One of the Almighty’s better ideas is evolution. The system he has set up makes continuously towards improvement. Given that living creatures can pass on their characteristics through breeding, this is the inevitable outcome. The good characteristics enable creatures to survive and breed, the bad characteristics lead to an early death and less breeding.
From the crudest and most simple living creatures, evolution eventually developed human beings who are not only physically strong and adaptable, but they also have huge brains. Much of the work of the brain is automatic: the human being operates mainly without being aware of this. And there is a further element of the brain: human beings are conscious of themselves and they can make choices. Fortunately, they do not realise that many of the choices they make are in fact automatic, because they don’t appear to be so. Even the experts in the field admit that they cannot explain consciousness and freedom of the will. They call it the ‘hard problem’.
Here is one interesting example. The earliest human beings lived in very hot areas where it was advantageous to have black skin. So that developed. But later, human beings began to colonise the cooler parts of the world. For this, a lighter, even pink, skin was advantageous. So, evolution did its work. And now I notice something very odd: it seems that light skinned people tend to despise black skinned people. Why is this? They should be revering their aristocratic forebears, but they fail to do so.
Let’s look at another aspect: the process of human breeding. I start with women. What characteristics are required by the female of the species? The female has to carry her offspring for most of a year, and then must support the offspring until they are able to care for themselves.
It follows that they will be drawn towards males who appear to be powerful, competent and reliable. They must be healthy in their appearance. And they must have financial resources. It is only such males who are likely to defend and provide for the mother over the several years of childcare. We might think that in the present time some of these characteristics may be in practice less important – but we have to remember that these tendencies in women are inherited from their long-term foremothers. Changed conditions do not change the instincts.
What is required of the male? Certainly, he will look out for the attractive female in good health – she is likely to be competent to bear and to care for the young. So, symmetry, which indicates health, and breasts which indicate milk will be factors. So will the ratio between waist and pelvis. But behind all that, is the need for the male to spread his seed as widely as possible. Unlike the female. who may pay a heavy price, it is at no cost to him. But there is good evidence that women, perhaps unconsciously, supercharge their attractiveness at the time of ovulation. For example, pole dancers in night clubs receive larger ‘tips’ when they are ovulating.
So we are reminded that the pickiness of the female is built into them through their evolved nature. Similarly, the unwanted male approach is triggered by the same means. We are sometimes given to criticise the opposite sex in this regard. But is that fair when the habits have come from how evolution works? Without it, there would be no human race at all.
secondsightblogdotnet 
Again Quentin raises a critical truth for us to ponder but he has perhaps overlooked the hard evidence that further supports his truth -the countless fossils around the world that reflect past defunct species.
My difficulty with this truth that abounds is that I know very many Christians who strongly refuse to believe in evolution at all and yet as Quentin so clearly argues we have all benefitted from this truth and indeed will continue to do so.
Quentin writes:
// And now I notice something very odd: it seems that light skinned people tend to despise black skinned people. Why is this? //
It’s not color, Quentin, it’s culture. The obsession with the word “color” is new to me. I don’t remember it being a liberal hobby horse earlier in my life. It’s a progressive straw man, a new “truth” to which people who want not to be thought ignorant and “evil” (another twisting of an old word with a much narrower meaning) must now bow in public.
Colour is still a primary factor in racial prejudice. Talk to any Asian, Africa or Caribbean person and, no matter what their education, wealth or social class, you will find they have experienced prejudice and some form of racial abuse.
However this prejudice is not the sole preserve of white people. The Guardian has a columnist Afua Hirsh, who’s father is British and mother from Ghana, she experienced racial prejudice in the UK for being brown and in Ghana for not being brown enough. However, I dislike her banging on about privilege as she is fortunate to have an education and career which places her in the top 1% of both Britain and Ghana.
I’d like to know in what period David Smith saw it as culture rather than colour, as a teenager in the 60’s there was widespread racial prejudice against commonwealth immigrants and that predates the rise of the liberal elite class.
Studies of positive and negative ethnocentricity between nations do show that most nations have in-group preferences and are both positively and negatively ethnocentric, I think these traits are seen to be strongest in East Asian countries.
Quentin writes:
// We are sometimes given to criticise the opposite sex in this regard. But is that fair when the habits have come from how evolution works? Without it, there would be no human race at all. //
Whence this concern? Who are criticizing whom? Vive la différence.
I find the theory of evolution problematic because of the premise of evolution is philosophical reasoning that has us all starting as an amoeba and evolving into men and women. That is why evolution cannot and has not progressed further than a theory.
Evolution is further built on a rationalization of what some think of themselves and the world in which we have lived and do live now. But it is only speculation and remains so.
When it comes to the sexes, I would say from our nature,( it that evolution?), the urge to merge comes into being. Sex and procreation are all within the realm of proceeding from our nature.
In a Fallen nature, also comes the desire to own and to process. Was the Fall evolutionary? If we say it is emerging of love with courting couples, is such love evolutionary?
We are aware that everything in the visible world and cosmos has a beginning, middle and end. In other words, everything that is seen visibly dies. Is that evolutionary or just natural growth within its limitations reaching its end?
Man, on the other hand, a relative new-comer to the block as it were, is very different in nature to everything else. Man is a spirit (is that evolution) with a body. The body without the spirit is dead.
Is that evolution?
Without regeneration, if the spirit is dead on account of sin, he is alive physically for a time, but at the same time dead while he lives. Does that proceed from evolution?
Then comes death, is that evolution at work. If at the end of evolution there is only death, then evolution would have failed. Thank God, so-called evolution will never have the last word if it was right thinking at all.
“For example, pole dancers in night clubs receive larger ‘tips’ when they are ovulating.”
Who thought of doing that piece of research? – Or is it based on incidental observations by the pole dancers themselves?
Iona,
https://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2015/2/20/female-strippers-earn-more-tips-when-they-are-ovulating
If you are familiar with research methodology I think this tiny study with a few add ons says little. That a persons body scent can have erotic potential is hardly rocket science after all.
I can’t get anywhere with this topic on account of its over simplification.
We might add:
“ONE Ig Nobel-winning experiment probing human nature has featured in New Scientist: do women somehow signal when they are at peak fertility? Most other female mammals do so openly, but men don’t consciously recognise any such signal from women. To investigate, University of New Mexico psychologists Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan asked women working as lap dancers to report their nightly tips, and whether they were on hormonal contraceptives or menstruating naturally. The two groups of women received similar tips when they were in non-fertile parts of their cycle, but when the naturally menstruating women reached their fertile days they earned significantly more.”
(Evolution and Human Behavior, vol 28, p 375, and New Scientist, 11 October 2007, p 17)
Iona writes:
// Who thought of doing that piece of research? – Or is it based on incidental observations by the pole dancers themselves? //
People are no longer individuals but pieces of groups. “A pole dancer” is not a person but just an insignificant element in the group “pole dancers”, which is effectively irreducible. Polls and surveys abound. It’s called “research”, implying that it’s “scientific”. If it’s scientific, it’s beyond question. Funny way of reasoning, but understandable.
David, I rarely find myself in agreement with your posts, but I do believe that too much gets reported with the label “science”. There is really no such thing as social science, economic science or science of mind (including psychology). What these areas of research and academic study are is the application of scientific methods to things which are not reducible to pure science (thank God).
milliganp writes:
// What these areas of research and academic study are is the application of scientific methods to things which are not reducible to pure science (thank God). //
I’d not underestimate the resourcefulness of the academic mind. “Pure science” may not be long for this world, once the current pack of true believers get their tentacles into it.
Quentin
You wrote in your topic preamble the following:
‘Fortunately, they do not realise that many of the choices they make are in fact automatic, because they don’t appear to be so. Even the experts in the field admit that they cannot explain consciousness and freedom of the will. They call it the ‘hard problem’.
There is indeed a problem in understanding consciousness and freedom of will, so shall we delve into this together, all of us?
What is consciousness? Obviously it is in the brain for without the brain we would not be conscious,
right?
What then is our unconscious? It is the sum total of humanity, its whole history of mankind with all its problems, sorrows, anxiety, fears. It is also all our conditioning from education, from our culture, from our faith.
One see this, we are conditioned, but the brain itself per-se is not conditioned. Our brains has the capacity of infinity.
Can we futher look together and see that the conscious and the unconscious are one movement?
It does not appear that way, because we are conditioned with all our technological, cultural religious
and problems of this life that the brain is conditioned in its thinking facaulty. Can we uncondition or consciousness, our brains? Look at ourselves when we think of this issue.
What does bring a full focus, attention to the conscious level is a life threatening problem, for then we have energy of the whole conscious mind brought into action of said threating problem.
As long as we stay in our compartmentalized conditioned worlds we have no real energy or power or access directly using both the conscious and the unconscious mind being bogged down with our conditioned brains. But let me remind you, your brain is not of itself conditioned.
Perhaps Quentin, this is where why your experts call with pathos the whole explain of conssciousness (awareness) a hard problem?
Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ was published in 1859. By the time that RL Stevenson wrote ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ (1887), the idea of evolution had become established. Hyde, a degenerate creature, is described as ‘ape-like’, suggesting that he has stepped off the evolutionary ladder a couple of rungs too early.
At the same time, the use of photography, especially in police mugshots, reinforced the ‘science’ of physiognomy. Since the ‘negroid’ physiognomy was seen as more ape-like it was an easy step to regard black people as evolutionary, as well as culturally, inferior.
Nor was it simply a question of skin colour. ‘Punch’ frequently caricatured Irishmen in terms of degeneracy, with a prognathous jaw and extended upper lip, to equate Irish nationalism with bestial violence.
I recently read an article which indicated that the first generation of Italian Americans were categorised as racially inferior. In the early 70’s there was still widespread prejudice in the US against Polish immigrants. West Side Story is set in prejudice against Puerto Ricans who are now dominantly of Spanish descent.
Our brains are biological …. Our minds (souls if you will) some assert are not dependent on biology and exist prior to it, and act as receptors of ‘consciousness’ while in this physical state. ……. That’s the ‘hard question’ of consciousness. Prior to whatever we ‘investigate’ is consciousness – without it we couldn’t investigate. ….. The unconscious is seen by some as the rest of the ‘ice-burgh’ beneath the surface of conscious realisation. Itself with two ‘levels’ – 1. personal unconscious 2. collective unconsciousness of species … i would add other levels such as connection with God/Spirit and any others ….
G.D.
You wrote: ‘would add other levels such as connection with God/Spirit and any others ….’
I could not agree more and this is the greatest hard problem for mankind generally, without that connection to God there is no real understanding of who and what we are or why we are here in this universe at all.
God who created not only conscious and the unconscious are meant to work together, but seldom do, thus we are deprived of that energy operating together brings with the knowing and understanding.
Experts who think one can understand consciousness apart from God are indulging in the realms of fantasy to fit their ideas but without that connection to God, they are not awake, in the dark. not knowing themselves so they invent a whole philosophy on consciousness
the purpose of the conscious and unconscious.
We don’t need to look far to see the consequences of this. Most are seeking something, enlightenment or peace but it would seem the mess the world is in, mankind not having a connection to God they reach neither. Some, of course, give a course on all this, but it is only money orientated, for they for all their talk have read a book or devised a programme and dupe people. They won’t listen to those that really know something of the power and energy in both, so they and their followers remain in an invented ignorance.
As the Lord tells us, Without Me, you can do nothing!
Quentin, I think your theories of what would be called social evolution are over simplistic. The vast majority of humanity was either grindingly poor or living an entirely contingent existence till at least the beginning of the 19th century. Under these situations it is the clan or extended community that determines the ability to survive. Marriage was almost always within the clan / community / village and was often decided by parents / elders or the village matchmaker. Thus modern patterns of mate selection have come about too quickly to be considered as evolution (unless they are a reversion to prehistoric lifestyles about which we inevitably have insufficient information).
One of the problems of Darwin was that his theories led to over-simplification of the complexity of humanity and human behaviour. In the early part of the 20th century all sorts of eugenic theories abounded which led to movements to sterilise (or exterminate) the poor, the “feeble-minded”, “inferior races” such as Gypsies. I think we have to be excessively cautious when we try to apply evolutionary theories to the human condition.
It is a common misconception that evolution is oriented towards improvement. Evolution is indifferent, natural selection performs a rudimentary sort of beneficial changes but these are dependant on the immediate environment. Many extinctions occur because a particular evolutionary branch has an immediate benefit which cannot survive a later change in the environment.
One of the problems of Darwin was that his theories led to over-simplification of the complexity of humanity and human behaviour. In the early part of the 20th century all sorts of eugenic theories abounded which led to movements to sterilise (or exterminate) the poor, the “feeble-minded”, “inferior races” such as Gypsies. I think we have to be excessively cautious when we try to apply evolutionary theories to the human condition.
It is interesting that applying certain kinds of Darwinian theory to the study of humans is highly taboo because of its association with, say, Nazism, and increasingly, colonialism, but the application of radical social constructivist ‘progressive’ theories of human behaviour inspired by Marxism is becoming increasingly prominent in academia. Despite these brands of Marxist and anti-colonialist ideas also motivating a series of 20th century genocides.
In his new book Douglas Murray points out that the current obssession on the political left with the evils of ‘whiteness’ has been inspiring renewed interest in race science, there seems some truth in this. Studying topics relating to group selection in human evolution and hereditary differences is much less taboo in Russian speaking countries and the Far East at least and there are still some researchers in the West who are probably attracting relatively more attention at the moment. (The idea that the rich can be considered a eugenic problem because their children are not subject to sufficient selective pressure and therefore more of them with harmful mutations survive, and then that these individuals try to propogate maladaptive behaviours to the rest of society is interesting for example, also the studies into the links between atheism and autism).
I have banged on long enough about what FZM has written above, clear and concise. But where are the solutions, the fightback against the Globalists and the Chi-Comms who are taking over
the Universities, Governments, the Political and Media scene today, and corrupting young minds with their PC poison, with their failed Karl Marks communistic propaganda and anti-free speech?
If we are only going to wring our hands, and if our religious, political, and Media leaders are so mealy-mouthed, too scared to speak up and out clearly with the truth and the truth of what is going on, then we are in deep trouble in our respective countries, we are heading for war or tyranny.
Thankfully there are people speaking out, but not near enough be it in Christian or secular political circles.
However, people are waking up and slowly organizing to meet the threat, and it is a global big threat. Time to act, for the time may come when writing this on a blog would see people tortured, imprisoned and the likes of this blog, if it were to continue, would have to spew out their silly spurious rubbish or be shut down. Yes, we live in interesting times.
Nektarios writes:
// If we are only going to wring our hands, and if our religious, political, and Media leaders are so mealy-mouthed, too scared to speak up and out clearly with the truth and the truth of what is going on, then we are in deep trouble in our respective countries, we are heading for war or tyranny. //
Well, we have both war and tyranny now, war in varying intensities and tyrannies of various sorts and degrees. And that is, I suppose, the natural condition of mankind. The human animal is built to seek power, power over other humans and power over nature. Warriors kill other humans openly and the rest of us, forbidden to take human life directly, work hard to dominate both humans and nature through crime or games or politics or at work or in the home.
What is interesting is the question of the probability of evolution happening in other planets?
Is evolution likely or unlikely to occur in other planets in our universe?
Is evolution the unique history of our planet alone or does it occur in other solar systems in our galaxy or other galaxies?
In the absence of evidence, these questions could play a role in determining if we are alone in the cosmos.
Another consideration is that evolution is how life has developed on our planet.
Does this bolster the argument for the existence of God that is behind evolution, or bolster the argument against a God being behind evolution?
Evolution is a scientific reality that nonetheless is not immune to an inquiry of its probability or improbability.
What is the probability that evolution is a gradual and spontaneous process of adaptivity for each species, including different species in an ecological relationship to each other?
Can any mathematician calculate the probability of evolution occurring as a self-generating process?
As this is likely to be an astronomical figure, what is the chance that evolution is random?
“As this is likely to be an astronomical figure, what is the chance that evolution is random?”
I’m unable to put any kind of figure on this as others do. Milliganp kindly pointed me to an interesting video recently. Stephen Meyers shares the view that it is astronomical/impossible. However, encouraged by milliganp to search further on this subject, I immediately thought it worth checking out the current consensus amongst biologists on this. There seemed to be quite widespread agreement … they didn’t know. If they don’t know, what is the basis for the calculation/estimate that people are making? In his 2009 book “The Signature of the Cell” Stephen Meyer points out some examples of some important steps we hadn’t been able to observe occurring naturally in biochemical experiments with RNA. Is this the sort of information that feeds into his calculation of how likely any such natural process might be? Since the book was published some of the examples he used have now been directly observed. What more might we learn that could sway the estimate further either way and by how much? If we should one day observe the very essentials of the origin of self replicating molecules or the formation of a complex structure like a cell from simpler organic components then, in given conditions, the astronomical figure might tend towards 1.
Alan
Very interesting, but tragically the direction of leading from the petri-dish to whole biological functioning humans, programmed of course. With that, the Globalists and the Chi-Comms will seek to kill off human beings and replace them with their programmed biological version of a human. I cannot call it a human being.
We know this has been the elites for a long time now and know this is their plan.
I sometimes wonder when it comes to the scientists working on these projects if we are not dealing with MAD SCIENTISTS? Certainly, the direction of travel on these projects is tending towards an anti-human and evil end.
John Candido
Let me start with one of your assertions which are held by many: Evolution is a scientific reality that nonetheless is not immune to an inquiry of its probability or improbability.
Evolution by the very nature it, is and must remain a theory. what one has done with that Darwinian thinking, a philosophical edifice has been erected to give it not only acceptability but respectability in academic circles, but it remains a projection of thinking working backwards, they think this is the scientific fact when in it remains still just a theory.
These two questions go together, Is evolution the unique history of our planet alone or does it occur in other solar systems in our galaxy or other galaxies?
In the absence of evidence, these questions could play a role in determining if we are alone in the cosmos.’
I watched the latest Sky at Night programme the other day, their observational aspects were brilliant. However, what they deduced from all that was again theory with no basis in fact.
They are looking at exo-planets, but so far nothing that would like Earth to bring forth life. This is what happens when one leaves God out of the equation, we imagine all sorts of things.
As for life on other planets, they have not found any yet.
It strikes me the whole and very profitable astronomy business that has been built up over many years, costing a fortune, it has not evolved or developed apart from technical capacities, but project the same ideas of we are not alone in the universe and there must be life on other planets.
“Survival of the fittest”, which is part but by no means all, of how evolution takes place, will inevitably take place in any group which is subjected to significant environmental changes.
And, thank you for the link to the dancers, Ignatius and Quentin. I note that 18 women were studied over 60 days. There seems to be no indication of how many of that 18 were using hormonal contraception (and therefore not ovulating) and how many were experiencing natural menstrual/ovulatory periods. So no, not a very decisive piece iof research.
I would reasonably suppose that the dancers involved were checked out individually after the exercise. But of course these small studies are always vulnerable.
I was once at a Catholic marriage counselling conference. Two very respectable ladies started flirting. Then one of them apologised – giving as her excuse that both of them were ovulating at the time.
John Candido posted:
“Does this bolster the argument for the existence of God that is behind evolution, or bolster the argument against a God being behind evolution?”
I think the answer is, neither.
It is worth remembering that this ‘argument’ has been going for more than a hundred years now and during that time much has changed. The theory of ‘evolution’ has developed into a politico social ideology having at its base what appears to be a dominant scientific hypothesis.
The old order of six day creation in religious thinking has passed away and very few except extreme evangelicals place any credence on the objectively literal interpretation of the first few chapters of genesis. Instead we have the understanding that God speaks of how we are to be related, to this earth and to Himself. The fundamental point of scripture is to tell us how to act in relation to the God who made us.
As to life on different planets; surely the grace of God need not be limited to this earth…three headed beings based upon silica not carbon will surely and nonetheless have the praise of the most high God upon their lips!!
John Candido posted:
“Does this bolster the argument for the existence of God that is behind evolution, or bolster the argument against a God being behind evolution?”
I think the answer is, neither.
It is worth remembering that this ‘argument’ has been going for more than a hundred years now and during that time much has changed. The theory of ‘evolution’ has developed into a politico social ideology having at its base what appears to be a dominant scientific hypothesis.
There is an interesting point here. In a previous post milliganp mentioned the likely role of types of group selection in human evolution:
The vast majority of humanity was either grindingly poor or living an entirely contingent existence till at least the beginning of the 19th century. Under these situations it is the clan or extended community that determines the ability to survive. Marriage was almost always within the clan / community / village and was often decided by parents / elders or the village matchmaker.
Various researchers believe group selection is the best way of accounting for the data we have about human evolution, but the idea is fiercely resisted by others. It seems like political and ideological considerations are influential in this making it a clear example of the way evolutionary perspectives can inform and be informed by politico-social ideology.
I was surprised by finding out about issue this because taking account of group and extended family influences (it is implausible to think these would have been absent and this relative absence may be a recent feature of more industrialised urban societies), the idea you have about mate selection criteria changes. It also raises a question about the loud claims of certain scientists popular evolutionary biologists to be purely evidence driven and to follow wherever the evidence leads in their research.
FMZ writes:
“I was surprised by ……………………………to follow wherever the evidence leads in their research”
It is always the case that ‘evidence’ is received into a particular milieux. Quentin’s post we are now discussing is a good example where some very dodgy ‘research’ is taken up within the context of an existing discourse (myth, in other words) and then shaped accordingly to fit some existent strand of the myth or indeed its opposite tendency.
It seems to me painfully obvious that cultural norms (environmental conditions in other words) are easily as determinant as other influences. It must be the case that ‘global warming’ cannot be exclusively seen as an evolutionary issue. Also that the great wars of the 20th century had probably a much greater impact on partner selection than how many centimetres there were between the waist and the pelvis!
Also that the great wars of the 20th century had probably a much greater impact on partner selection than how many centimetres there were between the waist and the pelvis!
Thinking about this you can see how what Quentin wrote could be accurate, at least for men. During the 1941-45 conflict with Germany the Soviet Union lost at least 9 million young men in the prime of life, probably disproportionately men who were natural leaders and commanders, and the more courageous types. Likewise Germany lost around 4 million servicemen (perhaps disproportionate numbers of young Germans with strong ethnocentric tendencies, because that is linked to the willingness of individuals to sacrifice themselves in war). Young women died in smaller quantities so after the war were probably subject to some quite harsh selection as the available able bodied men remaining had more of a choice, especially in the countries with really huge losses of young men. The waist/hip ratio might indeed have been a thing in the post-war decade.
Nowadays the situation seems somewhat reversed (at least if you go by the content of the ‘manosphere’ on YouTube), all the issues with Incels, Forever Alone and MGTOW, because there seem to be too many men and young women are very much in demand.
Iona,
““Survival of the fittest”, which is part but by no means all, of how evolution takes place, will inevitably take place in any group which is subjected to significant environmental changes…”
That’s an interesting thought, could you enlarge on it please? My understanding of what you are implying is that the tendency for survival of the fittest is a simple product of existence and not necessarily related to causal mechanisms.
FMZ says:
“. Young women died in smaller quantities so after the war were probably subject to some quite harsh selection as the available able bodied men remaining had more of a choice, especially in the countries with really huge losses of young men. The waist/hip ratio might indeed have been a thing in the post-war decade.”
Yes but then so would the deviation from an exclusive focus on measurementality towards broader concerns!
I Have been an osteopath for 30 years now and in the process have wrapped myself around literally thousands and thousands of torso’s. I have been technically measuring the distance from waist to pelvis for all that time and can venture with confidence to argue that the mystery of attraction is not based upon simple attention to symmetry….thankfully there is a lot more to it than that. 🙂
Ignatius – all I meant by survival of the fittest being inevitable is that environmental changes will inevitably reduce in numbers, or eliminate, those individuals which are less fit to survive the new conditions. For example, on an island where there are flightless birds, the introduction of cats and/or rats is likely to eliminate them, leaving only those birds that can fly.