Ophiolite

Relax.

 

It's not part of my argument.

 

I'm simply saying it's easy to see Cro magnon looks almost exactly like us.

 

That's simply an observation... It's not scientific or un scientific.

 

 

It is a subjective, qualitative observation. As such it is of very limited, possibly no, value.

What we require is objective, quantitative observations. You have produced some of these, with great reluctance, and as soon as possible you revert to "common sense" and opinion and "it's obvious" and "it's easy to see". And - amazingly - you expect to be taken seriously.

You can just use common sense and compare Cro magnon to a modern day human skull...t

Seriously? Common sense has no place in science. The methodologies of science were developed in order to overcome the egregious errors that arise when the foolish apply common sense. However, I am not surprised that someone who repeatedly states "It is obvious..." would also think common sense would form a justifiable part of an argument.

I'm new in cosmology. I do not like the current standard model of cosmology,

I don't like it either, but unfortunately for you and I it provides by far the best explanation of a very wide array of observations. No other hypothesis comes close to success on this front.

Delta1212: excellent post. I differ from your position slightly in that I think Evan's entire argument is a classification preference.

Evan appears to be basing his case on the departure of certain measurements of certain features by a certain amount from their current values as evidence that an hominid was or was not an AMH. But, as you point out, at no time has he provided a justification for why he has selected those particular features, or why he has chosen particular values for them. They are arbitrary. That is perfectly acceptable in a classification system. It is not acceptable in an absolutist argument of the type Evan is making.

meLothe destroyer of worlds: is there any cited material that would justify your seemingly quaint approach to estimating the IQ of hominid fossils? The excellent job you have done of deconstructing many of Evan's arguments are not sufficient to convince me that your calculations are more than pseudoscience.

I'm interested in the whole idea! Sounds great! But you really have to listen to Ophiolite's opinion.

I agree. Would you tell my wife that please.

Tom, you have now been asked by several members to take us step by step through your method. You have avoided doing so, apparently in the belief that the steps of your method are self evident. They are not. I ask you please to produce a post that does exactly that.

If you choose not to do so, but instead post more of the same I shall request that this thread be locked permanently. Please avoid this by posting what you have been repeatedly asked for.

Thank you.

 

 

I think that is a likely explanation. I am still puzzled by the persistent inability to provide the background to their thoughts, even when asked specific questions.

I was trying to be gentle, which is why I referred to "intellect" in my original post. Consider Strange the possibility, nay the fact, that some people are just dumb. (And all of us can have our moments! {That was aimed at me, not you, on account of a recent personal faux pas.})

 

I really shouldn`t nitpick your nitpicking me but here goes anyway...

From Wikipedia:

On October 16, 2002, an international team led by Rainer Schödel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics reported the observation of the motion of the star S2 near Sagittarius A* over a period of ten years. According to the team's analysis, the data ruled out the possibility that Sgr A* contains a cluster of dark stellar objects or a mass of degenerate fermions, strengthening the evidence for a massive black hole.

===============================

In 1974, they only found a large radio source in the direction of the center of the Milky Way. In 1982 Sagittarius A* was named, but we were still ignorant of it`s true nature...

afk...

Valid point. How about all the other ones Strange made?

More important than whether it contradicts your idea or not is the fact that it uses objective, quantitative data. Something you have spectacularly failed to do.

It was something I asked for as early as post #13. Such material as we have dragged out of him has been disjointed and of questionable relevance. It leaves me feeling much the same as I did when I posted #13. "If you are unable to do this [provide quantitative data] then you are not engaged in science, but in amateurish pre-Enlightenment classification."

You could have said something along these lines.

"There is dispute as to which hominids were the earliest modern humans. These are the conventional views [details with full citations would be provided]. I view this slightly differently and this is why. [Details, citations and structured argument provided.]"

Had you done so members might have questioned your conclusions. They would not have questioned you. Instead you chose the arrogant, some might say ignorant, approach and the result is this morass of a thread.

Identifying the knowledge, intellect, experience and attitude of an audience is not a simple skill, nor one that everyone will come to master. Yet effective and efficient communication requires that skill be present. Those who seem oblivious to their own ambiguous communication style have not yet raised it to even a basic level.

Strange, I doubt the explanation for the behaviour you describe is any more complex than that.

Pavel, shame on you! You are using sound references, flawless logic, quantitative data and appropriate uncertainty to present your counter argument. It's almost as if you knew what you were doing. How can you expect Evan to compete?

I think the cyanobacteria responsible for the Great Oxygen Event 2.3 billion years ago beat us to the punch on being first there, actually.

Excellent point. I think this may be why, even today, I am reluctant to eat my greens. Or is that because I am Scottish?

 

You claimed there was no evidence, which is not true. There are eyewitnesses, who were the targets of the assault, and eyewitness testimony is admissible as evidence.

I missed the point where I made such a claim. I specifically addressed your incomplete statement which did not refer to witnesses, a fact I was unaware of.

You, and much of the GOP it seems, are confused about the recent outrage. It's not about having an affair. It's about sexual assault. Donnie boy bragged about assaulting women, then claimed that he never did such things, and we know that's not true — several women have come forward to confirm that they were sexually assaulted.

My opinions of Trump are clear and negative, but this is incorrect. They have alleged that they were sexually assaulted. Quite a different matter from confirming.

Well Strange has just repeated what I said, it's just that he did it much better. Tom, as Strange says, get your act together. It is not impossible that you are really onto something, but your posts so far suggest that you are merely on something.

Tom, it is possible that I have the attention span of a goldfish, the reading comprehension of a lizard, the intellect of a rhododendron and the knowledge base of an igneous intrusion. This would explain why your decoding makes no sense to me.

The alternative explanation is that you have yet to lay out in a clear, unambiguous, comprehensive, structured exposition.

Naturally, I am biased as to which of these explanations is the correct one. How about you?

Bats and chimps aren't as capable as people,

I apologise in advance. Normally I find your posts to be thoughtful and accurate, but in this instance you are talking unqualified, anthropomorphic crap. If you wish to say that bats and chimps are not as capable as people in those things that people are good at, well that's accurate, but wholly uninteresting and unremarkable. But, as I have pointed out for both in this thread, they exceed our capabilities in many areas.

We may well be the first species in the history of the planet that has the capacity to largely obliterate the biosphere, but that's not a capability I want to boast about.

Blustering buffoon, I fear.

If you really want to force yourself to leave (but I would prefer that you don't) the best method is to change your password to some complicated string which you can't remember, then log out. I've known people do that.

Ingenious!

sorry for the misunderstanding, I don't mean that we are not animals, I think we are more then animals, and should be put in a different category to distinguish us from animals.

But you base this argument on characteristics that distinguish us from other animals. However, as I demonstrated in post #6, this is also true of bats. And ostriches, and tree shrews, and blue whales, and foxes, and kangaroos, and.........

You are emphasising the qualities that seem important to you, because these are your qualities. The human with the best eyesight in the world does not compare favourably with that of an eagle. A cheetah can make Usain Bolt look like he is a geriatric walker. Even among our primate cousins a third rate gibbon can our perform the gymnastic feats of a human, while a chimpanzee has far greater muscle strength. The list in which we fall short of other animals is huge. It doesn't justify an elevated category.

You can take any of the pics and cherry pick which feature you focus on and make a case... then someone else can focus on different features and make the opposite case as I have shown.

And this happens routinely. It's called anthropology.

 

See, I dont EVER open my mouth unless I know EXACTLY wtf i am talking about.. My theory is based on logic..

This is a science forum.

Science relies upon logic to structure its process.

Central to this process is evidence.

In the absence of evidence ideas are as useful as flatulence in a leper colony.

What evidence do you have that on the other side of a black hole matter is spit out in a sort of reverse accretion disk?

Please have a think about this and let me know your thoughts on this idea.

I think that this idea is so commonplace that there is some aspect of our culture, or the genetic character that hardwires aspects of our brain, that brings this to the fore in people, time and time again.

From a scientific standpoint there is zero reason to consider it a possibility and a host of reasons to reject it outright.

It is a positive thing that you are interested in such matters and that you are looking for, to you, novel answers to questions. Your questions would be better formulated and your answers closer to reality, if you now invested your energy in learning some proper science rather than the diluted brand to be found on documentaries and popular science books.

Good luck with that. Why not start your new path on this forum by asking how you might go about acquiring real science understanding?

Good point. But why do you want me to stay?

I don't like (yes this purely subjective) to see people fail in their goals. iNow has made several important points in relation to how you might deal with your problems, but leaving the forum is not one of them. While you have pissed off and frustrated many members here, I think most if not all of those now have a better appreciation of where you are coming from.

If you remain on the forum there are definite benefits:

• You have somewhere to partially vent your frustrations
• Someone may come up with an insightful suggestion that offers you a real solution to at least some of your problems
• There are a bunch of people who could help you answer questions related to your studies

That's why I would like you to stay.

is it possible that we should not classify humans as animals; because they have a natural better understanding of the world in the bigger picture? I dont know how hominids thought but i think even they question their existence and in almost any circumstance create tools and lead to doing science. I think science is the main way we advance. we do experiments and observe the world. so is it possible to put humans in a different category because of the fact that they are mentally too different? maybe this just comes from the fact that I hate when people call humans animals. it makes it seem like we have not evolved, but i am always amazed of how evolved we actually are and how much better we have become from creating fire, how much we can create now.

Is it possible we should not classify bats as animals; because they have a natural ability to perceive the world in a wholly different way through echo location? I don't know how the ancestors of bats thought, but even if they were able to hear they would have been unable to locate a moth's position and trajectory with precision. I think this amazing ability is the main way bats advance. They combine their astounding flying and gymnastic ability with this unique way of perceiving the world. So is it possible to put bats in a different category because they are mentally too different? Maybe this just comes from the fact that I hate when people call bats animals. it makes it seem like they have not evolved, but I always amazed at how evolved they actually are and how much better they have become from the first tentative attempts at echo location to where they are now.