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

"We are the least evolved species on the planet..." Now there's an interesting statement, Joe-aka-Arnia! By what standards are you talking about here?

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If germ-line gene therapy starts to be used, that could be looked at as an equivalent of natural selection, as could selective abortion (or non-implantation of IVF embyros) in the case of genetic diseases that would take effect after mating age.

Given that some people (particularly selected socially powerful men) have for centuries or millennia been producing offspring in quantities that would be unsustainable in 'natural' settings, and which bear little relation to their individual capacity to provide for them, you could argue that 'natural' selection started to decline some time ago.

Given that it is today possible in many countries with welfare programs for some people to produce offspring that they are incapable of providing for by their own efforts, the connection between nature's assesment of an individual's genetic fitness and the number of children surviving to adulthood would appear to have been pretty much broken.

There's also the matter of parental religious beliefs, and their bearing on the desired size of families to be taken into account.

Actually, there is an interesting theory about faith...might throw some light on the issue, I'm not sure who came up with it though...

In ancient times, when humans mostly lived in small groups, what a tribe needed most were members intelligent enough to be able to exploit the available resources to the fullest. However, intelligence by its very nature challenges authority, which would, of course, cause the destruction of the tribe in the end. To counteract this, the leaders would establish some sort of creed that would have to be taken to be true on faith alone. I think that this is the reason why so many battles have been fought in the name of religion...

The main difference between science and faith is that science actually thinks in terms of evidence, and faith merely expects you to accept its dictates without question.

Intelligence and knowledge by their very nature challenge stupidity and ignorance, not justifiable authority.
Why should the challenging of an incorrect or inferior authority by people of intelligence inevitably lead to the destruction of the tribe.?

I could counter-argue that the appeal to some mythical superintelligence, allied to the repeated chants of 'we're all so insignificant' or whatever the particular religion may choose as a mantra are simply a way to enable those posessing second and third-rate intelligences to pretend that, since everyone is so relatively pathetic compared to the gods, everyone is equal, even when that's clearly not the case.

Classifying religion as an organised, politicised version of personal spirituality at least helps separate the political manipulation of followers for the purposes of warfare or other atrocities in the *name* of religion from the deep personal feelings which religion is capable of arousing in many people. (even if I don't understand those feelings myself)
Wherever religion is a route to power, it is likely that some power-hungry individuals will abuse the genuine beliefs of followers for their own ends. In a secular society where people blindly follow a political ideology, such individuals will tend to follow a more conventionally political route. The results can easily be the same.
The problem is blind faith and/or stupidity, not religion as such, though some kinds of unquestioning religions can make things easy for the power-seekers.

Science is not crap but neither is faith.I believe in evoultion but I also believe God had a hand in it.If it is all just evoultion then surely there is no such thing as free will as everything is controlled by genetics and this leaves no space for a 'soul' for want of a better word.

Anyway let's get all the arts students and gradutes in a field and expose them to radioactive sources that way the mutants that are left will understand evoultion a bit better.

I think your ideas are closer to mine, Potholer...it is blind faith that is the problem, not religion. Any ideology can be abused by some sneaky fellow who finds people gullible enough. In a way you can trace the problem to the education systems in underdeveloped countries. They totally fail to make you feel curious about anything...you aren't encouraged to think for yourself, just blindly follow whatever the powers that be say...

That is exactly what I was saying in the office this morning, people don't think any more - they just let themselves get blindly led.

That is why I like confrontational and controversial things - it makes people stop being apathetic and have an opinion.

In these somewhat more atheist days, there's a whole raft of other things to believe in, for people who wish to be led by someone else, rather than thinking for themselves, while still getting the feeling of smug superiority that comes from being a true believer.

Often, (like cult religions) they're just extreme versions of something originally quite wholesome, such as (to give a few examples of the many possible) some of the dafter new-age beliefs, extreme political correctness, or feminism taken to the point of female-chauvinism (which entirely misses the original point of equality). One problem is that the most rabid adherents tend to be people who really aren't desperately bright in the first place, and are immune to most of reasoned argument.


Anyone who *wants* to practise their critical faculties could do a lot worse than start with advertising - there's barely a single advert on TV that can't be torn to shreds with the application of a little judicious skepticism.

eg Think about :

a) How many prime-time adverts do *you* see for the most-advertised cars, and then think how many adverts are broadcast that you *don't* see for that one model every day/week/year?
b) How much does a 30-second prime-time advert cost to screen.
c) How many of that model do they sell.

Hints :

The *best*-selling car in the UK sells roughly 90,000 models per year. Many popular models are in the 25-50,000/year range (or less)

ITV's CPT (cost-per-thousand viewers) for prime-time 30-second adverts is around 954p.
(http://www.oncomment.co.uk/frames/old_stuff/maynews.htm)
For a spot with 10 million viewers, that's £95,400 per advert, or over £1 per car (for the *best* selling model) for *every* time the advert appears.

Even for spots with for 5 million viewers, for a *popular* model, each buyer of the car could be paying £1 or £2 for each time the advert is shown. Don't forget Channel 4 or 5, and remember that the filming of each different advert for that model (if not a badly-dubbed international version) could be costing you several pounds (or tens of pounds) as well.
If the ad is shown nationally many times each day, and throughout the year, you might begin to understand one big reason why many cars drop several thousand pounds in value the minute they're driven out of the dealer's showroom.

(Figures are approximate, but in the right ball park, I think - any corrections to major errors are welcome)

Verbose, but true!

Also compare computer prices/specs, between TV advertised machines, solely magazine advertised machines and local shops with no advertising... Same curve... Same assumption of customer gullibility by the advertisers...

Regarding computers, one horrific difference I've noticed is in the price of consumables (eg laser cartridges) between office supply companies and discount computer suppliers.
The other day, I was looking for a 10K page laser cartridge for a HP4050, and the price in an office supply catalogue was £109 ex. VAT. The price at Dabs Direct (computer supplier) was £77, so I reckon the office supplier was imposing roughly a 100% markup on the price they pay wholesale. Sometimes you *can* get them to give a discount, but I reckon their standard prices are downright immoral

Oddly enough, the office supply places often send whoever orders stuff from them a bottle or two of wine, or a box of chocolates at Christmas. Still, I guess they can afford it.

Why do You say that SCIENCE is crap? Aren't You meaning that the theory of evolution is crap? SCIENCE is knowledge and knowledge is good if you have it yourself. When it comes to Adam and Eve I don't think any scientists have said that they KNOW they diden't exist in that way. Probably they say that the theory of evolution is more likely than the version printed in an old book (The Bible). Anyway I don't agree with you, because of all EVIDENS that EXIST in benefit of the evolution theory makes me believe in it.

Cool, I shall. What sort of things should go in it do you think?

Dunc !8 ' /

I have a real problem with evolution: If there is anything to it then why do we still have eyebrows?

I am waiting for an answer that indicates that "we" were endowed with our attributes while we still had eyebrows. I was given that answer by a physicist turned anthropologist. When I asked by what method we were endowed, he somehow found something else to do.

Is there a self respecting geologist that believes in "evolution"?
Every one I've met does not.

The real reason I cant accept it, is that I find it very (very) difficult to believe in anything that requires 100,000,000 years of explanation. The scientists that "believe" in evolution, needed time for the theory to "evolve", that was no problem, they simply created it.

Besides, its no theory, it is at best an hypothesis, and a rather tortured one at that.

Eyebrows are to stop sweat from your forehead running into your eyes. When, through evolution, the races that preceded the human race lost their covering of hair, gradually over hundreds of generations, presumably because it offered an survival advantage (maybe one of hygeine), a strip of fur was retained above the eye because not having eyes full of sweat conferred an advantage also.

I'm sure most geologists believe in evolution as it is fully supported by the fossil record.

Evolution would by its nature take a long time. If your mind is closed to anything that would take a long time, then that's your problem.

Speaking for myself, eyebrows are rather efficient rain gutters. Anyone who's ever *really* exercised will be aware that they can do quite a good job at keeping painful trickles of concentrated sweat out of the eyes.
Additionally, given the large fraction of human communication that is non-verbal, especially around the eyes, they can play a very important part in passing information to other people.
I'm certainly not planning on shaving *mine* off any time soon, are you?

Anyway, if they aren't *any* use, presumably any hypothetically perfect designer wouldn't have bothered creating them in the first place.

As someone who, via my chosen sport, knows more than my fair share of geologists, (including one particularly intelligent example who happens to be married to an evolutionary biologist) I'd have to say we must mix in rather separate academic circles. What do the geologists you have encountered have to say about the fossil record?

I'd have to say that just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. Easy answers often turn out to be wrong.
Anyway, it's not a matter of *belief*, it's a matter of *understanding*. Lack of complete comprehension of any given theory shouldn't automatically lead to disbelief in that theory. To paraphrase something I've said before, I doubt my mother has a massive grasp of the fundamentals of digital electronic theory, but that doesn't lead her to believe that computers operate on supernatural principles.

Deep geological time is a very difficult concept to even *try* to comprehend for an animal that only lives for a handful of decades. I haven't succeeded, anmd probably never will, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up thought and dive into dogma. Given the obvious patchiness of preservation of material from millions of years ago, it's clear there will never be *perfect* evidence, but even if there was, no-one would live long enough to be able to examine it anyway.

Smaller scales of evolution (insect resistance to pesticides, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, etc) are visible in human lifetimes, or even in a matter of weeks. By definition, the larger timescales are going to be less directly observable.
Also, in an environment where all creatures of a given species are not genetically identical, natural selection is fundamentally unavoidable. It isn't a *biological* theory as such, it is a an instance of a more general process with the undeniable inevitability of mathematics. In any population with variation and heredity, it is impossible to offer a serious explain of how natural selection can't happen.

Personally, I prefer to think about things that stretch my comprehension, rather than my credulity.

Oh, bugger - I spent so long writing my little piece that I was preempted.
Time to log off I guess. G'night.

Hmmm - different length postings, but roughly the same arguments. Convergent evolution in action.

Okay, I really like science and am planning to be an astronomer. It´s a job where the citizens pay me a lot of money for laying flat on my back looking at the stars. And that has made me start to wonder why we have science, why haven´t we got better things to waste our time with? We seem to have a rather nice life now, why not stop science and start making game-shows instead? The only reasons I can really come up with it because of curiosity, or because we would have been extinct if we didn´t have science. Anybody got a better offer?

BTW, do you think it´s possible to sue H2G2 for giving me a huge phonebill? :-p

Potholer - Although your post was the more long-winded, it was still eloquent...

My favourite example for showing short-term natural selection is moths in the North of England just at the beginning of the industrial revolution... At that time, 19 of 20 moths captured were of a light hue, which blended in well with the pale tree bark of the region, with the other one being dark-winged. These were quickly spotted and eaten by birds. Nature. however, didn't stop producing the darker variety, even though it was at a huge disadvantage in the lottery we call "survival"...

Two decades later, the trees were stained with soot, and the proportion of light to dark moths captured had completely reversed. Now, the light ones didn't survive to breed, but nature still kept producing them...

Some people see a form of intelligence behind this. Personally, I just suspect it's easier to comprehend these mechanisms if we anthropromorphise(sp?) them. They would continue to work just as well without "Intelligent" observers overlaying their own belief system and experiences.

Damn, now *I'm* long-winded...!

Wow Neat! How would you tell if the scat you had was from Opabinia or what?