DescentBB

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Topher:
How is that? If you're going to say because "amino acides and sugars react with oxygen" I would call on you to defend that with some scientific proof that the rate of consumption is so fast that no other reactions can occur. For example, there's oxygen in the air, but my glazed donut still has sugar on it. And my DNA is not unravling into CO2 and water as we speak...</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
It's called a controlled reaction Tofu! Look up any site on cellular reactions and there will be protien reactions. That's why we have to eat vaious protiens. What do we breath out, Co2. The human body also creates small quantitys of water, but they're insignifigant. The sugars in the human body are different than glazing, dope. Sorry to be so rude, but it's almost common knowledge. (high school biology\chemistry)

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Shoku:
There are many self-aware creatures on this planet. Many with high intelligence, like dolphins. What makes man different than all the rest is his need for a spiritual concection. Lacking that connection, men (and women), try to fill that void with other things - material posessions, sex, drugs, power, or some guiding principle like the theory of evolution. However, the only thing that can really make us whole is a conncection with our creator. A conncection based on truth. There are many things taught by "religion" that are far from truth. Jesus said "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Free from what? Free from falsehood, from the lies perpetrated throughout mankind's history, lies that move us farther away from our creator. Due to this truth I would say the evidence does not point to us evolving, but to us devolving; to the fact that man has been degraded with the passage of time. One point of evidence for this is language.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Dolphins aren't sentient, they have no understanding of death or infinity. I heard that they trained a Gorrilla to talk using hand signals, and they asked her what death was, and she said that it was a long sleep. We are the only species on the planet who can fathom infinity. most creatures are self aware,(even some robots!) only humans are sentient.

<font face="Arial" size="3"> Ancient languages are much more complicated than modern ones (gramatically). If you don't believe this, just study ancient greek (as I have). Ancient langauges are full of nuance and meaning that go way beyond anything possible today. Modern communication is quite elementary compare to ancient forms of communication. If evoloution were true, the opposite would make more sense.</font>

Ahh a fellow greek learner, quite a brain buster ain't it? 24 ways to say "the" in just the present tense was a little much for me

<font face="Arial" size="3">Dolphins aren't sentient -Meathead</font>

I never said sentient, I said self-aware. Many animals look in a mirror and think what they see is another animal. Dolphins look in mirrors and they see themselves, just like humans. Again, only humans have a spiritual need - some fill that need, some don't.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Meathead:
<b>
It's called a controlled reaction Tofu! Look up any site on cellular reactions and there will be protien reactions. That's why we have to eat vaious protiens. What do we breath out, Co2. The human body also creates small quantitys of water, but they're insignifigant. The sugars in the human body are different than glazing, dope. Sorry to be so rude, but it's almost common knowledge. (high school biology\chemistry)</b></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Hooray, I don't care anymore. I can't argue with someone that keeps changing the subject. <-- emo tears for you.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Shoku:
If evolution were true, the opposite would make more sense.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Evolution isn't always about complexity. Simplier languages lead to less confusion, are easier to learn, and therefore survive better than horribly complex ones. That, and with more and more people learning how to read it doesn't make economic sense to try to teach everybody something that's too hard for the average man to use.

"Marsupial soup" ... remember that..? full of mutations ! just simmer and stir !

<font face="Arial" size="3">Simplier languages lead to less confusion- Tetrad</font>

Actually they lead to more confussion - why do you think there are so many different translations of the Bible? By knowing the original language and reading the original texts confussion becomes rare, and usually only arises when there are missing sections of text - or areas of conflicting text due to bad copying.

<font face="Arial" size="3"> . . . with more and more people learning how to read it doesn't make economic sense to try to teach everybody something that's too hard for the average man to use - Tetrad</font>

Ancient languages were not too hard for the average man in the past, but they are now. Yes, we have advanced technologically, but without modern machinery man was able to constuct some very impressive stuff in the ancinet world, and he was able to record things in a way that make the average man's head spin today - it takes years to learn the nuances of ancient language (and no one today really "knows" it all about any ancient language), yet when they were in common use it was no big deal. And remember at one time Greek was the universal language, like English is today.

Where does this idea of regression come from? We aren't devolving and despite popular belief we've actually improved quite a great deal as a species since our earliest days.

I don't know how people can sit with a straight face and say that things are getting worse, the world is going down the drain, etc...etc....We are, by a huge margin, a product of our own devices. This world we live in today is many times safer then the world we lived in hundreds or thousands of years ago. The only reason things seem worse is because we hear about EVERYTHING. We live in an age where information is avialable whether you want to hear it or not.

Hundreds of years ago your brother could be murdered while you were away or he was away somewhere and it would take YEARS to find out about it, that is IF you found out about it at all. Today your brother could be murdered and the whole state you live in knows about it, or the country, depending on the severity of his death.

No, we live in the greatest age mankind has ever seen. We've seen horrible travesties, but in the scheme of things the last 100 years have probably been the most peaceful time in human history. Like I said though, we are a product of our own devices and as the devices become more dangerous and complicated so to does the risk of bad things happening increase while using them.

Having a complicated language does not show sign of advanced intelligence if it is merely on the vurnacular level. The modern language of mathematics would steam roll over anything the Greeks had ever thought of in thier time. Tetrad is right about what he said, you have to remember that not everyone knew how to read except for the scholars. Speaking a language is one thing, knowing what written characters mean and understanding those characters is completely different.

Take into consideration there was a period of time where teaching the language as it was documented was not required for the common people. That was a trend in a lot of societies, so there was a period where people were "dumbed down" so to speak, so in essence we've re-evolved a great deal since then as it is a requirement that most people be able to read, write, know arithmetic and comprehend all of these things to be a contributor to our modern society.

Meathead, man doesn't have any real understanding of infinity either. We can comprehend the idea of infinity but as we do not experience it, there is no real understanding of it. The fact that a Gorrilla can express that death is a "long sleep" wouldn't be any less acceptable then the response given by a small human child. The fact that the animal can express that shows a very high degree of intelligence as we ourselves have to be taught in order to express our intellegence, our intelligence is measured by how much knowledge we can retain and how much of it we can put to use.

The same can be said for any animal that "learns" something. People say "that isn't intelligence, thats just learning through repetition", well, we learn the same way, so are we not intelligent? We have to DO things and HEAR things constantly to learn them. There is no difference other then the fact that our species chose to ask "WHY" about everything, then not only did we ask, we pursued the answers to "WHY". Our pursuit of "WHY" has led to our current knowledge and understanding of things. Since we were the only ones that cared we feel we have sentience over other animals when in fact we've just been doing it for a very long time and have the ability to pass down and retain information.

I'm not saying any animal could become like us, but our closest genetic matches certainly could become similar if they really cared about where they came from and bothered passing the info down to offspring. Its just a matter of perspective on things and we've been the only ones who've cared to explore that perspective as well as a whole bunch of other things.

<font face="Arial" size="3">Having a complicated language does not show sign of advanced intelligence if it is merely on the vurnacular level. -Tryanny</font>

Speaking a complicated language like ancient greek can be as complicated as it is to write, due to all the various forms involved. I once asked an instructor if he used the langauge while speaking with other professors, or on trips to europe. "Oh no," he said, too difficult, and modern greeks would not comprehend much . . .they'd think I was ******" Ancinet greek is today considered a dead language because no one speaks it anymore (modern greek is quite different). English is another example of how language shifts to a more simpler form - it's original form is much richer, and definately more precise in expression. What does this mean? Language has simplified because it takes less mental energy. Years ago in the USA childern were taught Latin in the elementary grades. Today most kids probably don't even know what Latin is at that age.

If you've ever studied any of the available catalogs of ancient texts, you'd see that ancient man was no dummy. He may not have had cell phones and an internet, but what he did have he used quite well.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Shoku:
Language has simplified because it takes less mental energy.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

All the more reason for it to be preferred over more complex ones.

Besides, evolution of cultures and evolution of biology, while following similar patterns, aren't really the same issue being debated at all. Just because you might not like biological evolution doesn't mean that cultures don't change because of certain outside and inner forces. Anthropologists sort of hijacked the word, in a sense.

Your arguement that we've over simplified our languages because we aren't smart enough to comprehend the older ones just doesn't hold water for me though. I feel if you tried to teach them our language or other modernly evolved languages, they would find our "slangs" and small verbal nuances to be just as difficult to learn and remember the meanings as it would for us to back track and re-learn ancient greek completely, let alone use it properly.

I'm not saying they were stupid, or that we are better but we live in WAY different time periods. You're comparing apples and oranges. They'd be just as clueless as a young person living in our world as we would be trying to survive in theirs. Each generation is lacking in something in different areas of thought and knowledge. That is why future generations are supposed to build on to that and improve, as we have, the understanding of ourselves and the world / universe around us.

It is a work in progress that will never be completed. For example, I don't know that many people who would be able to survive for very long if there was no electricity to power their homes. Hell, theres people working at stores that can't even count out the right change or even function properly as a cashier when something goes wrong with the networked computer register system.

What I'm getting at is, as new knowledge forms to better our lives, old knowledge phases out to make room for the new, until eventually the newer generations have no clue how to do certain things because it wasn't required to know. If the power ever did stop, we as a society would have to re-learn how to live without it and survive in the chaos that would follow.

So, each group in history has their things they are best at. We are meant to improve on them and remove that which is no longer necassary. Ancient Greek as a language has apparently been deemed no longer necassary, not because we were stupid, but because it wasn't needed any longer to express things.

the language argument is rubbish. Language can only be learned easily in a certain age range (up to beginning puberty or something), after that it becomes more and more difficult.
Let children grow up with parents speaking ancient greek with him, and the child will master the language soon.

Besides that, i don't believe that languages became less complex, just more elegant. The same information (syntax/semantics) was in it from the beginning, and this didn't change. Just the way both were realized...

i get the overwhelming urge to make fun of meathead. i'll stay out of it though, as far as i'm concerned people can believe whatever they want, as long as they leave me the hell alone.

It's true that language is easiest to learn before the age of six, however, my point about the complexity of ancient language slowly simplifying over time was stated as evidence that the standard view of evolution doesn't hold any weight against the linguistic evidence. An article in an old "Science Illustrated" said this: "Older forms of the languages known today were far more difficult than their modern descendants . . . man appears not to have begun with a simple speech, and gradually made it more complex, but rather to have gotten hold of a tremndously knotty speech somewhere in the unrecorded past, and gradually simplified it to the modern forms." Liguist Dr. Mason also points out that "the idea that 'savages' speak in a series of grunts, and are unable to express many 'civilized' concepts, is very wrong," and that "many of the languages of non-literate peoples are far more complex than modern European ones." The evidence is thus against any 'evolutionary' origin of speech or of ancient languages. If we are the result of 'evolution' then 'evolution' would have a direct effect on language, beginning with the simple and leading to the more complex (exactly they way children learn to communicate, gradually). Yet all the evidence points to the opposite taking place.

how does it lead to the opposite if it gets simpler? wouldn't that be more like... oh, say - optimization?

animal languages are extremely simple, just grunts growls and yells. If Evolution is true, you would expect older languages to be simpler, not more complex.

quit dancing circles.

if a language goes from too hard for most people to read/write, to a language where everyone can do it before they reach 10 years old, how is that going backwards?

Meathead, you still make zero sense. I think your "135" IQ is dropping steadily.

Animal communication is more complex than you think. Human communication is pretty much irrelevant to evolution.

Now I'm curious, how many words were available to some of the older languages? English language is over 1,000,000 words today.

Old Testament greek had 24 ways to say "the" in the present tense. There's three ways the say "and" in just the present tense. I studied Greek for 2 years, and never got past present tense. Spanish class took only a month to get into past and future tenses.
(By the way my I.Q. has actually gone up by 15 points in the past 2 years)

Languages are of cultural origin. Evolutionary arguments have no relation to them (only by metaphor or oversimplification)
What you can argue about is the language CAPACITY of humans. And even when today's langauges were simpler (I have yet to see evidence for this) this would have no bearing on the question whether the language capacity has gotten any worse.

For some people it has
<font face="Symbol">carw su dulous</font> Ican read and understand that.

<font face="Arial" size="3">if a language goes from too hard for most people to read/write, to a language where everyone can do it before they reach 10 years old, how is that going backwards? -kurupt</font>

In the growth of any organism things start out simple and move to the complex. It matters not if that growth is physical or mental. Since language in any form is a LEARNED response, the learning process should dictate that language evolved slowly, from the simple to the complex, as everyhting else in the world has according to the guiding matrix of evolution. It's backwards because it appeared fully developed, and much more complex than it is today - a contradiction to the accepted understanding of evolution.

<font face="Arial" size="3">Now I'm curious, how many words were available to some of the older languages? English language is over 1,000,000 words today. -Testiculese</font>

The fact that English has so many words is indicitive of its simplification. Ancient Greek had about one third the amount of words (maybe less), yet because of the complexity of the language, they were able to communicate with more precision than is possible today with English. It's not the amount of words, it what you can do with them. One word in Ancient Greek had over 215 different forms, and each one meant something different.

Communication is the life-blood of society. I would say this topic needs a transfusion

Good grief. 11 pages all to help poor meathead with his junior highschool term paper.

What is the most pages a post has ever gone?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Shoku:
It's backwards because it appeared fully developed, and much more complex than it is today - a contradiction to the accepted understanding of evolution.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It did not "appear" fully developed. Greek didn't just manifest itself out of thin air one day and slowly get more simple over time. Greek itself is a culmination of the primitive languages of the area and so on.

Besides, cultural evolution and biological evolution are really two seperate issues.

Shoku, since when is everything governed by evolution? Who claims that?
And evolution does not predict that everything gets more complex over generations...

<font face="Arial" size="3">Greek didn't just manifest itself out of thin air one day -Tetrad</font>

Greek is derived from Indo-European - as was Sanskrit. Sanskrit was just as develpoed, if not more so, than Ancient Greek. It is understood that Indo-European had seven cases, (or maybe even 11 according to some scholars).

if you see languages from a evolutionary point of view, you could also predict that it should get simpler while still allowing full freedom of expression.
- the easier to learn, the more people will use the language
- therefore, selection pressure on "ease of learning"
- only the easly languages survive, other's are used the less and less

<font face="Arial" size="3">evolution does not predict that everything gets more complex over generations... -Pandora</font>

On the contrary, that's the whole premiss of evolution, that simple forms evolve into more complex ones â?? single cell to us. This continuity of life is the entire backbone of the theory â?? simple forms create more complex ones. If the evolutionists are correct, and man evolved from a less sophisticated version of primate, one closer to apes, then language should have developed in a similar manner â?? gradually becoming more sophisticated, adding speech to body language, speech that would slowly 'evolve' (less complex into more complex) into the languages we have today. Yet, again, the evidence points to languages more sophisticated devolving into our modern ones â?? counter the the continuity proposed by evolution.

Shoku, IMHO, it's the other way round. You can EXPLAIN via evolution why something has become more complex over generations. But the theory does not necessarily predicts that everything will become more complex.

Evolution favors those organisms which are best adaped to the environment, may they be simple or overly complex. And as i described in the post above, languages may be better adapted (to the environment of humankind) when they are simple and elegant. <-- of course you need to accept the basic premise that cultural stuff is governed by a process similar to evolution as well.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

but it's fun
and i am bored

Meathead, that still says nothing. There are several dozen was the word 'set' is used. It's still completely irrelevant.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Pandora:
<b> but it's fun
and i am bored</b></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Argument for argument sake can be fun.

I think it's time to end this - it could go on forever. Arguments should be based on evidence - all the evidence - personal opinion is of little value when logic and fact are ignored. I don't have all the answers, no one does, but I do know that the complete catalog of evidence for evolution is missing some very important pieces, and that great leaps must be taken to jump the holes of inadequacy that fill many aspects of the "theory."

May your pyros fly true, and your weapons always hit their targets

i'm no evolution buff, but it isn't evolution all about adapting to survive, not adapting to be complex?

adapting to survive is natural selection, Evolution takes that one step too far, saying that in the proscess of natural selection complexity formed. That step wen't right over the edge of a cliff, saying complexity came from simplicity. An impossible step because natural selection, if it changes information at all, it looses information. take a look at Panda Bears, they went to far in natural selection, and now they have huge problems.

Look on the downside; If you're all wrong then you can expect the Lord of the Morning to shove his shiny pitchfork up yer a$$es and you get to be "meat-on-a-stick" for eternity......


(hey hey page 12!!!)

Anyone ever see an intermediary fossil between T-rex and chicken? You would think that going from several stories tall to several inches tall would need intermediaries, and a ton of them. Where are they?(is 12 a record?)

Um, Meathead? Birds are not specific descendants of the species Tyrannosaurus rex. Scientists think that the first birds came from smaller carnivorous dinosaurs, some of which were not much bigger than a chicken. Also, why do you insist on demanding so-called "missing links"? The evolution of species doesn't exactly work like that. If you trace the decent of any modern species, you'll find many branches, dead ends, similar organisms of different species alive in the same area at the same time, and so on. And yes, you'll find gaps in the fossil record. That's to be expected; fossilization is a delicate process that requires the right conditions and materials to take place. In reference to your earlier question about the "missing link" between humans and apes, let me first say that humans are not descended from apes; rather, we share a common ancestor. Have you even looked at the fossil record of early hominid species? If so, you'll notice that it is very complicated and that there is much we do not know. However, this doesn't disprove evolution. Every year, archaeologists and anthropologists discover more fossils and more information about early man. Maybe in time, they'll have a complete enough record for you to at least consider evolution as a possibility (though I somehow doubt it ).

Google comes up with some interesting reports when searching for various permutations of "bird-dinosaur missing links". The first few are about a find in Arizona during the late 1990's that was apparently <a href=http://www.arn.org/docs/pearcey/np_hesp ... 0300.htm>a hoax</a>. In 2001, <a href=http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s283717.htm >another bird-dinosaur specimen was excavated in China</a>.

I just thought I'd throw that out there to get a few people to stop sounding like broken records.

Moderators !.. What defines a thread that's run it's course..?

Meathead !... What are you on ? ..! Stop It Please .. ! You're showing off what you DON'T know, !... about pandas, fossil records, the earth's geologic history, Astronomy, Anthropology, Archaeology Evolution, Biology, etc etc... ! Maybe start a theology thread, and then the Panspemia-spoutin' types like me won't get all so excited about your "theories"..

Mercy Kill this thread, someone Please!.. Just postcount-knocking gobble dee Gook !