Cult Evolution

(Q)

Encephaloid Martini
Valued Senior Member
"The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (ISBN 0-679-40003-6) is a Pulitzer Prize winning book on evolutionary biology written for the layperson by Jonathan Weiner in 1994. The finches of the title are the Galapagos or 'Darwin's Finches,' passerine songbirds in the Galapagos Islands. The adaptations of their numerous species, in three genera, exploiting several ecological niches in the rugged and dry Galápagos Islands provided evidence to Charles Darwin that “species are not immutable.”

The author Jonathan Weiner follows the career of two biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, who have spent twenty years proving that Charles Darwin did not know the full strength of his theory of evolution. On a desert island among the Galapagos, Daphne Major, the Grants are showing that among the finches of the Galapagos, natural selection sometimes takes place so rapidly we can watch it at work."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beak_of_the_Finch

Peter and Rosemary Grant were able to observe evolutionary changes over a short period of time, some twenty years, only.

If such changes were observed over a relatively short period of time from changes in the environment, for example; the levels of food availability - can we also assume other effects will also cause biological changes?

The brain is no different from the beak of a finch in that it is biological, hence also impacted from environmental effects and governed by evolutionary change. If rationale and reason are functions of the brain to conceptualize ideas that aide in the pursuit of guiding ones actions, can we assume an environmental effect might alter ones reasoning abilities over long or even short periods of time?

If our ability to reason were continuously forced to accept the improbable and the irrational as fact, could we classify this as an environmental effect that might alter the brains ability to reason?

If generation after generation were forced to accept the improbable and irrational as fact, would we simply accept as fact the improbable and irrational in every aspect of our lives, guiding our rationale to accept anything the improbable and irrational might suggest?

We then find a line of 'cult evolution' has emerged over the many centuries of religious indoctrination and the acceptance of the improbable and irrational, thinking that has forced evolutionary changes in our brains and has pierced and affected every aspect of mankind's development.

Part of that development has lead to racism, bigotry, oppression and ignorance, to name a few, concepts not acceptable to reasoning and rationale, but concepts easily acceptable when cult evolution, fueled by the continued acceptance of the improbable and irrational, dominates the thinking process.
 
Hypothesis: changes in beak of finches depict evolution

Assumption: beak of finches = mind of man

Inference: development of beak of finches = development of religion

Conclusion: evolution = indoctrination

post-3012-1185415263.gif
 
Q,

Racism, bigotry, oppression, and ignorance have other basic roots far outside of the scope of religion; however, the beak anology does work if we consider that belief allows people to make quick judgments in the absence of incomplete information and gains the resources and support of others whom share the same belief. In other words, the human propensity to believe has changed due to its surivival advantages (just as a Finch beak did the same).
 
allows people to make quick judgments in the absence of incomplete information and gains the resources and support of others whom share the same belief

I call this snapshot science. The best example I have ever heard is this:

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.-Mark Twain
 
If our ability to reason were continuously forced to accept the improbable and the irrational as fact, could we classify this as an environmental effect that might alter the brains ability to reason?
What you would need to do is bar the reproduction of rational people and increase the reproduction of irrational people and this should, over time, change the genetic make up in the general population.
 
What you would need to do is bar the reproduction of rational people and increase the reproduction of irrational people and this should, over time, change the genetic make up in the general population.

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten,
sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen
mit Pulver und Blei: Die Gedanken sind frei!


:shrug:
 

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten,
sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen
mit Pulver und Blei: Die Gedanken sind frei!


:shrug:

What the hell does that mean?
 
I call it well supported science (not your example).

Applying the "evidence" of 20 years change in finch beaks to development of religion?

Well supported by what? The Invisible Pink Unicorn?:D

I call this talking out of your arse

The brain is no different from the beak of a finch
 
Applying the "evidence" of 20 years change in finch beaks to development of religion?

Well supported by what? The Invisible Pink Unicorn?:D

I call this talking out of your arse

Well supported by evolutary psychology for starters. Maybe we are not communicating about the same thing. I never asserted that "The brain is no different from the beak of a finch". What I did say is that beak changes work as an anology to human psychological changes driven by evolution.

Oh yeah and peace be upon the IPU, may her hooves never be shod. Amen.
 
Well supported by evolutary psychology for starters. Maybe we are not communicating about the same thing. I never asserted that "The brain is no different from the beak of a finch". What I did say is that beak changes work as an anology to human psychological changes driven by evolution.

Oh yeah and peace be upon the IPU, may her hooves never be shod. Amen.

Do explain to me the psychological evidence supporting beak evolution in the finch.
 
Oy, you're intentionally pretending to mis-understand. I don't know why you have to be intellectually dishonest so much of the time.
 
You're the one using the analogy. Does beak development classify as behaviour?

Does beak development follow the same developmental milestones as theistic behaviour?

Is there a biological basis for belief?

Could you present some peer reviewed research to support your thesis?

May I buy your tiger repellant rock?
 
My alter thesis:

evolution is adaptation to a niche, just as religious behaviour is.

hence evolution is a cult.

Comments?
 
If our ability to reason were continuously forced to accept the improbable and the irrational as fact, could we classify this as an environmental effect that might alter the brains ability to reason?

At this point, it needs to be clarified:

Define "improbable", "irrational", "fact", "(to) reason".
 
My alter thesis:

evolution is adaptation to a niche, just as religious behaviour is.

hence evolution is a cult.

Comments?

how i love thee
can i bash anyone here for you?
shred intellect into slivers?

command and i shall obey, my eastern princess

/cultist of all things sam
 
how i love thee
can i bash anyone here for you?
shred intellect into slivers?

command and i shall obey, my eastern princess

/cultist of all things sam

Aren't you the resident psychologist with credentials?

Whats your input here?
 
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