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    #32
    Rev Hellfire
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,346 ✭✭✭Rev Hellfire


    5uspect wrote: »
    Don't some ants farm termites?
    They do, but they don't selectively breed characteristics into them. ie. they don't direct the evolutionary process.


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    #33
    stevejazzx
    Registered Users Posts: 3,247 ✭✭✭stevejazzx


    Rev Hellfire wrote: »
    Actually it is accidental since animals (other than man) don't engage in husbandry.

    ??

    we're at cross purposes perhaps? genes can program embryos intop adults who can succesfully reproduce and dominate the gene pool, this is not accidental. Chance cannot explain life. Design is as bad an explanation as chance because it raises bigger questions than it answers.


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    #34
    Rev Hellfire
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,346 ✭✭✭Rev Hellfire


    stevejazzx wrote: »
    ??

    we're at cross purposes perhaps? genes can program embryos intop adults who can succesfully reproduce and dominate the gene pool, this is not accidental. Chance cannot explain life. Design is as bad an explanation as chance because it raises bigger questions than it answers.
    No it is accidental, random variances occur whose characteristics may become dominate though external factors.
    But the point I'm making is that it's not in any way directed, there's no plan.


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    #35
    5uspect
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,516 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    Rev Hellfire wrote: »
    They do, but they don't selectively breed characteristics into them. ie. they don't direct the evolutionary process.

    Not consciously, no. But the genetic makeup of termites is no more immune to the actions of the ants than those of an antelope and a lion. An ant colony with a strong predisposition to farm termites will be more successful. A termite that is easily farmed in such a colony will further direct the evolutionary process.

    Now I agree humans have consciously modified many species to their own needs (in increasingly extraordinary ways) but this surely began along similar lines to every thing else we see in nature?

    It is not just chance but a complex trajectory from slightly different initial conditions. Our particular trajectory (via each generation) has led to us developing complex rituals perhaps no different to mating rituals in other animals. Has our self consciousness has led us to rationalise the emotions within us that normally serve biological purposes and has this caused its own internal arms race?


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    #36
    stevejazzx
    Registered Users Posts: 3,247 ✭✭✭stevejazzx


    Rev Hellfire wrote: »
    No it is accidental, random variances occur whose characteristics may become dominate though external factors.
    But the point I'm making is that it's not in any way directed, there's no plan.

    Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators -

    so it's complicated, far more so than a religous person finding themselves in an advantageous evolutionary position wihtout any notion of such.


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    #37
    Rev Hellfire
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,346 ✭✭✭Rev Hellfire


    stevejazzx wrote: »
    Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators -

    so it's complicated, far more so than a religous person finding themselves in an advantageous evolutionary position wihtout any notion of such.
    no ones saying its not complicated :) I think we're saying the same thing just putting a different emphasis on the entropy which typically initiates the process.


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    #38
    Schuhart
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,835 ✭✭✭Schuhart


    Rev Hellfire wrote: »
    no ones saying its not complicated :) I think we're saying the same thing just putting a different emphasis on the entropy which typically initiates the process.
    I think I agree, I'm just not clear on what the entropy which typically initiates the process means.


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    #39
    Pompey Magnus
    Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Pompey Magnus


    MrPudding wrote: »
    It goes on and on. It really is the most incredible self confirming, unquestionable, untestable, unfalsifiable, questioning intolerant racket I have ever come across. All credit to whoever thought it up. They really have thought of everything.

    I was thinking along the same lines this weekend, I was reading "The Fall of the Roman Empire" and had gotten to the sack of Rome by Alaric and the Goths in 410 AD. Following the sacking the pagan Romans used the event as proof that the Christian God was a false one and the true pagan gods had abandoned the city to punish it for converting to this new faith. St Augustine countered this by writing "The City of God" in which he argued that Rome was just another earthly city and was not particularly special in the greater scheme of things.

    This is all well and good except when you compare it to the Christian reaction to the destruction of the Jewish city of Jerusalem by the Romans. Christians used this as proof that God was displeased with the Jews for not accepting Jesus as the Messiah and so had the city destroyed as punishment.

    I thought this really is just another case of a religion shifting the goal posts so they can't be argued against.

    -Jewish Jerusalem being attacked is proof of God abandoning and punishing the Jews

    -Christian Rome being attacked is NOT proof of the Roman gods abandoning and punishing the Romans.


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    #40
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Charco wrote: »
    I thought this really is just another case of a religion shifting the goal posts so they can't be argued against.
    Gibbon put it nicely in chapter 16:
    Gibbon wrote:
    if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks [...] the superstitious Pagans were convinced that [...] the Christians [...] had at length provoked the Divine justice.
    Shoes, other feet and all that.


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