Evolution answers

[turingtest]

Funny everyone attributes computers to science and how we are all better off because of it. The inventors of the computer were not scientists...they were college dropouts. Apple computer Steve Jobs (dropout). Microsoft Corporation..Bill Gates (dropout).

It was discovered humans aren't even good at computers.
Ordinary chimps outperformed college students in cognitive test using computers. Imagine if we were up against smarter chimps.

Quote:
Matsuzawa emphasises that the chimps in the study are by no means special - all chimps can perform like this, he says. "We underestimate chimpanzee intelligence,"

http://www.newscientist.com/article...rform-humans-at-memory-task.html#.Ut0vn7ROncs

Funny how you chopped off the end of Matsuzawa's quote there-

"We underestimate chimpanzee intelligence," he says. "We are 98.77% chimpanzee. We are their evolutionary neighbours."

I'll also note that chimps using an eidetic ability humans only rarely still possess to outperform them at computer tests of purely memory is not the same as "humans aren't even good at computers." I can only wonder how you would stack up against a chimp in a test of cognition- your ability to understand (or use honestly) what your own sources are saying certainly isn't very impressive on any level.

 

[justintime]

Originally Posted by justintime View Post
...
It is a world created from some primordial soup full of creatures and lagoons and sinister stalkers all competing to destroy the other. Life is determined by selfish genes climbing over each other to succeed. We are just extensions of those selfish genes. So to what end do we owe our accidental meaningless existence? Is it to a theory that cannot explain why human altruism built the institutions, churches, cathedrals, schools and charities? Why every effort by scientists to denigrate human aspirations by shackling us to some evolutionary tree is resisted because the world did not evolve to its current form......humans were inspired to build it so we could enjoy it. It is time to end evolutionary dead end theories and certify its proponents misguided, inept and terribly wrong.

That highlited bit is the part of creationism that I really cannot understand- this childish insistence that what is best in humans could not possible come from humans. Why can't human altruism be attributed to humanity the same way theists insist its sins must be? In fact, if anybody is "denigrating" human aspirations, it's the theists who shackle us to some deity for the ostensible purpose of finding glory by reflection from it, but with the actual effect of belittling man as incapable of appreciating, or being, good for its (and his) own sake.

It is evolution that has a problem dealing with our humanity. To evolutionists we are all driven by survival instincts, the law of the jungle(eat or be eaten), the survival of the fittest, selfish genes. The evolutionary tree is the pecking order ending with the higher apes. We are all creatures of scientific determinism. The universe was created by a big bang and life also was a spontaneous event.....but everything after that took on a very slow gradual path sprinkled with moments of acceleration. The only consistency in these scientific theories is the delusion that accompanies it.

 

[turingtest]

Aside from the errors* in this post, it indicates your duplicity. On the one hand we are created by an intelligent designer who makes no mistakes. On the other hand, chimps are more clever than we are.

*To start: college degrees are not the definition of scientist. Michael Faraday was a layman as was Tycho Brahe. They were both scientists of the first order.

To continue: one need not be a scientist to be an inventor.

There's more, but it will fly over your head, I am sure.

ETA: Can't believe I missed the most obvious error as pointed out by phunk. Jobs and Gates were not involved in the invention of computers.

And "scientist" isn't the definition of "science"; JiT seems determined to make the admitted imperfections of humans the defining characteristic of the process they use to avoid the mistakes those imperfections can lead to- a conflation I'm sure he'd vehemently deny with religion.

 

[turingtest]

It is evolution that has a problem dealing with our humanity. To evolutionists we are all driven by survival instincts, the law of the jungle(eat or be eaten), the survival of the fittest, selfish genes. The evolutionary tree is the pecking order ending with the higher apes. We are all creatures of scientific determinism. The universe was created by a big bang and life also was a spontaneous event.....but everything after that took on a very slow gradual path sprinkled with moments of acceleration. The only consistency in these scientific theories is the delusion that accompanies it.

It's ok, JiT; I understand that you think that evolutionary theory is a religion that is in competition with yours, because you see evolution as a normative process in competition with your deity of choice. You can relax, ok? The only "determinism" is in your religious delusion, and the only competition is in your mind determined to make it one.

 

[bruto]

You think bill gates and steve jobs had anything at all to do with the invention of computers? Wow.

Well, that's one of a bunch of errors here. One of the others being, of course that even an exceptional, history-changing person could not, by definition, be a scientist if he dropped out of college. Even if we acknowledge that Gates and Jobs were not scientists, the reason is that they were not, not that they could not be.

A quick glance notes that I've been thoroughly ninjaed on this one, but I will also point out that it must really sting for a bible-thumping denier of the obvious that one of the actual scientists who can actually be credited with the invention of computers was, of course, famously gay.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

... that one of the actual scientists who can actually be credited with the invention of computers was, of course, famously gay.

OK, Who? Charles Babbage seems to be most commonly cited as father of the computer and he doesn't appear to have been gay.

 

[Garrette]

OK, Who? Charles Babbage seems to be most commonly cited as father of the computer and he doesn't appear to have been gay.

Ted Haggard, silly.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Well, that's one of a bunch of errors here. One of the others being, of course that even an exceptional, history-changing person could not, by definition, be a scientist if he dropped out of college. Even if we acknowledge that Gates and Jobs were not scientists, the reason is that they were not, not that they could not be.

A quick glance notes that I've been thoroughly ninjaed on this one, but I will also point out that it must really sting for a bible-thumping denier of the obvious that one of the actual scientists who can actually be credited with the invention of computers was, of course, famously gay.

Don't you get it? THAT's why 'puters is EEEEEBIIL!

 

[Aridas]

It is evolution that has a problem dealing with our humanity. To evolutionists we are all driven by survival instincts, the law of the jungle(eat or be eaten), the survival of the fittest, selfish genes. The evolutionary tree is the pecking order ending with the higher apes. We are all creatures of scientific determinism. The universe was created by a big bang and life also was a spontaneous event.....but everything after that took on a very slow gradual path sprinkled with moments of acceleration. The only consistency in these scientific theories is the delusion that accompanies it.

Should this be put aside as another testament to ignorance? I don't see a single sentence in there that's actually true.

 

[justintime]

It's ok, JiT; I understand that you think that evolutionary theory is a religion that is in competition with yours, because you see evolution as a normative process in competition with your deity of choice. You can relax, ok? The only "determinism" is in your religious delusion, and the only competition is in your mind determined to make it one.

But evolutionary theory includes religion as an integral part of human development and concludes it confers an evolutionary advantage on those willing to believer in religion.

Evolutionary psychology of religion (wiki) Some pointers for the uninformed of the evolutionary origins of religion.

"The two main schools of thought hold that either religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage, or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations."

"Some scholars have suggested that religion is genetically "hardwired" into the human condition. One controversial hypothesis, the God gene hypothesis, states that some variants of a specific gene, the VMAT2 gene, predispose to spirituality."

"Yet another view is that the behavior of people who participate in a religion makes them feel better and this improves their fitness, so that there is a genetic selection in favor of people who are willing to believe in religion."

 

[Garrette]

But evolutionary theory includes religion as an integral part of human development and concludes it confers an evolutionary advantage on those willing to believer in religion.

Evolutionary psychology of religion (wiki) Some pointers for the uninformed of the evolutionary origins of religion.

Again, more errors than one knows what to do with.

First, evolution is not equal to evolutionary psychology.

Second, the idea of religion playing a role in evolutionary psychology, or even in evolution itself, is not the same as saying that either of those is religion.

You might as well say that baseball actually is a performance enhancing drug.

 

[nathan]

OK, Who? Charles Babbage seems to be most commonly cited as father of the computer and he doesn't appear to have been gay.

Computing has a number of founding fathers, including both Babbage and Turing. Babbage's ideas are more of a vision thing.

The modern computer is more precisely named 'the stored program computer'. This means that the program the computer runs is stored in memory and can be manipulated by the computer itself. That is an incredibly powerful ability. The first such computer was, IIRC, the Manchester Mark 2 -- prior to that one had to program the computer by rewiring a patch panel. Babbage envisioned this kind of machine (his Analytical Engine, not the Difference Engine), but did not construct one. Turing's insight was on the theory of what are now called Turing Machines. All (non quantum) digital computers are essentially Turing Machines, and thus equivalent in what they can compute. Turing Completeness is used as the definition of computability these days. Such completeness pops up in surprising places -- for instance the Minecraft environment is Turing Complete.

</derail>

 

[Aridas]

But evolutionary theory includes religion as an integral part of human development and concludes it confers an evolutionary advantage on those willing to believer in religion.

Evolutionary psychology of religion (wiki) Some pointers for the uninformed of the evolutionary origins of religion.

First of all... this is a non sequitur to what you quoted as what you were responding to. Second... your description of what you quoted right after was wrong, which is quite sad, really, since the quote wasn't remotely hard to understand or unclear. Try rereading it?

Regardless, what you cited in no way supports any of the arguments that you've been making.

 

[John Jones]

Funny everyone attributes computers to science and how we are all better off because of it. The inventors of the computer were not scientists...they were college dropouts. Apple computer Steve Jobs (dropout). Microsoft Corporation..Bill Gates (dropout).

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jobs and Gates invented computers. That's rich.

 

[icebear]

Wasn't the idea of being able to load programs into a computer rather than hard-wiring separate computers for separate tasks attributed to John Von Neumann and Herman Goldstyne?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Computing has a number of founding fathers, including both Babbage and Turing. Babbage's ideas are more of a vision thing.

Don't think Turing is ever cited as the father of the computer though, computer science maybe.

 

[aggle-rithm]

Wasn't the idea of being able to load programs into a computer rather than hard-wiring separate computers for separate tasks attributed to John Von Neumann and Herman Goldstyne?

Just about any concept in computer science could be traced back to multiple origins. Packet switching and public-key encryption, for instance, were developed independently by different teams in different parts of the world.

Once the level of technology reaches a certain point, a lot of different people think along the same lines.

 

[John Jones]

But evolutionary theory includes religion as an integral part of human development and concludes it confers an evolutionary advantage on those willing to believer in religion.

Evolutionary psychology of religion (wiki) Some pointers for the uninformed of the evolutionary origins of religion.

This is the same subject you were caught lying about in the Carl Sagan thread. Page 78.

How do we know you're not lying again?

 

[justintime]

Wasn't the idea of being able to load programs into a computer rather than hard-wiring separate computers for separate tasks attributed to John Von Neumann and Herman Goldstyne?

Early computer designs where more mechanical devices unlike the digital computers we see today. The personal computers that dominate the digital age were pioneered by two dropouts Steve Jobs (Apple) and Bill Gates (Microsoft).

It was years later that touchscreen were introduced which made it possible for chimpanzees to participate in the digital revolution. It was reasoned if 2 dropouts can design a computer surely even chimpanzees can master it. It turned out a humbling experience for college students competing with chimps in the experiment.

 

[John Jones]

Early computer designs where more mechanical devices unlike the digital computers we see today. The personal computers that dominate the digital age were pioneered by two dropouts Steve Jobs (Apple) and Bill Gates (Microsoft).

Bill Gates didn't pioneer any computers. His contribution was PC-DOS (which he purchased and licensed to IBM).


Heathkit was available before the Apple 1.

Do yu have any real knowledge about anything?