Is evolution fact or a theory? Can it be both?
Is the Theory of Evolution a fact? Is it silly to even ask such a question when, in most textbooks, we refer to Darwinian Evolution, and other branches of evolution, under the umbrella title of "Theory of Evolution"? Can a theory be a fact?…
Article comments
26 - duane
Yes, always happy to add my two cents when it comes to the evolution of modern man.
I don't have any comment on the English question (#20). This is a topic that is currently being debated by paleoanthropologists, psychologists, and social scientists. Good observation, STM.
However, the French question (#21) is fairly well understood. The "theory" goes like this: Frenchman of the modern era are the descendants of interbreeding between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal successors, such as Aurignacian man and Gravettian man. It should be stressed that there was no direct breeding between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal, so the theory goes. Thus the story of French characteristics goes back to the Upper Paleolithic times when Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal were in direct competition for resources in what is now modern-day France. Cro-Magnon had developed a diverse omnivorous diet, having formed a relatively cooperative --- almost agrarian --- lifestyle.
This cultural stability led to specialization, including a "priest" class, hunters, "farmers," etc. Their rudimentary religion (or science) was accompanied by elaborate rituals, including the preparation of exotic meals and the donning of garish clothes. Specialized "guilds" were established, where the preparation of food for sacrifice to the evolving pantheon of gods, and the making of ornamental clothing for the practice of rituals, were honed.
Enter Neanderthal, strictly nomadic, warlike. The first encounters of Neanderthal with Cro-Magnon did not go well for the latter, who would often turn and run at the first sign of trouble. Neanderthal began a seek-and-destroy campaign to annihilate Cro-Magnon. The more clever among the Neanderthal took captives from the Cro-Magnon tribes, recognizing the virtue of slave labor, which created upheaval within the ranks of the Neanderthal chiefs. Many saw no reason to keep Cro-Magnons around, since few of them could fight. However, perhaps in the interest of currying favor with their captors, Cro-Magnon guild members displayed their cooking prowess. The more powerful among the Neanderthal chiefs took to maintaining a staff of Cro-Magnons who were adept at cooking, while killing the rest. Many of the cooking guild were also familiar with the fashioning of garments, and the chiefs saw yet another way to display their wealth and prowess.
Thus generations of selective breeding among the fashion and culinary adepts led to extreme specialization among the surviving Cro-Magnons. Neanderthal himself was apparently too dense to learn these skills and dispense with the Cro-Magnon contingent.
Eventually, the love of a good meal and the burgeoning pre-occupation with fashion softened the once hearty Neanderthals. The decisive blow, however, came soon after the Cro-Magnons discovered truffles (Tuber melanosporum) and pate de foie gras. The Neanderthal nervous system was ill-prepared for these dishes. Indeed, a large serving of truffles induced behavior in the Neanderthal that had all the earmarks of intoxication. Trying to stand after such a meal, a Neanderthal chief would often stagger and tip over, unconscious. The clever Cro-Magnon cook would steal trinkets and weapons from the chief, and barter them away for basic necessities among lower clan members, where "mum" was the word. Thus evolved the phrase, "Did you get a good tip?" referring both to the degree of intoxication and the size of the loot thus acquired. More seriously, however, truffles and pate, while irresistible to the Neanderthal, led to irreversible impairment of his reproductive system. Over time, paleolithic French cooking decimated the Neanderthal population. Cro-Magnon, putting two and two together, interpreted their superior skills in cooking and fashion as a sign of general superiority, an attitude that has been passed down through the centuries, and survives in modern day France.
27 - STM
Duane: "The first encounters of Neanderthal with Cro-Magnon did not go well for the latter, who would often turn and run at the first sign of trouble".
Geez, whatever are you suggesting here Duane? That these are now some of the characteristics of the modern ancestors of the cro-magnons??
If so, does that make the English more likely descended from neanderthals, since French surliness towards English speakers is in part related to 1000 years of military humiliation (coupled with an intrinsic belief that they are culturally superior)?
Interesting stuff.
28 - STM
That theory might also explain the teeth.
29 - Dr Dreadful
I'll have you know I have the teeth of a god.
And that theory doesn't explain Japanese teeth.
30 - STM
Yeah, you're right Doc ... they do have shocking pegs. The Poms only come a distant second.
31 - STM
Rosey: "Australopissus".
Lol.
32 - stress33
So far, I have not see anyone explain how or why we became advanced and the apes didn't. If we did come from a common ancestor with the other Great Apes, what decided, we go this way you go that way. We would have been living in the same conditions. Adaptation should have occured the same or the weaker would have been weeded out. This is because there is no fact just guess work in the theory of evolution. The devil is in the details or should I say the twisting of thoughts about the unknown. What a waste of intelct searching for an answer that is in one book! No one will or has lived for ever. Why not prepair for what's next? If I'm wrong and there is no heaven then you would have lived a great life helping others and seving the lord only to find out nothing because you would no longer have thought. So what's to loose? Just eternal life!
33 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Nice job of leg pulling there, Duane. If I didn't know better I'd have thought you had Stan and "mumbly peg" Dreadful thoroughly fooled. You've outdone Jean (I'm still awaiting her next book) Auel by several degrees of humor.
Seriously, when looking at us humanoids and why we are what we are, you're stuck with stones and bones.
The problem with Darwin's theories is not that they are so wrong as wrong headed as far as time goes. The stones and bones indicate that Man (and other animals as well) evolved in sudden bursts, fits and starts, so to speak. Australopithecus (the non beer drinking version of Australopissus) started out as a little twerp about three feet high - maybe a bit taller. A couple of million years later, his descendants come along having gained a couple of feet in height.
These are not people who went to the penis extending folks - they shot up in height like rockets, when you consider how geologic time goes.
Why?
And how did Australopithecus get to either Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon status so fast?
Just something to chew on.....
34 - STM
G'day Ruve,
Well, I can't speak for any of those other bastards, but I'm pretty sure that Australopissus shot up in height by learning to utilise all the nutrients in beer.
However, to do this required drinking vast quantities of the stuff, which while making you tall, strong and big, also tends to combine with temperatures reaching into the 40Cs to make everyone a bit slow.
That's why the typical (slow) answer from an Australopissus will be: "Yeah, mate, no worries ..."
35 - Diana
Even for a non-scientific person I can see that man is dumber than he thinks himself to be. Talk about self approval, what a swelled head evolutionists must live with. You must realize that there is more than we know and will probably ever know. Take a little trip away from self righteousnous and I am not talking about the religious here. The cutting edge of science is proving on a daily basis that the "theories" however you deem the word to mean, are being challenged. The watch maker had made the watch and we try to figure it out. How stupid are humans? Grow up and look at the big picture! Do not be "locked" in, expand your mind to beyond science. There is much you can't explain and won't in your lifetime. To live a life of science is very empty. My "theory" is you cannot prove there isn't a creator while I cannot prove that there is one. Therefore,evolutionists will die and people will say, "They had a good time in life and lived their life as they pleased". Creationists will die and people will say, "They were a good person, nearly a saint, even if they didn't always do as they pleased". The difference is simply if evolutionists are right, we all die it doesn't matter because there is nothing after death. On the other hand, if creationists are right, they hope to go to another life, while evolutionists...well, hate to tell you the outcome if you lived your life as though there wasn't more after death.
36 - Christopher Rose
Diana, it's no surprise to learn that you are a non-scientific person, as your thinking is so confused.
You have no way of knowing if there will always be more to learn than we will ever know; Science is supposed to challenge theories; there is no watch maker; living a life of science is no more possible than living a life of custard, it's just a silly phrase that someone, although probably not you, made up; it's not necessary to prove there isn't a creator, the burden of proof lies with the proponents of the theory and, after thousands of years of trying, they have still failed to do so; it doesn't follow that evolutionists just live their lives as they please (although there is far more to commend about doing that than living a life proscribed by an entirely empty dogma).
Why don't you try and be a little bit more honest and say that you are living a life clinging to your belief system because it makes you feel better? Meanwhile, stop trying to act the part of an open-minded person...
37 - Dr Dreadful
stress33: Why not prepair for what's next? If I'm wrong and there is no heaven then you would have lived a great life helping others and seving the lord only to find out nothing because you would no longer have thought. So what's to loose? Just eternal life!
Pascal's Wager again. Not a very good bet and here's why. Presumably, Stress, you're a Christian. But what if you die and it turns out that God is Allah? You're still screwed even though you played the odds and believed.
38 - duane
Thanks, Ruvy. Another mini-chapter in my Fractured History of Man (several others are residing in the BC archives). Not great, but not bad for 20 minutes of work, if I do say so myself. (Yes, sometimes I have too much time on my hands.) I do believe that the connection between pate and the extinction of Neanderthal has been overlooked by the experts.
Australopissus. Haha. Good one.
Right. Now, Diana (#35) comes along and attempts to shoot down the entire scientific enterprise. Her first sentence proclaims that we think we are dumb. Her second sentence refers to self-approval. An inauspicious start if ever there were. Then
You must realize that there is more than we know....
That self-evident fact is what keeps scientists employed. I hope that Diana can at least admit that we know a lot more than we did, say, in the Dark Ages.
But my favorite quote from Diana is this:
Do not be "locked" in, expand your mind to beyond science.
I would like to know what Diana believes the human mind will find "beyond science." It's hard enough to expand one's mind to get "to science." Getting beyond might be a tall order. Do we have to first understand what we can through a scientific approach to reality or can we just circumvent science and go directly to whatever is beyond?
Have you already accommodated in your expanded mind the wonders of the natural universe as exposed by those leading "scientific lives"? Are you conversant in wave-particle duality, and yet bothered by this fact? Are you troubled with thoughts of the cosmic void bubbling with short-lived virtual particle fluctuations permitted by the uncertainty principle? Do you understand the dilemma faced by Neils Bohr when trying to reconcile Maxwell's Equations with the existence of atoms ... the existence of us ... and the intellectual courage required by his hypothesis? Do you know why the sky is blue? Are you comfortable with the coupling of space and time and that sequences of events appear differently to observers in different states of motion? Have you accommodated to your way of thinking that all the matter in the universe supposedly came from a quantum fluctuation 13.6 billion years ago? Do you nod knowingly when someone mentions dark energy in connection with Einstein's cosmological constant and the fate of the universe? Do you appreciate that life on Earth depends on nuclear collisions in the solar core and the ability of a proton to turn into a neutron? Do you think nature finds a way to avoid singularities? Have you come to grips with the abandonment of determinism?
And that's the easy stuff, and it's an ongoing study. Things get much harder when you start trying to explain complex systems, like a cell, and evolution. Those kinds of studies are in their infancy. The Golden Age of Biology lies in the future, unless we all decide that we don't need to know these things, that all we need to know can be found in the pages of ancient texts with their ancient wisdom.
So, I'm sure many scientists would love to move beyond their locked-in thinking as you have and see what's on the other side. But how does one do this in a way that is intellectually honest?