Considering the handle I have adopted, I thought I would share a passing thought.
The mammal with the greatest sense of smell are bears, notably polar bears can detect seals under thick layers of ice.
Moths have the greatest sense of hearing.
Birds of prey have the sharpest eyesight, Owls have the best night vision, Snakes likewise with thermal vision and sharks have the greatest underwater vision.
Crocodiles have the strongest bites on our planet.
Catfish have the greatest sense of taste, due in part to being covered in taste buds.
Dolphins brains are more structually complex then that of their human counterparts.
The dung beetle is the strongest creature based on strength to weight ratios.
Bottle nose dolphins in recent studies have shown greater capacity of memory then most animals including elephants.
And so on!
Given this, Are humans really as special as we think we are in the context of how some thiests believe?
This is in reference more directly to intellegent design.
BTW, this is simply food for thought!
*Edited for clarity*
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Yes, we are special. We can create concepts like "special". But, we are special only to ourselves.
What Chimp 3 said..see I can think like umm original like...
1.) Dolphins, dung beetles etc have not created science and technology. (They lack human level intelligence.)
2.) Human intelligence, like other mammalian or insect based intelligence... is special or distinct configurations of atoms.
3.) There are larger properties to pay attention to beyond the specialness or distinctness you refer to, such as "substrate independence", which shall reasonably allow the special configuration known as human level intelligence to be implemented in computers.
Apologies, I did not complete my article before posting.
The thought was in reference to intelligent design.
Yes i grasp the conscious constructs that we have as an advantage,
The thought process was more directly aimed at the argument for Intelligent design.
Allow me to elaborate further, Given the claim, Humans are of an intelligent design, that of an agent,
Does this play out in reality?
Again, I am not making a claim, just food for debate..
I mean, the idea of intelligent design applies to everything, not just humans. Scripture even says mankind was created on the same day as every other beast of the field.
I do think our mental abilities place upon us a level of responsibility that is not expected of any other animal.
So would you say humans (homo sapiens) did not diverge from a common ancestor, for example the Neanderthal and Denisovan lineages?
I've been interested in the topic of Neanderthals for a while; but haven't found a good book to invest on. I had the book Sapiens on my reading list, but some bad reviews put me off.
I used to think Neanderthals were supposed to be some ancestral species from which we evolved, but then I heard we have Neanderthal DNA ourselves because we had babies with them.
It seems there were several migrations out of Africa. Neanderthals and Denisovans evolved from earllier migrations and then Homo sapines came out of Africa, met them, and mated with them.
Yes, I think recent studies showed three stages of breeding, With the first occurring soon after migrating from Africa, Then when the Melanesians had bred with Denisovans and finally when Neanderthals and the ancestors of east asians mated.
There was some nice studies recently presented in journals and publications, such as Nat Geo.
I'll look into it. Btw a few months ago I did make a couple threads on evolution, I'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on the subject.
-Part 2
-Part 4
Some interesting points of contention I would say, Would it constitute an obstacle in evolution? Likely not, considering the massive amount of objective evidence to support evolution.
Also I must say that I do enjoy the works done by the likes of Michael Bok, Dan Nilsson and so on.
I especially enjoyed the latter's paper on how box jellyfish use terrestrial vision cues for navigation.
What are your thoughts on how eye development (from simple to complex) would be observable from the view point of a fetus?
Wait explain that last question a bit more
Yes of course, and my apologies for that last question being quite vague.
So there is a train of thought (focusing purely on the argument of eye development) that says there are clearly a monumental number of species on our planet, each with different types of eye, with multiple forms that very from compound and non compound types and so on.
Eyes in various animals show adaptation to their requirement.
You can also see the development of these eyes during gestation, for example in humans at around 3 weeks or so I believe.
So it would appear that these eyes in varying species can evolve from very simple beginnings into adapting to their required state.
Right, so there are probably as many variations on eyes as there are species that possess them. I don't know much about how those of other species develop, but I assume most are very similar to our development.
However, I think its important to note that the challenges and methods that occur in development, are very different from those faced by evolution. The two concepts are not really synonymous. For example, have you seen images of the visual system that show the optic nerve from both eyes crossing over into a >--< shape called the optic chiasm? Now, imagine you're a growing axon from the retina, that has to find its way to the thalamus of the brain. When you hit that intersection there are three different paths you can take, two of which are wrong. You can either go straight through and not cross over, you can cross over and continue down to the brain, or you can dive back up the optic nerve and into the opposite eye.
That's not really a process that evolution on the macroscopic scale has to worry about. Meaning you don't have millions of years through which a tiny axon is slowly but surely finding its way to the brain. It either happens or it doesn't. Now, evolution does have to account for the processes that occur in development, but my point is that looking at development can't really inform you about what happened during our evolution.
- Yes the development is very similar.
- I am aware of this possibility of three paths, direct or either optical tract.
However, is the crossing over not an adaptive feature?
For example I would imagine for all or most predatory animals, depth perception is required in the environment they are in if they have frontal facing eyes.
The point of relation between species and development was obviously in that its good that we can see how something can develop from essentially next to nothing into something very complex, that was all.
But the thought that I do find intriguing on this topic is that with all the various species we can observe and the various stages of development that can also be observed, its quite reasonable to assert that if you have all these varieties and we can trace human evolution, It is not a stretch to see how our eyes may have evolved from a different type in the millions of years before primates.
It has to be possible.
So to summarize my previous point better, yes, by looking at development you can get a "sense" of how something can develop from simple to complex. But what I want you to keep in mind, is that development is guided by very detailed processes. There are chemical cues which guide the growing axons in the correct direction, along the correct paths, to the correct targets.
There is nothing in evolution guiding us towards anything. Its "easy" to understand how the visual system develops in the womb, but you are left to explain an analogous evolutionary development, without any of features that make fetal development possible in the first place.
Perhaps it's possible. But it's like telling me a train can get from LA to NY without any of the tracks to guide it.
I wouldn't say that analogy is correct in reference to what I was putting forward.
Perhaps I should rephrase for clarity.
So hopefully we agree that we can objectively prove that the eye can develop from the simple to the complex.
We also may hopefully agree that Humans (Homo Sapiens) evolved from Australopithecus anamensis (simple to complex to a small degree)
We can objectively confirm the evolution path of life from say prokaryotes to bacteria to fungi and so on to jellyfish, tetrapods, fish, reptiles, mammals and so fourth (Again, simple to complex).
All of the possible variables of eyes has been observed within those stages (and still are), thus its possible to demonstrate how the eye we homo sapiens have, is from a long, long run of evolutionary change and adaption.
I think an analogy could be (and forgive me as i'm not keen on them), evolutionary history is essentially reading a book.
Currently its a very old book with a few pages missing, but we are linking it well using scientific methodology and a naturalistic approach.
To deny evolution (and i do not claim that you do, i have no idea on your view), would be to read the first page and last, not understand how you got to the conclusion, and therefore insert whatever suits your world view.
So I would rephrase that to say we can objectively observe how the eye develops from simple to complex via a guidance mechanisms. I disagree you can objectively prove the eye evolves in a similar fashion, without such guidance mechanisms.
A pet peeve of mine is when evolutionists use contemporary species to argue in place of ancient ones. I agree that some modern bacteria may have phototropic qualities, that modern planarians have eyespots, and that some modern mollusks have pinhole eyes. But what does that information prove other than that there is variation existing in modern eyes? Granted, I don't know much about Australopithecus, but at least that sounds more informative since it belongs to our ancestry. So do we know anything about the visual system of Australopithecus and how it may have been a precursor to ours?
To be honest, from my perspective, that is precisely what evolutionists are doing. They read the first page and the last, and then insert everything in between because it suits their worldview and conforms to their theory. I'm not the one filling in gaps and connecting dots. In my worldview, if all we have are the first and last pages, then that's all we have. To go beyond that is presumption, not fact.
- Well that is up to you, of course you can call it whatever you wish, although I would caution that it doesn't make it so.
Personally I do not agree with the phraseology that you use, but again, that is simply my personal opinion.
- I would also note for the record that I am not an evolutionist, nor profess to be. However, I would consider myself a naturalist in the sense that everything within reality comes about by natural processes and can be explained in similar a tone without the need to appealing to anything outside of the reality we experience.
- Well I cannot speak directly in regards to Austalopithecus visual systems, but what is known is that they were upright on two legs, however their locomotion was not that of a typical modern biped, this evolved/adapted over time,
And they displayed strong sexual dimophism between male and female species, this again evolved and adapted over time.
So it shows how physical properties of hominids can and did evolve/adapt over a vast period of time.
- We also must consider that Austalopithecus was just a common ancestor between homo sapiens and Pan lineages,
You can actually follow the evolutionary tree a lot further, Perhaps you find the answers you seek there?!
- I do like your two posts you shared, despite their tones which were a little unnecessary. However, I think rather then essentially calling them an obstacle for evolution, you should have titled it, "A problem with evolutionary theory that I have yet to find answered".
Simply making a claim as you did just demonstrates incredulity of the author.
I would like to have seen you offer evidence to support a new concept as to what caused the formation of the eye.
- Finally, I do not think your perspective is correct in regards to what evolutionist are doing.
They are studying the nature of all life and using the scientific method, objectivity and so on to present a model that is supported by what has been observed, studied and tested.
It would be far easier to simply say a 'god' did it and that it was all intentionally (albeit poorly) designed.
Which would constitute the skipping of pages in the book analogy.
Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, there isn't anything to even remotely challenge evolution as a model for life as we know it, especially in regards to a theistic approach, But thank you, this was an enjoyable conversation.
Finding a fossil eye is almost impossible, because they are made mostly of soft tissue. However, biologists have rather good evolutionary series of several organisms, plus all the overwhelming evidence supporting the evolutionary approach to the present diversity. With that in hand, we can confidently say that whatever organ organisms have today, evolved from previous versions. In the case of the eye, when phototropic and heterotrophic organisms diverged (into plants and animals), for there to be plants, there had to be organisms with light sensors for this to happen so there can be no doubt that at least from that point on, some organisms where able to detect light somehow. The most probable being light sensitive cell patches.
An interesting analysis of the evolution of the eye from fossils can be found here.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12052-008-0087-y
I read 1/3 of the paper and so far I'm enjoying it. I'll see if there's anything worth responding to when I finish it, but I do want to address two points so far:
The first is about the soft tissue/fossilization problem which you mentioned. I'm of the opinion that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so I don't hold it against evolution whenever there are absences. However, don't ignore the absences. The human body is composed of about 10-12 organ systems, all of which are soft tissue with the exception of the skeletal system. It doesn't make sense to talk about overwhelming evidence, at least not in terms of fossils, when 90% of that evidence is absent.
My second issue is just nit-picking. The article says "Modern supporters of 'Intelligent Design,' not necessarily well grounded in comparative anatomy, may believe that the human eye is somehow more perfect than eyes of other vertebrates." Contrast that with my original post on this thread: "The idea of intelligent design applies to everything, not just humans.” I've never heard an intelligent design proponent argue that only humans are designed, nor that they are the epitome of design.
Organisms are systems. They are all interlocked. From the teeth, you can infer what a species eats. From body shape, how it moved, etc. Besides there are biophysical boundaries that must be met for an organism to function so even if we do not have fossils for soft tissue, we can know with good certainty many things from fossils. There is overwhelming evidence, I was referring to the plethora of facts in paleontology plus other biological areas of research plus validations from other scientific theories that fit with the evolutionary approach to biological diversity.
The second is just nit-picking as you yourself recognize.
Well put, And I would like to see another model put forward that matches the data with those who do not accept evolutionary theory.
This always appear to be lacking.
I agree to an extent, since that's classic Form Fits Function. I'm perfectly fine with making assumption, even logical ones, based on the forms of fossils; but it should never be lost sight of that these are still assumptions and nothing more. Anyone who looks at the teeth of gorillas would expect it to be tearing jaguars apart; even black bears have wolf-like teeth and yet they are mostly vegetarian.
As far as the plethora of facts from the other fields you mentioned, great, but I see that argument as the problem of simple enumeration. Pointing to all the positive results to justify a hypothesis, doesn't do much. You need to examine situations in which the hypothesis can be false. That's the main response I get when I pose one of my "obstacles" of evolution arguments, people dismiss them on the grounds that evolution is true everywhere else.
So, I welcome suppositions, so long as they are never confused with facts.
Not really, Most people would actually identify their diets and notice that they enjoy tough bark and twigs,
so their teeth are actually adaptive to their requirements and advantageous, and therefore remain in the current state.
The facts are the facts, it just so happens that they fit the model presented by evolution.
If you can offer a better model then I'm sure we would all love to know.
Right, I'm not saying they're not adapted for their diet. I'm saying a wolfs teeth and a bears teeth are similar enough to make it difficult to guess which is a vegetarian and which is a carnivore from their fossils. In retrospect sure, it makes sense that pandas use their teeth to eat bamboo.
Does not having a replacement model justify overlooking the issues with the current one? I'm not sure what role a new model plays here.
Bears are not vegetarians, they are omnivores. They eat flesh and vegetables and their teeth reflect that. They are nor like wolves although for the non -specialist they can look similar. Bears, raccoons ad others are called heterodonts because they have teeth specialized in different functions. There are other features on the skull, associated with dentition which can also indicate the kind of feeding.
"Does not having a replacement model justify overlooking the issues with the current one? I'm not sure what role a new model plays here"
- Well the 'issues' are just from your (and possibly some evolution deniers, mostly apologists, creationists so on) perspective, and do not pose much of an issue.
Sure, we can say some aspects do not make sense to us, but unless we can offer cogent reasoning and objective analysis, it just smacks of incredulity.
So when making these claims its nice to have a model or at least a valid theory that suggests why they are demonstrably false claims within evolution and ways of proving it or offering of a better way to describe the phenomena in question.
Just don't confuse the two; my objections to evolution do not need to be accompanied by a replacement or an improvement.
@ Breezy
Goddidit! Right mate? *winks*
Try being a bit up front dear boy.
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