h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'I have previously heard Creationists talk of "kinds", which they claim stay separate. Each "kind" then having its own common ancestry, but being unrelated to other kinds. Is this a good description of what you believe? '

I think so yes.

So now you can all pick it apart joke.

Adib

Well, we could, but I see no profit in it the way the argument stands.

Rather I'll ask, Would the fact that, for example, cats and dogs had a common ancestor millions of years ago (assume it's true for the sake of the argument), make either of these kinds any less "special" in the here and now? And why?

Noggin

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Perhaps, but that would assume that the moral values that evolution (or Deos) causes us to prefer are inherently better than those that humans don't pick.

Moral relativism doesn't break down *because* people aren't Objective; it breaks down *despite* the fact that people aren't Objective.

That is to say, that the judgement that one set of moral values is "inherently better" than another can only be made from the point of view of an already existing set of moral values.

Noggin

Hang on, am I missing something here, I thought the idea behind moral relativism is that morals have no Objective basis, so people can make up their own? If people were Objective then surely that would work fine - everyone would probably end up dead, but no-one would care?


As to assuming that values given to humans by god or evolved are better, well I wasn't saying they were, I was just saying that people tend to choose them.

I think we're talking across each other slightly.

Moral relativism does indeed claim that morals have no Objective basis; if morals did have an Objective basis, then the *theory* of moral relativism would break down, because it would be contrary to the facts.

Yet, in fact, although morality has no Objective basis in the sense of something that can be discovered by an appraisal of the facts (you can't derive an ought from an is) we cannot act as if all possible moralities are equal, and the theory of moral relativism breaks down because it has no absolute application - the judgement that we should be tolerant of others is itself a moral judgement - nor would we wish in any case to extend it to the intolerant, especially the murderously so.

It's actually quite an interesting catch 22, if a tad off topic

Noggin

Interestingnon of the less.

Adib

I have a question.

How come we can use pig organs to replace human organs, but can't use chimp organs to do the same?

Well, we can't. If you put a pig organ into a human it will be recognised by the immune system as foriegn and will be rejected. I suspect you're talking about xenotransplantation though, where pigs are genetically modified so that their organs won't be seen as non-human by the immune system. The same thing would happen if it were a pig or chimp organ.

Basically pigs are chosen for this because their organs are just about the same size as ours. Chimps are smaller. There are also more ethical problems with using wild apes vs domesticated pigs, though a lot of people would still say it is ethically dubious.

Ste

Cool just curious.

I'm against the whole pig donar thing though.

Not because pigs are Haram to eat, but because there has not been enough study in to possible side effects.

Adib

Yeah, I think that's what they're studying as well as how to perfect the technique.

Pig heart valves are already used as replacements in humans, remember. Would you forgo this life-saving pig tissue? Would any Muslim?



Ste

"... but because there has not been enough study in to possible side effects."

Though, use of these GM pigs would have *far* less side-effects than immuno-suppressant drugs which are necessary to stop rejection from other human organ donors. I would not enjoy having virtually no immune system for the rest of my life at all, now *that* is a side effect. In fact, I can't think of any potential side-effects from a successful xenotransplantation. Surely that's the point.

*shrug*

Ste

Well I read this thing a while ago that said that it could lead to some pig diseases becoming susceptible to the host.
So as I never heard a follow up of it, I presumed they still did not know if it could lead to pig bacteria/virus’s etc getting in to people.

Adib

Hi Muzaakboy,

That's exactly right - the big fear with xenotransplantation is that diseases currently confined to the donor animal could find a mutation pathway - could evolve if you like - to infect humans. Dealing with the risk of a human version of foot-and-mouth or SVD, for example, is a key factor in Xenotransplantation research.

At a very basic level all life on Earth is one 'species' - we all share the same kind of DNA chemistry. Over aeons - what geologists call 'deep time' and thought to be around 3 billion years - very simple organisms (which may well no longer exist) have evolved into all the varied life-forms we see on our planet. If we look at how this works we see that it a is a forward process; once an ameoba has evolved into, say, a warm water ameoba and a cold water ameoba these two types will never change back. A cold water ameoba might evolve another warm water relative but it will not be the original warm water ameoba. When some branch of the mammal family split into dogs and cats there was no going back - a dog cannot evolve into a cat - even if some clever dog breeder could breed some variety of dog that looked very much like a cat.

There are a number of points here:
This takes a very long time.
A number of species/types/families may share a common ancestor which is no longer in existence.
All life shares a common ancestor.
Just because a dog cannot become a cat doesn't mean it couldn't eventually become something so unlike a dog that it couldn't interbreed with dogs.

Your religion seems to accept all of this except the possibility of one type of animal evolving into something that the original version couldn't breed with (this is speciation) and, crucially, that Man does not share the common ancestor common to all other life on Earth. This latter point would make us, uniquely, aliens on our own planet.

Surely if you can accept that fruit flies have evolved to the point where two varieties can no longer interbreed in a few decades you have accepted the principle of speciation? If this can happen to fruit flies then it is no big leap to accept that the same can happen with some basic genotype 'mammal' evolving into dogs, cats, sheep, cows and primates. Given that, you are left with the (absurd?) notion that only humans did not evolve from some primeval organism with the rest of life on Earth. Despite the clear evidence that our biochemical structure is basically exactly the same as every other life-form around us, you seem to suggest that animals evolved but Man was created. Evolutionists say that all life on Earth evolved from some basic organism that was probably very different to anything we see around today. The mechanism for this is well understood and the evidence is overwhelming. Excluding precisely one species from that explanantion is entirely a matter of faith.

F

As salaamu alaikum

Actually your comment just struck a cord with me,


"At a very basic level all life on Earth is one 'species'"

In the Qur'an Muslims are told Allah (God) made all life from water it reads:

The Holy Qur'an, Sura Anbiyaa (21), Ayat 30, which reads, “And we made from water every living thing; will they (the scientists, the atheists and the agnostics) then not believe?”

Islamic theologians interpret this verse as meaning that protoplasm, the basis of all living matter, depends on the constant presence of water, and its major constituent is water.

This may be so, but there is another simpler interpretation of that verse: billions of years ago, by an act of Allah Almighty, primeval matter in the sea began to generate protoplasm out of which came single-celled and multi-cellular organisms. In other words, all life came from the sea - i.e., from water.

A similar verse elsewhere in the Qur'an, Sura Nur (24), Ayat 45, elaborates the above theme,
“And Allah has created animals from water; of them, there are some that creep on their bellies, some that walk on two legs, and some that walk on four. Allah creates what He wills; for verily Allah has power over all things.”

Well any way we are also told that Allah made all animals seperate and distinct from one another, maybe He made us all out of water, and used the same sort of things, i.e the same parts of DNA to create each individual species, meaning that while they are all related on a DNA level, he created them all individual from another.

note the animal seperate part is meaning types like cats, dogs, chimps and not individual animals breeds like alsations.

Adib

Am I right in thinking that the Qu'ran (in Arabic of course) describes itself as the absolute perfect word of God and is therefore for a Muslim not open to contradiction?

Yeap