Probably for the same reason that some people have better vision, hearing, taste, etc. than others.Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Probably for the same reason that some people have better vision, hearing, taste, etc. than others.
I've always found it rather exciting to remember that there is a difference between what we experience and what we think it means.
Evolution is processed through reproduction, this is true. It is also true that actively negative genetic differences tend to be weeded out (for example anomalies that might cause acephalous infants. However, in social species it is not only important to produce an infant to carry your genes it is also important to raise the child as a socially integrated member of the group. If that doesn't happen then the genes stop there. To see what happens when an infant is kept from the group see Wikipedia's article on Harlow's macaque experiments.
The second point is that because our social nature is so critical to a functioning transition of genetic material, sexual intimacy must serve more than one purpose. In any social species intimacy also binds people, serves to reify alliances and break them as well. In a recent study of the bonobo, it has been clearly demonstrated that abundant sexual and intimate contact (between all manner of ages and sexes) can be used to create a relatively peaceful social group. Sex, grooming and petting are used to relieve tensions, to establish ties and to comfort. The desire to create stable relationships is a staple in the hominid line. Homosexuality is just one aspect of the use of a human ability to establish ties throughout the group. In this way, it can be seen that both homo and heterosexuality are necessary for the solidity of the human group.
And the solidity of the human group is necessary for the successful rearing of the current crop of human infants. Therefore, homosexuality is an integral part of our evolutionary future.
I've always found it rather exciting to remember that there is a difference between what we experience and what we think it means.
Doesn't answer the question; merely states that the issue at hand may be connected to others via a similar cause/process/whatever. But no answer has been offered.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
Although this goes way back to your post #7, I didn't see it until today - when it lifted my heart from where all the literalists had cast it down.
I suspect the process may have been something like this:
Very early man # 1: This is a pretty scary, strange business, don't you think?
Very early man # 2: At times, yes, I do think so, but then I think maybe there was something or someone who started it all and who looks after us.
Later:
Very early man # 1: Did you hear that there might be something or someone who started all of this and who looks after us?
Very early man # 3: Really? No, I didn't hear it but it sure sounds good to me!
Later still:
Very early man # 3: I was thinking we ought to do something to stay on the good side of that something or someone who started all of this and who looks after us.
Very early man # 1: Great idea! You tell me what it is you think we ought to do and I'll see if I can get a few of the other people to go along with us.
Because of the existence of genetic diversity within populations. Genetic diversity is the evolutionary strength of sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual). It allows variation in a population. Why this is a strength has already been brought to bear here on this thread. Briefly, environmental conditions fluctuate. (floods, droughts etc.) Also we share the planet with a multitude of other organisms some of which can kill us unseen and in mass (viruses, bacteria etc) The best defense against environmental variability for a population is to vary genetically so that even if a good half of the group dies from starvation (say) there will have been some left (with slower metabolisms) to keep producing more descendants.
Normally such disasters are short term and wouldn't effect the long term genetic drift in a population. Others (like the fluctuation of heat with ice ages) can and have effected hominid populations. The existence of white skin (with low melanin so that more of the sun's rays get through to produce vitamin D), for example, has been mentioned as one possible cold-climate adaption. So if a group lived in an area of earth where food supplies are often critically low, and the group lived there long enough to breed out those with a high metabolic rate then this could effect their overall metabolic condition. They would be "different" in this way from a population that lived in an abundant environment.
Re: vitamin D see http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C113681.html
or http://www.healthscience.org/content/view/192/80/
Here is a fun site about the origin of white people (with a bit about the vitamin D thing.)
http://www.blackwebportal.com/wire/D...ArticleID=2575
Last edited by MaryLupin; 07-13-2007 at 12:18 AM.
I've always found it rather exciting to remember that there is a difference between what we experience and what we think it means.
My favorite version of the creation of the permanent religious class goes back to something we used to talk about when I was taking my first degree in Anthropolgy. From what I remember it was about the surprising coincidence between the appearance of the first cities, the sudden need to convince people to work longer, harder and for someone else, and the rise of the first permanent military force and the first religious specialists. There was even a story about it all centering on the god Marduk. The end of the story: his brother gods (his sister gods had vanished from the story by then) were so happy that Marduk had killed their grandmother (Her name was Tiamat and she was in favor of keeping things the way they were) that they started to build the first city in Marduk's honor. Then they realized how much work that was going to be. I mean the irrigation ditches alone were a real bummer. So they came up with a solution. They killed their grandmother's consort (Kingu); they mixed his blood with the earth of the new city. They called the result man---so the new religious men said. We were born to be slaves. Cool, huh.
The story is from the Enuma Elish by the way, in case anyone wants to read it.
Another good text that talks about the transition from Tiamat-life to Marduk-life is actually a book of economic essays called Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment.
I've always found it rather exciting to remember that there is a difference between what we experience and what we think it means.
Did you know that Islamic myths about our origin have something quite similar to the origin-idea presented here? In that faith there are djinn. Djinn are beings thought to created from fire, whereas humans were created from earth. Djinn (root of genie, genius) were quite a bit like trickster spirits and thought to create occasional havoc, although they aren't considered evil in the current Christian sense. I do find the concept of creation from different prima materia interesting. A being of earth (slow to learn?); a being of fire (quick to judge, impulsive?); a being of water (drown one in feeling?); a being of air (the origin of the idea of angels?)...
The Internet Sacred Text Archive has a searchable series of texts if you want to read about the djinn in the koran (Qur'an). I have just quoted a couple of lines here of the relevent material.
"We created man of dried clay, of dark loam moulded;
And the djinn had We before created of subtle fire.
Remember when thy Lord said to the Angels,
"I create man of dried clay, of dark loam moulded:
And when I shall have fashioned him and breathed
of my spirit into him, then fall ye down and worship him."
I've always found it rather exciting to remember that there is a difference between what we experience and what we think it means.
That's it! It's a conspiracy. I just knew it.
I'm in love with The Vinegar Man and Mr. Tanner, but be careful, it could just as easily be you.
"If you're going to write you better have somewhere to come from." Flannery O'Connor
Yes, indeed - and bout time you fessed up to being at the center of it.That's it! It's a conspiracy. I just knew it.
Adam and Eve were the only people on the Earth. It was from Noah we got different cultures
Biblically, Adam and Eve were alone on the earth, as far as humans go. After being kicked out of Eden they procreated, and soon one of their offspring killed another. God made it known at this point that murder was a bad thing, and that we are indeed our brother's keepers. Apparently incest wasn't an issue at the time as nothing was said against it until Moses brought the law down from Sinai. Good thing God was OK with it for a while too, or we wouldn't be here.
It looks as though people either always had bad in them, or introduced it when they disobeyed and prompted God to boot them. No white, black, and gray people. Just people. Except for what Noah said about his sons. It sure sounded like Ham's descendants were supposed to be serving Japheth's, but most of the world has rebelled and outlawed slavery. We should be paying the price any time now.
There are some 'stars of heaven' and 'son of the morning star' and sons of God lying with the daughters of men verses that get a lot read into them. I can't see it myself. Apparently the seed of those mighty men of old, the men of renown, has become so diluted that no one stands out anymore.
Evolution doesn't tie in. God made it all, just as we see it today. Except for the way we live, which has become hopelessly twisted, what with women no longer being subservient and most of the monarchies having been thrown down. But all the creatures were made just as they are now, and we were made to dominate and rule over them and the whole of creation.
Pave it now, before it's too late.
Evolution definitely could tie into the Bible. It has been seen (not in a literalistic way) that since the Pentateuch (or the Torah) weren't written until a great time after the Babylonian Exile (which occured in 587 BC). The Deuteronomists that wrote the these books wrote to explain things that they couldn't understand, and to also teach the Jews how to behave and what to follow. Many stories (such as the story of Moses and Abraham) are seen as true, but there are many exaggerations in them (like Abraham's age or the forty years in the desert) that were applied to show God's grace or a very long amount of time. So, the Genesis story of the creation of the world and Adam and Eve may not be completely true, just used to teach the Jews that murder was wrong, that you are not to question God, and to not follow the devil and temptation. So evolution could definitely work with the Bible, it just depends on how you look at it.
"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one"- Julius Caesar, Shakespeare
"You always feel biologically trapped"- Lieutenant Frederic Henry, A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway
"A woman is like a beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd walk over your own mother just to get one."- Homer Simpson
A note on 'theory.' Usually when we say 'theory' we mean 'hypothesis.' A hypothesis is a guess that we make, based on evidence seen and what we know. If we're bold enough to challenge and test it, and it survives whatever testing we are able to devise, it becomes a theory.
And every theory eventually needs tweaking again because we find ways to poke holes in it. Then we have to come up with revised hypotheses and still more testing. That's how we got from huddling in trees and hitting one another with sticks to driving with a cell phone in one hand and a latte in the other.
It's because knowledge keeps advancing that the flat earth under a colander model gave way to the globe with heavenly bodies swarming 'round it, which in turn gave way to the heliocentric universe similar to what we recognize today. Even this model continues to be further refined.
A flat-earther could reject what we know now and cling to their cherished beliefs on the basis that it's all just 'theory,' but most outside that little society would laugh, ignore them, or back slowly away. Respectfully, of course.
Lots of stories were created by different cultures to explain the universe, how it worked, and where it came from, back when we had no way of knowing the earth wasn't a plate sitting under a colander, balanced on a tortoise's back. I don't see how we can say that evolution and Scripture 'tie,' except in the sense that evolution can be said to have eventually caused Scripture, as depicted in those clever Early Man exchanges.
I see where you are coming from, and maybe I should have worded it differently, but evolution and the Bible could definitely coexist quite harmoniously, maybe not tie into one another. Just because the Bible states something doesn't mean it is one-hundred percent factual, no "ifs" about it. So the theory of evolution (with man descending from apes) shouldn't have too much an impact on the Biblical way of life (unless your a literalist, then evolution makes about as much sense as green ketchup). It all depends on one's perspective.
"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one"- Julius Caesar, Shakespeare
"You always feel biologically trapped"- Lieutenant Frederic Henry, A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway
"A woman is like a beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd walk over your own mother just to get one."- Homer Simpson
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