There is no suggestion that this Ida creature is our ancestress. She is, as so many of the best things are, of purely academic interest.
As is the whole of evolution.
Not for want of looking, the descent of our own from any other species in particular has never been established. It remains perfectly in line with the scientific knowledge to hold that the first man was created directly from inanimate matter, and the first woman out of the body of the first man.
Putting their descendants in an entirely different moral category from those of any and all other organisms, however interrelated they may be.
If Richard Dawkins or the assorted heirs of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler do not like this, then tough. Until they produce their missing link, then our belief is at least as scientific as theirs is.
Indeed, it is rather more so, since they insist on asserting that something – the descent of the human species from another – is a scientific fact, but are entirely unable to identify the other species in question.
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What do you think a missing link would look like, and what is it the missing link between?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what it would look like, and nor has anyone else.
ReplyDeleteIt would be the other species in particular from which our own is demonstrably descended. No one has ever found it.
David, they've found several. At the risk of asking a personal question, is it possible that your understanding of evolution is not as up to date as it might be?
ReplyDeleteThere is no "it". There are lots of them. We have already found hundreds of them - but there will always be more.
ReplyDeleteI have never known who my great great grandmother was, but I don't assume from this that my great grandmother was created directly from inanimate matter, even though this hypothesis is perfectly in line with the scientific knowledge.
Mine and David Attenborough's, in that case. Or at least mine and the science lot at the BBC's.
ReplyDeleteGo on, then, from which other species in particular have we been proven to have descended? Your Nobel Prize awaits.
"There are lots of them. We have already found hundreds of them"
ReplyDeleteLike what? We share rather a lot of DNA with bananas. Are we descended from bananas? Have we and bananas common ancestors?
I have no difficulty with the descent of any other two species from each other. It is of academic interest, not moral significance. What would be of moral significance would be the descent of our own species from any other in particular. But that has never been established, for all the attempts to do so.
Are we descended from bananas?
ReplyDeleteNo.
Have we and bananas common ancestors?
Yes.
Australopithecus? (Afaransis and africanus) Homo habilis? Aralpithecus ramidis?
ReplyDeleteYou have to appreciate that evolution works on geological time. Species don't suddenly appear, the gradually develop from very similar species. Hence the fact that the human and chimp genomes are so incredibly similar - we both gradually developed in separate directions from a common ancestor. How do you explain that?
Like what? We share rather a lot of DNA with bananas. Are we descended from bananas? Have we and bananas common ancestors?
ReplyDeleteYes.
How do you? Unless you are going to agree with Gio that we are related to bananas. As I have heard even Steve Jones rule out when making exactly this point about the genome. In itself, it proves nothing. It is of interest because the universe is of interest. But no more than that.
ReplyDeleteDarren, everything else is descended from a common ancestor. We were created directly out of inanimate matter, in such a way as to make it look exactly as it would if we were descended from the same common ancestor, and are more closely related to, say, chimps than to, say, bananas.
ReplyDeleteThere we have it from Chas - we are descended from bananas.
ReplyDeleteThe special creation can be in any form the Creator chooses, however similar to that of any other species past, present or future. And you cannot show that it didn't happen.
Until you do, we remain in an entirely different moral category from everything else. That is what matters. And that is what you really, really, really do not like. Why not?
David, watch carefully:
ReplyDeleteI was mistaken and hasty. Gio has the right of it. We are related to, but not descended from, bananas. Just as you are related to, but not descended from, your cousins.
Actually, I'm perfectly happy to regard humans as being in a different moral category from everything else. I eat meat, support animal experimentation and would quite happily have every dog on the planet killed just because I don't like dogs.
ReplyDeleteBut that doesn't make evolution false, or you right. You have to work with the facts, not make stuff up because it suits your conclusions.
You are not making it any better for yourself, Chas.
ReplyDeleteI'll try again: why are you all so hostile to the fact (for so it must at least be assumed to be, in the absence of the slightest evidence to the contrary) that human beings are in an entirely different moral category from everything else?
"I'm perfectly happy to regard humans as being in a different moral category from everything else"
ReplyDeleteWhy? How?
"You have to work with the facts, not make stuff up because it suits your conclusions"
My point exactly.
"why are you all so hostile to the fact (for so it must at least be assumed to be, in the absence of the slightest evidence to the contrary) that human beings are in an entirely different moral category from everything else?"
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not hostile to that fact. I routinely treat humans as being in a different moral category from everything else - that's why I don't kill or eat or buy or sell them, for example. Pretty much all humans behave as if humans are in a different moral category from everything else. This doesn't surprise me - indeed, this is exactly what I'd expect from a species shaped by natural selection.
Why? Unless you are going to fall back on the old tautology in these matters: "this is what has happened, so this is what must result from natural selection".
ReplyDeleteJust generally, treating members of your family as being OK to kill and eat and buy and sell is unlikely to be conducive to long-term survival.
ReplyDeleteBut you said that we were all related. Even bananas.
ReplyDeleteThey have to accept that the scientific method itself is ultimately just a meme.
ReplyDeleteWhereas we, who do not believe in memes, do believe profoundly and passionately in science.
ReplyDeleteEvery human being in the world is related to me. Only my close family and my friends are on my Christmas card list. I have never sent a Christmas card to a banana.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, your contention was that I do not accept that humans are in a different moral category from everything else. This is a very silly thing for you to think that I think. To paraphrase Ian Hislop: If evolution means we can no longer make distinctions, I'm a banana.
I think that we can all see where the sillines is.
ReplyDeleteAnswer Chris's meme point, if you can. But, of course, you can't.