I don't recall questioning the explanation....
You didn't. I don't recall saying you did. I was supporting the hypothesis by arguing that alternative hypotheses fail to explain things adequately.
Intelligent life.
- Thread starter Castiel
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You didn't. I don't recall saying you did. I was supporting the hypothesis by arguing that alternative hypotheses fail to explain things adequately.
Sounds about right
Evolution is distinctly non-random.
We are Borg!....
It's true. We are in fact, Borg.
Sorry, I thought you were asking me why, not asking rhetorically.
Killer Whales are [i think] the most intelligent species alongside humans.
We do now because of our technology.
Historically we have been forced to adapt to changing environmental conditions, climate, change of habitat and availability of food for example and done so very successfully.
My own input on the 'which other animal is most intelligent' is that it's a totally unanswerable question. Intelligence in this context is such a loose term. Some behaviour might be entirely free from independant thought, but should that be included? If not, why not? Is intelligence the ability to work out a maze or to survive their otherwise immensely complicated social interaction in an otherwise unimpressive lifestyle? How about impressive memory, such as an elephant which can recognise other elephants that haven't met for decades?
However, there are animals that do have intelligent and human like characteristics. I would plump for:
Dogs
Cats
Octopi
Dolphins and other toothed whales
Elephants
Primates
One striking feature of intelligence I have seen was when I went to Sea World. There was a dolphin show on and they were doing tricks under the instruction of the trainers. Suddenly, one disobeyed what they were told to do, went up to the side of the tank where a woman was standing, and stole her sunglasses! The trainer repeatedly blew her whilstle to try and control the dolphin but it was having none of it. It just sat there with the sunglasses on its tongue just out of reach of the lady, making a sound that one can only interpret as laughing. It then proceeded to tail walk with the sunglasses on display accross the pool until it eventually got bored of them and let them go. I am pretty certain that the dolphin was 'showing off', which is pretty amazing really.
However, there are animals that do have intelligent and human like characteristics. I would plump for:
Dogs
Cats
Octopi
Dolphins and other toothed whales
Elephants
Primates
One striking feature of intelligence I have seen was when I went to Sea World. There was a dolphin show on and they were doing tricks under the instruction of the trainers. Suddenly, one disobeyed what they were told to do, went up to the side of the tank where a woman was standing, and stole her sunglasses! The trainer repeatedly blew her whilstle to try and control the dolphin but it was having none of it. It just sat there with the sunglasses on its tongue just out of reach of the lady, making a sound that one can only interpret as laughing. It then proceeded to tail walk with the sunglasses on display accross the pool until it eventually got bored of them and let them go. I am pretty certain that the dolphin was 'showing off', which is pretty amazing really.
Adapting vs Manipulating - Humans have always been manipulators though. There's evidence that even the earliest "men" used tools to live their lives and hunt their food and so on.
Animals like sea creatures are adapters, they become masters of their environment because they're stuck in that environment. They can't manipulate it. Just like the sky with Birds. we can't become masters of any environment because of the way we are. We manipulate it instead which is both a good and a bad thing.
Paraphrasing from The Human Planet btw! (if you've not seen the 8 parts series, watch it in the first instance, it's on iPlayer).
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Could it be that since the "start" of time/universe etc, everything has been leading up to this point, or our point in evolution. All of the factors previous have created the outcome at this point, including humanity and all of its thought processes, philosophies etc.
As you can probably tell, I have no grasp of science or evolutionary theory - I just think the chances of us turning out how we have were so minute, yet we did.
I think the chances and factors, occurences since the dawn of time couldn't provide the conditions/chances for more than one species to have suposed self awareness.
Then again, I am a dunceton!
As you can probably tell, I have no grasp of science or evolutionary theory - I just think the chances of us turning out how we have were so minute, yet we did.
I think the chances and factors, occurences since the dawn of time couldn't provide the conditions/chances for more than one species to have suposed self awareness.
Then again, I am a dunceton!
We could just as easily have been exterminated by a cataclysmic cosmic event early on. It's all totally random.
Well, put it this way....
The chance that my birthday is on the 14th of August (which it is), out of all the possible days (365 of them) is 1/365
The chance that your birthday is on the day it is also 1/365.
The chance that both of other birthdays are on those days is 1/(365 x 365).
Ocuk has 12,626,535 members. The chance that we all have out birthdays on the days that we do is 1/(365^12,626,535)
Yet, here we all are
In short, you can't use 'backwards mathematics' in attempt to speculate something was unlikely or impossible. All you can say is that there were circumstances that have given that result, and there are many possible variations to those circumstances.
The chances of life on Earth was minute at one point in its life, yes, but the numbers of galaxies being destroyed and formed and the numbers of stars within those galaxies in the known universe is so large (and always increasing) that this minute chance seems insignificant.
We know that life was kick started on Earth by meteorites bringing the common elements here when they crashed. The conditions were just right and so nature took over from there.
Being at the right place at the right time helps everything
Ultimately it will also come to an end in a number of ways and from this end new stars and galaxies will be born and the whole cycle continues forever. It's like a natural order to the universe.
Exactly - sorry if I didn't explain myself very well. What has been before has led up to this point. Out of all the possible combinations of events which could have happened, we have had one set timeline and set of circumstances. The outcome of which has bought us to this point.
If significant events occured in the past, such as mass plague / climate change, it's possible (to my mind) that this would have had a direct outcome on how humanity is and percieves itself today.
(Sorry if off topic a bit!)
I tried to limit it to sapience, but seems that defining Human intelligence as something separate from intelligence shown in a more limited spectrum in the animal kingdom is more complex than I thought.
I'm not convinced that Dolphins are not 'laughing' at us Stupid Humans to be honest.
Do we actually know that, or is it just one of many theories regarding abiogenesis.
Are "Chavs" a sub-species of Human?
The elements found inside the fragments were older than our planet so its the only logical explanation since it contains the building blocks of life!
Have you some sort of link about these 'fragments'. Sounds interesting.
That isn't genetic evolution as such in my opinion, more socio-economic and socio-political hindrance.
