There Was No First Human

by cofty 266 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  talesin

  atrapado & jws if I missed yr reply ...

  I just checked back in here.

  I was referring to the picture as an illustration. It is my understanding by the context, that the purpose is a VISUAL examination. So we are talking apples and oranges, as far as I can tell.

  You are explaining how the colours can be created on a computer, and I am seeing it from a material, in-my-hand artist's point of view. I am aware of the RGB of which you speak, since way back when we had big screen televisions in the 80s, and the image was projected, using an RGB format. However, that, imho, would not apply to the example, which was (as I read it) meant to be a visual illustration of someone's point.

  The question at hand was .... can you tell when the blue becomes red? It was not posited to a room full of computer techies. I read the question to mean 'by examining it with your EYES'.

  t
• 

  atrapado

  talesin makes sence. When I read it I though 'with any of the tools avaiable to you etc.' The computer doesn't get confuse though if we tried it with our eyes they'll start seeing other colors just because they get tired.

  So eyes might not(maybe there is some human out there that can, unlikely) be able to do it. Just like most methods will failed with the topic at hand but there could be a way to do it even if we haven't discovered it yet.
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  Apognophos

  Yes, all this topic has done for me is teach me about the current limitations in defining "species".
• 

  talesin

  atrapado

  Well, I think it is possible to see when the red is being mixed into the blue,,, there's a shift to purple ......... especially if you paint. :)
  
  Possible, but not easy.

  tal
• 

  cofty

  all this topic has done for me is teach me about the current limitations in defining "species"

  It's not really a "current limitation", it's intrinsic to the task of trying to put the continuum of life into neat boxes.

  It's bad enough when looking at current species - the tips of the branches on the tree of life. But when you go back along the twigs to look at previous forms it all becomes arbitrary.

  The concept of species is a convient way of thinking about life's diversity, but you have to remember it is a structure we are imposing on the real world.

  atrapado might read some science one day and wonder how he/she could ignore the answer to his misguided objection for page after page.
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  Apognophos

  I think atrapado mostly understood what you were saying from the beginning. His suggestion was that there could be a way to define a species even though species develop in gradual increments and don't have a clear starting point. Like me, he just doesn't like nebulous concepts and he was taking a problem-solving standpoint to try to seek some clarity, whereas you guys were taking a "repeat the status quo over and over" standpoint.

  It's odd to me to think that some day we might see, say, a species of rabbit which we realize has become two distinct populations with different features and that on that day, someone will suggest making them separate species, that is, coming up with a new name for at least one of the two groups, and yet we'll never know exactly when the new species came to exist or whether either kind of rabbit is even a member of the old species since both may have featural changes from when we first documented the existence of that kind of rabbit and named its species. Science is usually more precise than that.
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  KateWild

  Apogs,

  In 1959, a similar experiment was carried out with silver foxes as opposed to rabbits. 40 generations were bred with the intention to tame one group and make the other group wild and agressive. The tamed generations ended up acting and even looking like dogs. In spite of the fact I don't like Dawkins he wrote about it in "The Greatest Show on Earth", what he wrote was accurate and interesting.

  Here is another link. Kate xx

  http://cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/ccgr/behaviour/Index.htm
• 

  Viviane

  Science is usually more precise than that.

  Hard sciences like some of the maths and physics are. Others working on large sets cannot be more precise. For instance, statistics is an incredibly useful tool, but it works within margins of error that would give a physicists or someone working in fluid dynamics a heart attack.

  Not all sciences and not all branches of a specific science are that accurate or precise. Life sciences like biology, botany an archeology have notably large margins of error compared to other things. Just the way it is. As we develop better tools and learn more, that changes.
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  Viviane

  Because there are some small differences in their genes that warrants one to be human and one non-human. The definition of species would need to be redefine where species with 99.99*% in common with other species they would be able to reproduce.

  If they are that close that they can reproduce with absolutely no issues, why wouldn't te definition include the mate as well? IOW, why draw the line where you did?
• 

  Apognophos

  Hard sciences like some of the maths and physics are. [...] Life sciences like biology, botany an archeology have notably large margins of error compared to other things. Just the way it is. As we develop better tools and learn more, that changes.

  Yes, that's true. Personally I never cared for the "squishy" sciences in school, so I guess my bias towards precision is showing. It's why I gravitated toward computer science instead. Only recently have I developed some interest in biology, partly by likening it in my head to computer science (for instance, DNA transcription is very computer-like even though it has a higher error rate than file copying). It didn't help that I was brought up to ignore anything the biology teacher said about evolution, and barely passed the class in high school. Now I'm trying to play catch-up with the years of biology education I lost out on.