Religion a form of Control?

[mindphuk]

and now that you are here, i got a question on evolution that has been bothering me for a while and cant get over it


the overlapping of species is what i do not understand why it has not taken place in our time or since records have been kept H. sapiens?

I just am dumbfounded that there has not been any other species except for us on this planet. i know bone records and all that of other species that predate us, but they did overlap, why is there no overlapping with us?

Species do overlap. I think you're asking why there aren't more than one hominid species walking around and there used to be. H. sapiens used to live contemporaneously with H. neanderthalensis. One report says that every individual that is not directly from Africa, has a percent of two of Neanderthal DNA. Remember our history, humans went through a major bottle-neck around 200,000 years ago. Something almost wiped us off the face of the planet and left as few as a thousand breeding individuals. Whether it was the Toba eruption or something else, whatever it was that almost made us extinct, took care of any other hominid species as well.

 

[cannabineer]

and now that you are here, i got a question on evolution that has been bothering me for a while and cant get over it


the overlapping of species is what i do not understand why it has not taken place in our time or since records have been kept H. sapiens?

I just am dumbfounded that there has not been any other species except for us on this planet. i know bone records and all that of other species that predate us, but they did overlap, why is there no overlapping with us?

What do you mean by overlapping, oly? And with whom/what? cn

 

[mindphuk]

so that makes those who believe irrational?

I suppose it was a joke when you pm'd me?

I thought we've been down this road before. Belief in something without evidence is indeed an irrational position. I think this is true of you, of my family and of myself when I believed. The irrationality of it is rationalized away by all sorts of things, including the fact that almost every other person on the planet holds a similarly irrational POV which makes it appear that it is not. It's not an accusation, it is an assessment of the situation. I don't believe it would be nearly as easy to promote these irrational ideas if it wasn't taught to us as children.

Personally, I believe you are a rational person that holds an irrational view on one particular subject. This should not be taken as any particular criticism of you personally and your skills and knowledge as a strength and conditioning coach or your positive, upbeat and occasionally humorous personality are not diminished in my eyes because of one area in your life I disagree with. I meant what I said and consider you a friend.

 

[ThE sAtIvA hIgH]

I thought we've been down this road before. Belief in something without evidence is indeed an irrational position. I think this is true of you, of my family and of myself when I believed. The irrationality of it is rationalized away by all sorts of things, including the fact that almost every other person on the planet holds a similarly irrational POV which makes it appear that it is not. It's not an accusation, it is an assessment of the situation. I don't believe it would be nearly as easy to promote these irrational ideas if it wasn't taught to us as children.

Personally, I believe you are a rational person that holds an irrational view on one particular subject. This should not be taken as any particular criticism of you personally and your skills and knowledge as a strength and conditioning coach or your positive, upbeat and occasionally humorous personality are not diminished in my eyes because of one area in your life I disagree with. I meant what I said and consider you a friend.

i allways say to oliver its his veiw on a paticular subject i insult him about its not personal and i may agree with him on many other subjects in life .

 

[cannabineer]

Species do overlap. I think you're asking why there aren't more than one hominid species walking around and there used to be. H. sapiens used to live contemporaneously with H. neanderthalensis. One report says that every individual that is not directly from Africa, has a percent of two of Neanderthal DNA. Remember our history, humans went through a major bottle-neck around 200,000 years ago. Something almost wiped us off the face of the planet and left as few as a thousand breeding individuals. Whether it was the Toba eruption or something else, whatever it was that almost made us extinct, took care of any other hominid species as well.

Iirc the presumed genetic bottleneck was 50 to 100 thousand years ago by mtDNA studies. The Toba eruption is dated to appx. 73 kYa. Neanderthals were probably not yet extinct 30 kYa. cn

 

[olylifter420]

i apologize for not being clear, what meant by ''overlapping'' is since what i have studied and learned from my classes on the subject, i saw that quite a bit of different species would overlap on the timeline provided in the literature or textbook.

That is why i wonder why we have not been able to witness or have any historic record of species overlap during our time here.

here is a cool link i found and if you see the chart of early hominids, you can see that many did overlap.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/m.html

What do you mean by overlapping, oly? And with whom/what? cn

 

[olylifter420]

exactly, why did our species survive and not many others during that timeline? How did other life forms survive such a catastrophic event while many hominids perished?

Iirc the presumed genetic bottleneck was 50 to 100 thousand years ago by mtDNA studies. The Toba eruption is dated to appx. 73 kYa. Neanderthals were probably not yet extinct 30 kYa. cn

 

[cannabineer]

We do, actually ... "circular" or "ring" speciation. cn
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4089961

 

[mindphuk]

exactly, why did our species survive and not many others during that timeline? How did other life forms survive such a catastrophic event while many hominids perished?

One could argue that many species did go through a similar bottleneck. Considering that 99% of every species that ever existed is now extinct, you seem to be placing some kind of special emphasis on hominids. Remember, there are going to be many things about our evolution that are merely chance related. In a way, asking a question like why aren't there overlapping species is like wondering what would happen if the Chicxulub meteor missed us and the dinosaurs survived. They are interesting 'what if' questions but often they are unanswerable.

 

[olylifter420]

I see what you mean and i appreciate the clarification. the emphasis comes from the fact that why did our species survive this event or process in which 99% of all species became extinct. I find it mind boggling that our species was somewhat special in a way compared to others that did not survive. What caused us to survive over our last ancestor, H. neandethalensis. Survival of the fittest right? Now if these ancestors were stockier i would assume they had a larger muscle mass then compared to H. sapien, all the skills were there for the survival of H. neandethalensis, but they just did not make it.

i dont know, maybe i am over thinking

One could argue that many species did go through a similar bottleneck. Considering that 99% of every species that ever existed is now extinct, you seem to be placing some kind of special emphasis on hominids. Remember, there are going to be many things about our evolution that are merely chance related. In a way, asking a question like why aren't there overlapping species is like wondering what would happen if the Chicxulub meteor missed us and the dinosaurs survived. They are interesting 'what if' questions but often they are unanswerable.

 

[mindphuk]

I see what you mean and i appreciate the clarification. the emphasis comes from the fact that why did our species survive this event or process in which 99% of all species became extinct. I find it mind boggling that our species was somewhat special in a way compared to others that did not survive. What caused us to survive over our last ancestor, H. neandethalensis. Survival of the fittest right? Now if these ancestors were stockier i would assume they had a larger muscle mass then compared to H. sapien, all the skills were there for the survival of H. neandethalensis, but they just did not make it.

i dont know, maybe i am over thinking

The process is still going on. Another meteor could hit us wipe out a bunch of species or maybe a solar storm will wipe out communications and other electronics and cause chaos at a time when global warming is creating mass migrations of people and you have the mixture for another bottleneck, if not extinction of humans only while other species survive. There is a lot of randomness that occurs but the process keeps making even more species and we now have over 5-8 million on this planet.

Neanderthal didn't all die off, some remnants remain in today's humans. The evidence is that we interbred to some extent. Maybe language was the deciding factor. We might have been smarter or able to communicate better. Maybe the glaciation helped, our ancestors made it to the southern tip of Africa. I think there is a mystery there that still might get solved with new information. Asking the question is the first step, you are thinking about things that we would like to find out. I love it.

 

[olylifter420]

The process is still going on. Another meteor could hit us wipe out a bunch of species or maybe a solar storm will wipe out communications and other electronics and cause chaos at a time when global warming is creating mass migrations of people and you have the mixture for another bottleneck, if not extinction of humans only while other species survive. There is a lot of randomness that occurs but the process keeps making even more species and we now have over 5-8 million on this planet.

What sparks this "randomness"? I understand that questions that begin with a "why" are usually sometimes hard to answer, but i just dont understand why you or me did not end up as a H. rudolfensis or a paranthropus robustus? What caused you and me to be us and not them?

Neanderthal didn't all die off, some remnants remain in today's humans. The evidence is that we interbred to some extent. Maybe language was the deciding factor. We might have been smarter or able to communicate better. Maybe the glaciation helped, our ancestors made it to the southern tip of Africa. I think there is a mystery there that still might get solved with new information. Asking the question is the first step, you are thinking about things that we would like to find out. I love it.

Yes, i am aware of the Neanderthal genome project and its success at identifying those DNA characteristics. I too believe that communication was the ultimate factor that determined the fate of our past ancestors, but again, i believe that a larger brain would mean a smarter more complex anatomy and physiology which would in turn, in my opinion make them a bit fitter then the first H. sapien species that had smaller brains. And finally, their ability to understand where to migrate to once this freezing glaciation took place up north and how to get there is most intriguing to me. If their brain structure and development was very limited at the time, how were they able to understand that going south would save them? and the ones that stayed how they survived to make it across the bering strait to what is now north america? modern physiology study would lead me to believe that having a very underdeveloped brain, complex thinking would not be possible right? I think complex thinking requires major neurological development like what is found in our present brains, if only an ancestor died in ice and had a well preserved brain for study...

sorry for the ramble, im pretty medicated!

 

[Padawanbater2]

I don't think size is the only variable when measuring intelligence. There are animals with much smaller brains who show clear signs of intelligence.

 

[olylifter420]

my point exactly pad, they had a way larger brain then us, yet they were way underdeveloped, how were they able to understand logistics and travel?

I don't think size is the only variable when measuring intelligence. There are animals with much smaller brains who show clear signs of intelligence.

 

[Padawanbater2]

Instincts.

The same way birds know to travel south for winter.

 

[olylifter420]

You cant compare a bird to human when it comes to migration. Birds have an internal mechanism that kind of works like a compass

And, how would this underdeveloped brain know about instincts?



QUOTE=Padawanbater2;6845584]Instincts.

The same way birds know to travel south for winter.[/QUOTE]

 

[Padawanbater2]

You cant compare a bird to human when it comes to migration. Birds have an internal mechanism that kind of works like a compass

And, how would this underdeveloped brain know about instincts?

Why can't I compare birds to humans? We're both animals made of exactly the same things. We have instincts just like they do. This seems like a valid comparison. Humans have internal mechanisms like a compass too, we also have a pretty accurate internal clock.

It's not that it's 'underdeveloped', it is just as developed as your brain is, their development just went in a different direction than ours did.

 

[JamCE]

Fucking aliens scared us with it and humans embrace it with their shitty, fantasy stories that make it sound like we truly know something when in reality we haven't a clue and pretending to know is better than sticking your head in the ground acting like a little bitch! lol

 

[olylifter420]

The wise words of wisdom shared to us by jam

 

[Ringsixty]

Religion is older that civilized government.
But, religion was a way of controlling the public from the beginning of humans.
Either it was the Shaman, Witch doctor, Seer or what ever authoritative figure you choose.
They are in control!

Wow..just smoked some Purple Haze.... kind of slipping into deep thoughts about this subject.

I'm going to stop now...haha

Peace