Technology is the advanced use of tools.  Tool use happens in lots of animals.  It's a difference of degree.  It's not unique.

Two things that everyone must remember:

1. Evolution has three components:  Variation, heredity, and selection.

Please note that selection doesn't specify what kind of selection.  Only selection.  Humans clearly fit all three of these, and therefore fit the normal description of natural selection.

2. Humans are unique in some ways.  So is absolutely every other organism on the planet.  Our uniqueness makes us exactly the same as everyone else.  Claiming that you've found something unique about human evolution is simply to point out that we are different from other organisms.

Sorry for hijacking this thread but ive tried several times now to sign up to the site but it hasnt worked, and subsequently i cant start my own thread. But im in quick need of some help so... hence the hijack. ok...

VenomfangX on youtube has recently posted a video claiming he can falsify evolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CNV2A55Ilk

biggusrobbicus replied with an example that debunks his claim, but as he cencors his comments i relayed it to him in in a pm, to see his reply. The message i relayed was

"Pity VFX's new hypothesis basically goes: I
have now redefined all evolutionary mechanisms I can think of as
design. Now prove evolution.


"However, there is an isolated

lizard population that has developed a muscular restriction to develop

a fermenting chamber in its gut within the last 30 years. Its

verifiable ancestors do not posess this trait.

Ref: Herrel et. al. PNAS March 25, 2008 vol. 105 no. 12 4792-4795." 

VenomfangX's reply

However, there is an isolated lizard population that has developed a

muscular restriction to develop a fermenting chamber in its gut within

the last 30 years. Its verifiable ancestors do not posess this trait.

-you

			

I've heard this objection before, and its simply not evolution. There

are a few possible explanations for its sudden appearance;

			a) it is simply a duplication of a muscle it already possessed

b) it once possessed the fermenting chamber, and through a new diet it

was naturally selected out, and re-appeared when their diet changed

(remaining dormant). There are dormant genes throughout all creatures

(you possess the full human chromosome, so you also have the eye colors

which you do not have expressed in your eyeballs).

I'm sure there are other possibilities as well. Are you really going to

stand before God and say you didn't believe Him because of a fermenting

chamber appearing in a lizard? Good luck with that. 

			

			This is not evolution.

My education includes a large deal of anatomy and some pathology. Unfortunately all the education in genetics i have is informal and so does not equip me to soundly whip his ass. I know he is wrong, and i know the basics of why but i was hopeing that someone here is in the field and ready to fire back with some really high grade stuff.

oh yea, if an admin could move this to its own thread, and/or email me about my account that would be much appreciated.

Oh, sweet squeaking Bunny Jesus. 

I think we've got a real misunderstanding of what is meant by evolution here.  I can't comment at the moment because I've somewhere to be, but in the meantime, if you're posting in this thread, I seriously suggest you read up on genetic drift, gene flow, adaptation, mutation, selection and the E word itself.  To put it quickly, I'll squeeze out a quick one.

Say that cultural tendencies in the USA during the mid to late 1970's led women to favor men with bushy mustaches.  As a consequence, a larger number of male babies born in those years grew up to be men who could grow thick facial hair like their fathers.   Guys who couldn't grow 'staches back in that period had fewer promiscuous couplings with women and fewer total offspring.  As a consequence, there are a ton of douchebags walking around the States these days prominently displaying goatees (all apologies, of course).  Now whether or not you accept the veracity of my little story, what I have described is evolution.  Doesn't matter how minor, if there's a change in allelic frequency from one generation to the next for whatever reason, that's evolution.  Really.  It is.   
 

Ronin, I keep seeing you saying things like this.  What are you talking about?  Human evolution is going insanely fast compared to our recent past (50,000-5/7 million years ago).  Chimps have had more evolutionary change happen to their DNA since we diverged from them.  However Homo Sapiens evolutionary change is ramping up so rapidly that if we had always been evolving this quickly the differences between humans and chimps would easily be over a 100 times more different between the two species than it currently is.  The chimp evolution is plodding along where Homo Sapiens evolution is sprinting at a startling rate.

We created an artificial environment with no thought about natural selection.  We are now evolving to fit that artificial environment.  That is being shown time and time again in all the new studies.

The idea that human evolution has been slowed or stopped is not only an antiquated notion but is the exact opposite of what current research is telling us.

Do you even know how/why (say) tanks were developed in the first place?

It was to break-out of the extremely harsh trench-based warfare present throughout the first portion of WWI. We were already killing and maiming ea ch other to begin with - we just needed a tool to solve a particular problem (similarly, the fighter aircraft was developed during WWI, evolving from an initial role strictly based on reconnaisance).

This is just more 'technology is evil' bullshit, and I think you're smearing it around without even being conscious of it.

Come on now, Hamby. You can't compare human tool use with the tool use that happens in the animal world. Our creative, self-conscious use of tools sets us apart from every other creature on the planet in important ways.

Agree with all this.

Whoops! You slipped the word "natural" in there. How can variation, heredity and selection that are driven by clearly artificial things like technology and culture be said to be "natural"? If we take them as such, we abuse the meaning of the word artificial and destroy the distinction between the two things.

I would say that humans are unique in a unique way, specifically, in that we have the ability to create artificial things that do not spring from any other source in nature. To the extent that these things are influencing our evolution, and have even become the dominant force in it, you can say that we are no longer evolved through natural selection.

I dislike the term, because I DO understand it. We are talking about NATURAL SELECTION here, which humans are CERTAINLY part and parcel of. Pay attention.

Like the exoskeleton, like wings, like the sickle cell, like lactose tolerance, like asexual reproduction, like becoming eukaryotic.......

See where you've gone horribly wrong yet?

And if man becomes his machines, how is that NOT evolving? And if a NATURAL organism does that, how could you say it would not be within nature to do it or would not be natural?

Do you even know why exoskeletons evolved in the first place?

Sure I can.  It's tool use and it's tool use.  Our self-conscious use sets us apart in degree.  The difference between one degree above absolute zero and the temperature of the sun's corona is a difference in degree.

Um...

Oh, my god... when that guy at the bar asked for a screaming orgasm... I slapped him... I mean... he said, "orgasm."  It's obviously asking for sex...

Seriously, tilberian.  It's called "natural selection."  That's the name. 

Natural:  Occurs in the material world.  Simple enough?

Where do you think our brains came from?

LOL... unique in a unique way... isn't that like a double negative?

Seriously.  Think about what you just said.  It's nonsense.

~sigh~

I'm going to take up digging for diamonds in my backyard.  More hope of success.

eye numanite Tilberian 2 fyght maih werd b@ttles 4 meh form new hon

Sorry to disappoint, but I've pretty much given up on this.  All I could do would be to rehash the same things I've already said, and clearly, you aren't convinced by them, so it would be pointless.

I'm in an awkward position both here and in Strafio's moderate theist thread.  In both instances, all I can say is, "You haven't given any justification for your position."  There's no counter argument to make because in neither thread has a position been established well enough to argue against it.

Sure they have. Ever seen a chimp fish for termites with a sharpened stick or mash nuts with a rock? Granted it is rudimentary, but it IS recognizing a problem and making a tool or finding something that can be used as a tool. This is very well documented across several species in the wild, and if you include animals raised in captivity it is clear that tool manufacture and problem solving potentials are much greater than those realized in the wild.

The thing is though, they don't need to invent a shovel. The stick works just fine - not to mention the fact that a shovel would destroy the termite nest and make any future gathering of tasty critters difficult.

Both distinctions are valid. It makes sense to distinguish things humans have done from the rest of nature, we are an egocentric species and it also helps us better understand how we effect our environment. However, to call what we do unnatural or artificial in the scope of evolution is wrong. We are the product of evolution, we are the cousins of the chimps with sticks you just mentioned, and we share a common ancestor with them - if a chimp with a stick is natural, then so is a human with a spear, a human with a gun, and a human with an A-bomb.

I don't think the chimp ever recognized the problem in the sense that we would recognize the problem. A human would see a termite go into a hole and say "Hm, how can I get that out of there." He'd then model the hole and the termite and the known characteristics of all these things in his mind and start to creatively cast about for potential solutions. He'd mentally compare the size and characteristics of the blade of grass to the size and shape of the hole and the job it is meant to do. He might even realize that termites will bite and hold on to anything invading their nest.

Nothing I have ever read or seen suggests that chimps are capable of such complex mental tasks. My guess is that one chimp found out about the trick by accident and the trick was learned by the others then passed down culturally.

Also, if I am not mistaken, it is only one population of chimps that has been observed to do this in the wild. If chimps were capable of reasoning this problem out, we would expect most or all of them to have arrived at the same solution in the similar way that separate human populations all over the world arrived at the idea of writing.

This would make the chimps smarter than most human populations. Come on, do you really think the chimps would refrain from using a technology that would gain them far more termites because they could forecast a future supply problem? They don't use shovels to dig up the hill because they haven't invented them, Yellow. And they haven't invented them because they are not capable of invention, as we use the term.

I think we are down to a rather boring semantic point here. I am simply pointing to the fact that the main factors affecting human evolution now are of human design rather than coming from sources external to human civilization. I like to call that "artificial" and you like call it "natural." Let's flip a coin. But I think your way is confusing because it makes it sound like human selection is still happening the same way it happened when we were in the trees, and it is not.

You are really beating up the language, here, Yellow. If we are going to call an A-bomb "natural" then we better rip the word "artificial" out of the dictionary.

Yes it does! That is the meaning of artificial: created by humans.

Settle down, settle down, I am not trying to establish some theistic hierarchy in which our adaptations are "better" or "higher" than any other animal's. But they are different in a way in which no other creature is different. There are several creatures that channel electric current through their skin but only one that thinks.

Not ever all the humans all together. But hundreds of millions of us at a time can. Look at China and the one child policy. They are radically effecting the evolution of the species via a collective plan.

Chimps do the exact same thing.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yrPb41hzYdw&feature=related

Honestly, is that the solution you'd come up with? How long would it have taken you?

I'll gladly dig out the journal articles on that experiment if you'd like.

Why, exactly, should we expect that. Please explain.

The fact of the matter is SOME chimp populations exhibit this behavior, because it is in part a CULTURAL phenomena - IOW a library of knowledge being passed between generations and occasionally populations. Sound familiar?

Yes, chimps clearly do learn behaviors very well, but as the experiment I just showed you suggests, they are certainly also capable of solving problems and abstract thinking to some degree.

No, I'm sure the chimps would mine that termite hole to oblivion, just as we do our own natural resources. Why shouldn't they, they are quite nearly the same creature.

Studies on captive primates also support this. They will eat and drink as much as they can to their own detriment.

I'm sorry if you think that's the way it sounds, I think I was as clear as I could possibly be.

Clearly, I am not wrong, from a scientific and biological POV. That is what I care about. I've already said, we should track the impact humans have, but to call human influence unnatural is to confuse things.

So you'd call fission or fusion artificial or unnatural? Have you heard of a thing called a star?

Well, that is a piss poor word for it. Man-made is much  better. For nothing man makes is not natural.

Are you sure about that? I'm not so sure we're the only species that thinks. Cetaceans and many primates and even pigs and dogs can easily match up with human children in many instances, and in many instances, primates and cetaceans have  been shown to have real problem solving skills. It may well be a different kind of thinking or intelligence, but it is certainly there.

Right, because there are certainly no trips to the herbalist for things to make a male child, there are certainly never any female children cast away, there are certianly never any children hidden from the state, there are certainly never any people who leave the country for reproductive freedom.

This is a horrible example, because it is a edict that is largely agiainst natural instinct and political will. You may as well have said that India's caste system is a logical and possible way to create two distinct races.

It is not unique at all. Many other creatures are poisonous.

This is a difference of degree. Fin whales are almost as big. There is nothing unique about it. Humans, on the other hand, are the only self-conscious animals on the planet. Nothing else is even similar.

No it is not. We have mental tools that no other creature possesses, tools that enable us to do things that are completely different from anything done by any other animal. Being able to understand that another creature can perceive you is something that only a very few higher mammals can even achieve. Understanding that the other creature also knows that you perceive it is something that some trained chimps have shown a limited ability to grasp. But humans routinely have fourth and fifth-order self-consciousness...by the time they are five. And that is the least of our tricks. Our consciousness and ability to project ahead and back in time mentally is a completely unique ability like nothing that any other creature possesses.

Who said anything about intelligence not being included in evolutionary adaptations. Clearly, it is just such an adaptation. But it is an adaptation that gives the species so adapted the ability to create a new vector of selection called "artificial."

Technology is so what. Our intelligence allows us to do and invent things that impact our own selection. We can even, if we choose, make deliberate changes in what the next generation is like (for instance, education). Whether or not an individual mates and has offspring is now a matter of culture and choice...two things that animals do not even have. It seems to me to be fundamentally different from the way every other species on the planet is selected.

Is this about me?  Because if it is, I'll just stop responding to you, but in your response to me, you denied the point, and then conceded it to Yellow.  If you've just got a hate on for me, it's fine, but you're contradicting yourself.

I'm not trying to be mean, or insulting, or condescending.  You need to read more about the current state of things in evolutionary psychology and maybe biology in general.  Your assessment of the other primates is outdated.  I'm not going to try to explain the whole thing here.  I'd like it if you trusted me enough to do some reading, though.

Are you familiar with the concept of runaway selection and how it relates to female selection?  In our earliest jumps in brain size (it happened in fits and starts, not gradually) it doesn't appear that we gained an awful lot of survival benefit.  It's much more likely that it was a more or less random choice by females.  For lots more on sexual selection and runaway, please read:

The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature by Geoffrey Miller (Paperback - April 17, 2001)

Actually, no.  He's not.  In some primates, they have a complex society that involves reciprocal altruism in a relatively advanced form.  Humans have evolved past Tit-for-Tat to a modified Commitment Model, but these games are on a linear scale.  In short, some primates rise to power by forming alliances, and when the alliances are formed, the males who helped the new "king" expect a return for their investment.  If they don't get it, they mount a new coup with new allies.  This involves reputation, planning, and cooperation.

Additionally, we now know that dolphins form not only alliances between individuals, but alliances between groups.  This is a big step up the societal ladder, and involves complex mechanisms for dealing with complex interactions.  Note, also, that some dolphins have passed the "self-aware" test, as have some primates.

Some of this is explained in the book I just mentioned.  More is in this one:

.	The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation by Matt Ridley (Paperback - April 1, 1998)

If you want to have a really good understanding of how biology shapes the human experience, you need to read this one, too:

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley (Paperback - April 29, 2003)

If you don't want to trust me when I say that you're speaking from ignorance of current science, that's your right, but I think Yellow and any other science geek will pretty much back me up on this.

That made me smile, and then chuckle, and then laugh heartily.  Thanks.

I saw Yellow's post after yours and it is as simple as that. I would want to see that experiment repeated before I make any concessions about the general abilities of chimps. However, the clip, if all is as it seems, appears to prove that some chimps can approach human-like levels of problem solving under some circumstances.

First of all, it is far from well established that human intelligence is the result of runaway selection. You are throwing out fringe theories as if they are fact. In any event, the question of how humans got their intelligence is beside the point. You and Yellow are telling me that chimps ALREADY possess the same capabilities to model problems and invent solutions as we do. Maybe not to the same degree, but, according to you, the basic abilities are there and are no different from ours. My question is why have they not used this ability? If a chimp is smart enough to know that pouring water into a tube will cause a peanut to float to the top, then it is smart enough to know that digging up a termite mound will yield a lot more termites than just poking in a stick. What we see in normal chimp behaviour (and even the termite-stick ability is unusual and confined to one population) does not agree with what we would expect if chimps have the abilities you are ascribing to them.

My explanation of the discrepancy is that while some chimps may have some latent abilities along those lines, they are not a part of normal chimp cognitive development. The fact that the termite trick is widespread in one population is explained by cultural transmission, which is simple copying and not indicative of any human-like mental ability. 

I'm not speaking from ignorance, I do try to keep up on the science news, though I don't have time for reading whole journals. I'm speaking from a difference of opinion as to the correct interpretation of the phenomena you and your authors are pointing to. The complex social interactions you point to are amazing...but almost certainly occurring with no conscious awareness on the part of the animals as to what they are doing. They just trust this individual or group over that individual without really knowing why. When people point to the human-like behaviour and say it is evidence of human-like mental processes, I have to say that they are speculating.

Here's what Dennet says in Breaking the Spell, page 111:

"There is some (controversial) evidence that a chimpanzee can believe that another agent — a chimpanzee or a human being — knows that the food is in the box rather than in the basket. This is second-order intentionality, involving beliefs about beliefs (or beliefs about desires or desires about beliefs etc), but there is no evidence (yet) that any nonhuman animal can want you to believe that it thinks you are hiding behind the tree on the left not the right (third-order intentionality). But even preschool children delight in playing games in which one child wants another to pretend to know what the first child wants the other to believe (fifth-order intentionality): 'You be the sheriff and ask me which way the robbers went!'"

I'm rather tired of quibbling over whether this ability represents a completely different ability than chimpanzees have or whether it is simply very much greater than the chimpanzee's ability. Because that is not really the point. The point is that, as a consequence of our ability, we are now subject to very different selection criteria than any other creature on the planet is, or ever has been. It is, IMO, an different kind of evolution that needs a different name.

But we could protect ourselves from these kinds of events right now, if we chose. This is the difference, and the whole point I'm trying to make, between our selection processes and those that impact other species. We have already eliminated most of the "natural" selection pressures that we face. Yes, some are left, but they are nearly irrelevant in the face of the much more important artifical pressures that we have imposed ourselves. By the time the next asteroid strike is due, we should have the ability to move off the planet en masse prior to impact.

 You could argue that a bird's nest, on a very basic scale, is artificial because it's made out of elements and does a single job.

I don't really think anything is truly artificial, with the possible exception of AI. I'm not an expert on this by any means, but everything comes from something "natural", so a natural origin most likely means a "natural" outcome.

I think we're evolving on a more intricate scale: not big, physical changes, but small, intellectual changes. At least I hope so. 

I agree. I think the issue with the original question is that by defining our creations as artificial, we are assuming a sort of supernatural ability. Which, I don't really buy we have. 

We're evolving, but not in the same way as other species. I don't think species ever really stop changing.

Yep, a bird's nest is artificial.