opposite: intelligence is a by-product of self-destruction. > No other species displays such annihilatory tendencies, not even the > apes. So, where did that come from? Certainly not through any > evolutionary leap, for such a thing would have died out close to > inception. So, just to be clear, man evolving from apes is a red > herring, or straw man (as it is used in this forum). It should not be > used for MoQ metaphysical discussions, since it brings in something > total irrelevant. The shape of an ice-cream cone is more relevant. > > Horse does provide the crux of the issue in that we need to agree on a > classification in order to converse about anything in the forum. This > is one of the weak points of what I read on MoQ. Both Dan and dmb > provide good support in terms of their classifications. Others not so > much. We can talk about free-will all we want, but it is meaningless > unless we provide an example of what we mean. If I say that free will > is the same as Will, is the same as Intent, and is precisely all of > our actions from the moment of birth. At least we have something to > agree or disagree about though rhetoric. > > Indeed, rhetoric is what we provide here. In order to remain > coherent, we need to provide the appropriate background for such > rhetoric in order for it to be understandable. A dictionary of terms > in MoQ would be useful, but I am sure that everyone would disagree on > such definitions, so we are stuck with analogies. Free-will is > analogous to the wind. It expresses itself by blowing with some > intensity and with direction. It can have different temperatures and > different durations. It returns to being still once it is done. It > is unexpected even though some try to explain it and track hurricanes > with it. At every moment of a wind-blow, it is statistically > unpredictable. If the wind does not display free-will, then nothing > does. And, we know we are free, we cannot just make something like > that up. There, that is something to discuss. If you disagree, I can > provide convincing rhetoric to show you how the analogy is apt. > > Cheers, > Mark > > On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 7:57 PM, Steven Peterson > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi Mark, >> >> Perhaps you can point out any errors in the post by Horse to which you >> objected: >> >> Horse: >>> According to current theory/evidence (dependent on who you read): >>> Humans didn't evolve from apes - apes and humans had a common ancestor. >>> Apes and hominids are thought to have diverged about 7 million years ago. >>> >>> And when you say human, do you mean homo sapiens or earlier instances of >>> humans (Neanderthal, Cro-magnon etc.) because there have been 20-some >>> different 'species' of 'humans' in the last 7 million years or so - again >>> dependent on who you read). These species are, apparently, distinct from >>> apes. >>> >>> So not only is it quite reasonable that 'Ape' is a concept, but it is just >>> as reasonable that 'Human' is a concept too. >>> It all depends on what you need to achieve through classification. >> >> From wikipedia: >> "The modern theory of evolution depends on a fundamental redefinition >> of "species". Prior to Darwin, naturalists viewed species as ideal or >> general types, which could be exemplified by an ideal specimen bearing >> all the traits general to the species. Darwin's theories shifted >> attention from uniformity to variation and from the general to the >> particular. According to intellectual historian Louis Menand, >> >> 'Once our attention is redirected to the individual, we need another >> way of making generalizations. We are no longer interested in the >> conformity of an individual to an ideal type; we are now interested in >> the relation of an individual to the other individuals with which it >> interacts. To generalize about groups of interacting individuals, we >> need to drop the language of types and essences, which is prescriptive >> (telling us what finches should be), and adopt the language of >> statistics and probability, which is predictive (telling us what the >> average finch, under specified conditions, is likely to do). Relations >> will be more important than categories; functions, which are variable, >> will be more important than purposes; transitions will be more >> important than boundaries; sequences will be more important than >> hierarchies.' >> >> This shift results in a new approach to "species"; >> >> Darwin concluded that species are what they appear to be: ideas, which >> are provisionally useful for naming groups of interacting individuals. >> "I look at the term species", he wrote, "as one arbitrarily given for >> the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling >> each other ... It does not essentially differ from the word variety, >> which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term >> variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is >> also applied arbitrarily, and for convenience sake." 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