Fifteen tweaks that made us human?

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 19, 2015

Human evolution, News}

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Humans are possibly the weirdest species to have ever lived. We have freakishly big brains that allow us to build complicated gadgets, understand abstract concepts and communicate using language. We are also almost hairless with weak jaws, and struggle to give birth. How did such a bizarre creature evolve?

Huh?

1. In a world packed with unusual creatures, what reason have we to assume that humans are “possibly the weirdest species to have ever lived”? Publicly funded broadcasters, like the BBC, can buy this stuff. Whether they could sell it in an open market is another question.

2. “freakishly big brains”? What is the point> of such a claim? Why is it “freaking” to have a big brain when our ears ring with claims about the distressed state of stupider creatures we have—all BBC pensioneers say—displaced?

(Many such creatures are actually too stupid to survive without us)

Why not to believe what they tell you about human evolution

Would Brit readers like to comment? Are you happy to support tax TV in the age of the Internet?

No matter who you are, you gotta see this:

Comments

Our brain size is not proven to be related to intelligence. it could just be about memory needs. Pain childbirth was from punishment for Eve. Yes only female humans have such pain. Not apes chicks. We are entirely covered by hai except on our hands and feet. We jusat never were triggered to grow more hair except under the armpits etc for drying up those areas. All creatures have a languuage or rather memorized agreement on what sounds mean. We are simply so much more intelligent that our agreements on sounds is what it is. Yet the same mechanism principals. We are not weirder but rather we are not animals but beings made in Gods im,age that must break through a common design in biology.Robert Byers_{March 19, 2015
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God is such a tinkerer! Meanwhile at UD: Verify that you are human by answering the question below.Mung_{March 19, 2015
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BA77,
daveS, it is the extension of Godel’s incompleteness by Turing and Chaitin. As Chaitin stated in the video I referenced, Turing made Godel’s Incompleteness much more concrete and less abstract. i.e. the halting problem,, Chaitin has also extended incompleteness to make it ‘much more concrete and less abstract’:
I just read the Chaitin article from Scientific American, but didn't find anything relating to your argument. If you disagree, please cite specific quotes from it. In any case, it would seem that the author of Proving Darwin doesn't see things quite the way you do. I will check out the Robertson paper later tonight.daveS_{March 19, 2015
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daveS, it is the extension of Godel's incompleteness by Turing and Chaitin. As Chaitin stated in the video I referenced, Turing made Godel's Incompleteness much more concrete and less abstract. i.e. the halting problem,, Chaitin has also extended incompleteness to make it 'much more concrete and less abstract':
The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.,,, http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomenon: the creation of new information http://cires1.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf
To falsify that 'more concrete' version of incompleteness, you would simply have to demonstrate that unguided material processes can create non-trivial functional information. Specifically, that unguided material processes can create codes and axioms. Does that sound familiar? It should, it is almost the same exact request that has been made for years by ID proponents to Darwinists. Can you provide that empirical evidence that falsifies the 'more concrete' version of incompleteness (and which would also falsify ID)?
The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness – David L. Abel Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.” If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_
of supplemental note on falsification. ID is falsifiable and Darwinian evolution is not:
"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge http://izquotes.com/quote/147518 It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk
bornagain77_{March 19, 2015
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“freakishly big brains”? What is the point> of such a claim?
The point is that we have a very large brain for our body size relative to other animals.goodusername_{March 19, 2015
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At first glance I thought the title was "Fifteen Twerks that made us human." Which made me think, "Miley Cyrus makes us human?" Which then made me think, "Miley Cyrus is human?" As for paying a small tax (the Licence Fee) to enjoy entirely commercial free viewing, let me see now... Hell, yes!Seversky_{March 19, 2015
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BA77, In your previous post, you claimed that math is somehow a problem for "reductive materialist explanations". And in order to disprove this claim, one would need to disprove Gödel's incompleteness theorem (presumably the first?). Is that correct? Here's that first theorem, via the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Assume F is a formalized system which contains Robinson arithmetic Q. Then a sentence GF of the language of F can be mechanically constructed from F such that: If F is consistent, then F ? GF. If F is 1-consistent, then F ? ¬GF
So in your view, the above theorem proves that "reductive materialist explanations" cannot exist. I'm asking you to explain that in your own words without more copypasta. What does this theorem have to do with particles following rules? Edit: The "not provable" symbol seems to be getting borked. Here's a link to the page.daveS_{March 19, 2015
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as to "What exactly is the problem, in your own words? I really doubt Gödel’s theorems have any application here." You did not understand my words the first time? OK, Let's simplify it even further: If you have evidence of material particles creating functional information, specifically codes and axioms, present it. It is the same request for empirical evidence from Darwinists to support their fantastic claims as has been issued by ID proponents for years. Do you seriously not understand the 'information problem' for unguided material processes? Moreover, Godel's incompleteness is certainly relevant to the atheist stating to me that our ability with math is no better than a pocket calculator. Specifically Godel, in his debate with Turing, extended his incompleteness to computers (an incompleteness which Chaitin has also supplemented), which I referenced already, but here it is again anyway:
Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing – Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition – video https://vimeo.com/92387854 “Either mathematics is too big for the human mind or the human mind is more than a machine” Kurt Gödel The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.,,, http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf
In other words:
"material particles follow rules, only minds make rules."
Supplemental quotes:
"A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor). It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required. ,,,there is no known law of nature and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter. Werner Gitt 1997 In The Beginning Was Information pp. 64-67, 79, 107." (The retired Dr Gitt was a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig), the Head of the Department of Information Technology.) "Our experience-based knowledge of information-flow confirms that systems with large amounts of specified complexity (especially codes and languages) invariably originate from an intelligent source -- from a mind or personal agent." (Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2):213-239 (2004).)
bornagain77_{March 19, 2015
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BA77:
To which I responded: “You do not seem to realize just how big of a problem math is for any reductive materialistic explanation. Simply put, material particles follow rules, they do not make them up. In other more technical words, minds invent mathematical axioms, material particles obey them. Disagree? Then falsify Godel’s incompleteness theorem”:
What exactly is the problem, in your own words? I really doubt Gödel's theorems have any application here.daveS_{March 19, 2015
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Tweak #15 (100,000ya) Enhanced Dribble. Ok, if they say so. My dog has that too btw. How about Tweak #16 (Current Time) Emhanced Drivel. Tweak #17 (200,000y in future) Superconscious Woo. Evolve your Woo, materialists. Deepak more evolved than Dawkins. Deepak has more kids, too. Spreading the woo gene.ppolish_{March 19, 2015
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The danger of artificial stupidity – Saturday, 28 February 2015 “Computers lack mathematical insight: in his book The Emperor’s New Mind, the Oxford mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose deployed Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem to argue that, in general, the way mathematicians provide their “unassailable demonstrations” of the truth of certain mathematical assertions is fundamentally non-algorithmic and non-computational” http://machineslikeus.com/news/danger-artificial-stupidity Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test – Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
supplemental notes:
“The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.” Charles Darwin to Doedes, N. D. – Letter – 2 Apr 1873 http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-8837 Mathematics and Physics – A Happy Coincidence? – William Lane Craig – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF25AA4dgGg 1. If God did not exist the applicability of mathematics would be a happy coincidence. 2. The applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence. 3. Therefore, God exists. An Interview with David Berlinski – Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
I think that Alfred Wallace's contention that mathematics itself was proof for the soul has obviously held up quite well to scrutiny. Indeed, dare I say, his contention has been rigorously confirmed to be true! Verses and Music:
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men. Greater MercyMe https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84924572&v=T9XFO1oSk68&x-yt-ts=1422411861
bornagain77_{March 19, 2015
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as to:
"Humans are possibly the weirdest species to have ever lived. We have freakishly big brains that allow us to build complicated gadgets, understand abstract concepts and communicate using language."
That 'weirdness' of Humans, that so dramatically separates us from the other species, is called 'the image of God'. Moreover, there is no evidence that that 'weirdness' was gradually acquired:
“A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012) Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html The mystery of language evolution - May 7, 2014 Excerpt: Paleontology and archaeology,,, Although technologies became more complex over the history of the genus Homo (Tattersall, 2012), indications of modern-style iconic and representational activities (Henshilwood et al., 2002, 2004) begin only significantly after the first anatomically recognizable H. sapiens appears at a little under 200 thousand years ago,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019876/
More interesting still to the 'image of God' thesis, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:
Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer - video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU
As well, as if that was not 'spooky enough', information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality:
"it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf Quantum physics just got less complicated - Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, "The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,",,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html
If that doesn't strongly support the 'image of God' thesis of Theism for a person nothing will! Also of related interest to the 'image of God' thesis. Wallace, co-discover of natural selection, who had far more field work than Darwin did, held that our ability to do math was proof that man has a 'soul'
“Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation.” Alfred Russell Wallace, New Thoughts on Evolution, 1910
An atheist challenged me on this 'soul' proof of Wallace this morning and stated:
“A pocket calculator crunches numbers much better than either of us, though it has no mind to speak of.”
To which I responded:
"You do not seem to realize just how big of a problem math is for any reductive materialistic explanation. Simply put, material particles follow rules, they do not make them up. In other more technical words, minds invent mathematical axioms, material particles obey them. Disagree? Then falsify Godel’s incompleteness theorem":
Here are the references I cited in support of my position
Kurt Gödel – Incompleteness Theorem – video https://vimeo.com/92387853 Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing – Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition – video https://vimeo.com/92387854 “Either mathematics is too big for the human mind or the human mind is more than a machine” Kurt Gödel The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.,,, http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness – David L. Abel Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.” If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_
bornagain77_{March 19, 2015
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Humans are possibly the weirdest species to have ever lived. We have freakishly big brains that allow us to build complicated gadgets, understand abstract concepts and communicate using language.
Australopithecines hate them!daveS_{March 19, 2015
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