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

>>relatively short time spans<<

Is that a handful of generations, or a hundred, or?

Are you saying that the capacity to live in say a hot, dry, intensely sunny climate is considered superficial in the sense that any group of people could adapt to that in a relatively short period of time? Does this mean that white Australasian's are going to adapt to the additional UV exposure from the ozone hole for instance? How long would that take (roughly)?


>>it's the *Theory* of Gravity, and that's near enough reality for me.<<

Bearing in mind that I am not a scientist so I have to double think to get the terms and concepts in line - didn't the development of quantum mechanics theories demonstrate that Newtonian physics is a view of _one_ part of reality?

Well it makes a change for another honest (apparently) person to turn up in such a thread rather than just the sycophantic friends of side being dishonest.

I disagree with "failed to step back enough to engage with what underlay that failure" though. If you look at post 20 you'll see that I not only noted the problem with my jocular "Do try to engage your brain before typing" but I also went on to make predictions, later proved to be as correct as such things can be, as to why Tanzen preferred to believe the opposite of what the evidence said.

What tanzen could have said in post 19 was something like "I'm tired and none of that made any sense to me. I don't even get why Israel is relevant." and then gone on to say "Could you clarify x, y and z." (to which I would have done) or possibly the more honest "I'm not really interested in the science view anyway since I prefer to ignore the evidence in favour of beliefs".

Instead she chose to fabricate things which I hadn't said (based on her prejudiced misconceptions) falsely accuse me of having views I didn't have and then rant at me and insult me on the basis of that.

"I think one of the things that happens is that the science view often mistakes theory for reality."

You might think that but it isn't true. Scientists very rarely make that mistake - though they are often falsely accused of it, eg by creationists about as often as they say "it's only a theory" (sometimes by the same ones in the same rant in their usual self-contradictory manner). Scientists are actually constantly trying to poke holes in existing theories - but only based on evidence and not on belief. How else do you think that theories evolve and are refined or (rarely) overturned completely? It certainly isn't by the non-scientists.

Well, bearing in mind that I'm not a scientist either... I don't really know.

Gravity is now regarded as a special case of the Theory of Relativity, it's true - but I'm still not going to be jumping off anything high up in the near future.

I do sympathise, SEF. Just thought you could have given tanzen the benefit of the doubt that her confusion was genuine for a couple more posts. When you know your stuff you can afford to be magnanimous.

Noggin

>> but I'm still not going to be jumping off anything high up in the near future.<<

That's not scientific theory, that's common sense

"Equally obviously they have adapted differently to their local environments."

Not really. There is a lot of adaption of the environment to suit the locals. There is some adaption of *behaviour* to suit the environment, eg wearing clothes, eating different things. There is very little *biological* adaptation to the environment. Skin colour is much more trivial than people think. "White" children (not strict albinos) can be born to black couples with no history of white ancestors and "black" children can similarly be born to white couples. Even going back a bit further to primate ancestors, the gene to be more hirsuit can be accidentally turned back on in humans.

If you want the sort of length of time it takes for something like a human (ie size and complexity of genetic material and breeding rate) to truly adapt to an environment and be different at the species level then you should look again at the links to hominid fossils and the time spans given by radiometric dating and by extrapolation of genetic differences back to splitting points. There is no known time from the current state of humans forwards to new adaptations since that will almost certainly involve cheating by artificial genetic manipulation.

Ok, this is the last post I will be making to this thread. If anyone feels they have something to add, please send it on to me personally, as it is not what this thread is about...

I would like one final chance to defend myself here.

...below is an excerpt from most of the post that seems to have been the turning point here...the parts in quotation marks are SEF's post...all other remarks are mine.
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"Similarly the people in Israel believe they should own certain territory despite their own records showing that they stole it from the previous occupiers (probably non-indigenous too)."

I have no idea what this has to do with anything...unless the point you're making is that the European "settlers" of the 1800's have no claim to Australia...which is a point I have no inclination to argue...

"If the Australians had remained physically isolated long enough then they might have become reproductively isolated and distinct. But they didn't and they haven't and they probably won't now that other human tribes have found them."

So you're saying over 40,000 years isn't long enough to become reproductively isolated and distinct? And more to the point, are you saying that Australian Aboriginals are not distinctive amongst other races in the world, because if that's what you're saying I would have to disagree!!

"From the fossil evidence of other hominids, they might even count themselves lucky they didn't get wiped out. "

That's the same philosophy that was prominent at the time of settlement...but after over 200 years of destruction of environment, introduction of new diseases, not to mention mass murders amongst other things, the Aboriginal people still survive. Do you really think they would've been wiped out without the introduction of the Europeans? Because the evidence to me seems to prove to the contrary...

"The evidence which exists so far suggests that the remaining humans (everywhere) are the descendants of one group and that at various points all rival branches such as neanderthals died off (with human aggression being one of the most likely reasons proposed based on known behaviour)."

Unless this is another pearl of wisdon which has been thrown in for no apparent reason, the implication seems to be that Australian Aboriginals are the missing link! Now, I don't want to assume that that's what you're saying, because that's a very big call to make, not to mention unsubstantiated...

The Australian Aboriginal people had, up until the time of settlement, lived in almost perfect harmony with their surroundings, had learnt how to live off the land without destroying it and without wandering nomadically and hoping for the best...these were a people who knew what was going on and how it all worked. To imply that these people were CAVEMEN is not only incredibly insulting, but also unsubstantiated, and, in my opinion, more than a little naïve.
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With the value of hindsight, I should have best left these posts unanswered.

However, I don't think I was out of line at all. Now I admit, as I have already done on more than one occasion, that I misinterpreted this (I took "reproductively isolated and distinct" to mean a "race" distinct from others peoples in other countries, rather than a whole different species).

Further to the point, I made clear with each of the other arguments that I was unaware of what the author was saying, what I TOOK it to mean, and my arguments for those points. But on each occassions I tried to make it clear that this is what I took the post to mean. If people have seen this as being taken out of context, or "putting words into their mouths" I do apogise, but I have tried to make it as clear as possible that the points were unclear with me to begin with.

Secondly, I apologise to everyone who has wanted to participate in an orderly argument here. I fear too much of this thread has been taken up with far too much "drama" and I am sorry for the part I have played in it.

I feel like I misread one post and seem to have spent the entire week afterwards defending myself and apologising in turn. Therefore, in the interests of this debate, I will no longer be participating in it, as I feel that my presence (as well as my beliefs) have caused a little too much heat in this argument.

Once again, I apologise if anything I have said has upset anyone, as this has not been my intention at all.