"David Brown" wrote in message
I find most of this rather unnecessary, judgemental and somewhat offensive.
Let me start by saying that yes, this whole discussion is unnecessary.
It is very much off-topic in this group, and no one has any realistic
ideas about changing anyone else's opinions. I enjoy such off-topic
threads on occasion, and apparently so do many people here (though there
are others that dislike them) - I like to swap ideas and opinions like
this, even if it seldom leads to change or agreements. I don't agree
with certain of your beliefs, but it can be good to hear them anyway.
And yes, things get somewhat judgemental. Strong and controversial
beliefs will /always/ been judged. You judge my beliefs and opinions
against your own, and I judge yours. We can all try to limit our
judgements to the arguments and opinions expressed rather than the
people expressing them, though we also all know it is easy to stray from
that path.
Which brings me to the final point - I do not mean to be offensive. But
I know that my tone can be somewhat sarcastic or exaggerated, and of
course there is plenty of scope for writing things that can be taken in
different ways and viewed as more offensive than intended.
In particular, I made a rather large error in my post. I described (and
ridiculed) a number of more general points about extreme views, and then
I made a point that was specific to your views. I did not intend these
to be connected as they were. I believe (from your posts and questions)
that you have a fundamental misunderstanding about species and how the
question of a "first human" does not really make sense, and you I don't
think this thread will change that. But I did not mean to imply that
you were a Creationist or that you hold such extreme views. I worded
the post badly in that way, and for that I apologise. I should have
read through my post more critically before sending it.
You say things like "It is not uncommon amongst some religious people to
deliberately misunderstand evolution and the concept of species".
I said that, and it is true. However, I did not mean to imply that this
applies to /you/ specifically - it was a general statement (as were
several other points I made). At best, I could only guess that it
/might/ apply to you - after all, you had given little information about
your opinions other than a conviction that there had to have been a
"first human".
You
then attempt to ridicule my belief that there must have been a first
human with a "Singing in the Rain" analogy.
I ridiculed the extrapolation many Creationists or Biblical literalists
make to go from the stories in Genesis to theories about biology. Note
that this is not a ridiculing of a Christian faith (or any other
religious faiths and beliefs) - but targeted at a specific extremist
viewpoint held by some people.
If you don't believe that, then your beliefs are not being ridiculed here.
That is /not/ the same as my disagreement about there being a "first
human" as a general point - because that depends on there being a
specific definition of a "human". If you can come up with a categoric
definition of what makes a being "human", then it /might/ be possible to
define a "first" human.
You (indirectly) suggest I
may be a "Biblical literalist".
If I suggested that, it was /very/ indirectly - my points were general,
not specific to you. (Again, I know it looked like they /were/ directed
at you, and I can only apologise again.)
You then make the ridiculous statement
that "believe evolution made humans and other species as complete,
individual and unchanging concepts through inexplicable leaps - one day
a chimpanzee gave birth to the first human". Finally you refer to my
beliefs as "fundamental and self-reenforced (sic) misunderstandings".
Again, this is the sort of argument that many Creationists (or fans of
"Intelligent Design") use - not an argument that I am attributing to /you/.
Well, it appears to me that your *beliefs* are vastly more "fundamental"
than mine. And I am certainly not "deliberately misunderstanding
evolution" or the "concept of species". Further, I am certainly not a
"Biblical literalist" and neither have I ever said that the human
species or any other is a "complete, individual or unchanging concept".
I don't believe that you can talk about a "first human" until you define
a "human" - without such a definition, there was no "first human". If
that is more fundamental than your beliefs, fair enough.
Finally, if you can find a quote where I stated either directly or
indirectly that "one day a chimpanzee gave birth to the first human"
then I would challenge you to post it here.
As noted multiple times above, I did not mean to imply that you said or
thought this.
So now that I have established that basically everything you posted here
is false, what can I make of anything else you say?
I think we have established that most of what I wrote does not apply to
you, even though my clumsy writing implied that.
What we have left is that you believe that there was a "first human",
and I believe that without any kind of definition of "human" there is no
meaning to the question - and hence there was no "first human".
I think you are wrong to think there can be a clear definition of
"human" - the move from "pre-human" ancestors to "modern human" was
gradual, with a great deal of overlap. Species are not disjoint - it is
not possible to say that one generation was "homo rhodesiensis" and the
next generation was "homo sapiens". There is no dividing line.
At best, one could pick specific genetic mutations and say that these
are specific to humans, and therefore the first hominin with that gene
was the "first human". (Other non-genetic characteristics, such as
walking upright, using tools, talking, etc., are far more diffuse and
even harder to categorise.) But there are many such genes, and for at
least some of them it is not unlikely that they evolved more than once
independently.
Even when you can give defining characteristics to something, and give a
clear decision to "this is an X", you do not necessarily have a "first"
member. Consider the set of real numbers greater than 1. It is easy to
see if a given number is in this set - yet it has no "first" member.
My belief that there must have been a first human has absolutely nothing
whatsoever to do with the Bible or religion in general so please do not
try to ridicule this notion by using your own hatred/fear of
Christianity, the Bible or religion as I am not referencing any of
those. Just because I *am* a Christian does not mean that I am
incapable of understanding complex scientific concepts or that I am
unable to apply logic and reason (despite what you may want to believe).
Fair enough. I am not against religion in itself - I have seen the good
effects of religious faith as well as the bad effects. I am against
irrationality in the name of religion, and I am against the abuse of
human rights in the name of religion - but I know that the same applies
to many religious people.
Like most contributors in this thread, you are seemingly allowing your
own religious or anti-religious views get in the way of a logical
debate. You see references to "Bible", "creation", "Adam and Eve" and
you become all defensive of anything which appears to attack your
"absolutely factual" scientific principles and go into all-out attack
mode against the "myths" of religion.
Well, how about you try to distance yourself from those emotions and
consider what I am actually suggesting (which again has nothing to do
with religion).
OK, I accept that criticism. I mixed things up in that post when they
should have been separate.
There is obviously some disagreement over the precise definition of a
"species" so how about this: let's say a competent anthropologist from
2013 were able to travel back in time to the period during which humans
were evolving and could stay there for 50,000 years if necessary (please
don't pick me up on the logistics of this). Let's say they are also
able to examine *every* embryo that is produced by the pre-humans or
"near" humans of the time. Would you agree that at some point they are
going to be able to perform a thorough examination of a particular
embryo and make the determination that they classifiable as "Homo
sapiens"?
I am happy to accept your thought experiment here, but I would /not/
agree that there would be a point at which he could say "these are homo
sapiens, but their ancestors were pre-humans".
/If/ I thought such a classification were possible, then I would be
agreeing with you about the existence of a "first human". But just as
there is no clear dividing line between "small piles of stones" and "big
piles of stones", there is no clear dividing line between pre-humans and
humans.
If your anthropologist were to jump back in time to find a group of homo
rhodesiensis and follow it through thousands of generations, he would
view it as a group of pre-humans that was gradually evolving. If he
were to time-jump a little forward and find a group of humans, and
follow them backwards through thousands of generations, he would view
them as a group of humans with evolution viewed in reverse. And in the
middle, there would be thousands of generations when he was viewing the
/same/ group - but classifying it differently as "late pre-humans" and
"early humans" depending on the viewpoint.
OK, well all I am saying is that the first time this is
possible is when we have identified the "first human".
Then I am suggesting that if that embryo is male then let's name him
Adam and Eve otherwise. You may object to the names (possibly because
they make you go all defensive again) but they're just the names I would
use for the "first human".
The names would be fine - I just don't agree that such "people" existed.
Note that this is not the same as saying I don't believe in common
ancestors - the genetic, fossil, geological, statistical and biological
arguments for common ancestors are very strong. There have been
particular genetic changes at different stages that have enabled
significant changes to the lifestyle of following generations, and such
steps have resulted in the first carrier of that gene being a common
ancestor.
All I am arguing is that such common ancestors cannot be considered to
be the "first human".
