Horizon - Have Humans Stopped Evolving?

[cornelius]

I studied this at Uni, if haven't already read them "Whats love got to do with it" by Merideth Small and "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley are good reads.

Red a synopsis of the first and extracts from the second. Thanks for the suggestion, might go look up the full versions when I've ran out of things to read.

 

[Moonbat]

Another well timed thread on Chronicles. This week's (Thursday the 17th's) New Scientist has a feature on the evolution of modern humans (Homo Civicus), I think it would count as Microevolution, things like thinner bones, smaller muscles and even some gene changes.

 

[Heck Tate]

Does anyone know about the evolution of consciousness and thought? One of my friends keeps trying to shove Mayan 2012 stuff down my throat and he says they predicted when certain stages of thought evolved and 2012 is supposed to be the dawn of a new type of consciousness which we can't understand with what we have now. I've tried finding real scientific information on how thought processes developed, but most of what I found was super complex brain chemical stuff, and I don't have much of a background with biology or chemistry. I've exhausted every source of information I have on this subject, and our debate has been going on for about a week now, and I'm getting to the point where I just want to beat reason into his face with a bat. I don't know if this warrants an entirely new thread, I figured it kind of ties in here because it's about how our thought processes developed differently (as far as we know) from those of other life forms.

 

[mosaix]

One of my friends keeps trying to shove Mayan 2012 stuff down my throat and he says they predicted when certain stages of thought evolved and 2012 is supposed to be the dawn of a new type of consciousness which we can't understand with what we have now.

I'm sure you'll have the last laugh, Heck. And you don't have long to wait.

The problem is, something is bound to happen in 2012 - volcano, earthquake, tsunami, super-nova, Manchester City win the Premiership - and the Mayan 2012 nutters are going to say 'told you so'.

 

[Heck Tate]

Ya I know. With hindsight and enough vagueness, all events were predicted. I know it's not that long to wait but it seems like forever with his incessant praise of the Mayans and how they were so much smarter than our societies today. The worst thing is that my friend is actually pretty smart and rational in just about every other issue, and I don't want to stop hanging out with him because of this one thing. I've told him to stop bringing it up near me because I don't want to argue about it, but he always takes this as me admitting defeat and continues to tell me every time he get new "proof." It almost makes me wish for the apocalypse just so he'll shut up.

 

[mosaix]

Get him to make some concrete predictions - in writing.

 

[Wybren]

Does anyone know about the evolution of consciousness and thought? One of my friends keeps trying to shove Mayan 2012 stuff down my throat and he says they predicted when certain stages of thought evolved and 2012 is supposed to be the dawn of a new type of consciousness which we can't understand with what we have now.

From what I remember it has something to do with the frequencies we vibrate at, my mum used to be right into this stuff till she regained her senses and divorced the idiot she was married to at the time.

 

[Moonbat]

If there is an evolution of consciousness, and I'm not agreeing that there is, then wouldn't it be impossible to predict. That's as likely as predicting when a certain species is born with a mutation that is beneficial.
I can't imagine that people thousands of years ago were capable of predicting that Joe Bloggs Jnr is going to be born with a specific mutation to his brain that allows a new level of conscious thought in the next 9 months!

The whole idea that the Mayans were some sort of super advanced civilisation doesn't hold up under investigation. Yes they were advanced for their time relative to Europeans in terms of Astronomy and Mathematics (possibly) but it hardly gives them devine powers of prediction over a thousand years into the future.

Its another example of people fitting lose facts to the fit the knowledge we now have, for instance I have read that the Mayans had a base 26 counting system, and lo and behold some versions of String theory suggest that there might be 26 dimensions, so the mayans must have had some great prior knowledge of the working of the multiverse. Nonsense, they just had an odd counting system that we today would struggle with and probably wasn't as useful or easy-to-use as our base 10 system.

 

[Heck Tate]

Ya my friend credits them with be border line super powers because they were seemingly good at astronomy. The only point in the consciousness debate that I'm actually wearing him down on is that this is supposed to be the age of ethics. He claims this means that before the next step, next year , we will have completely mastered ethics. He's also trying to shove government conspiracy theories down my throat, so I've kind of got him pinned on the ethics thing. Mosaix, I wish he was making predictions, this would be way easier, but it's just that 1 vague prediction of next year. Other than that he just points to past events and says crap like "The Mayans saw that one coming."

Edit: Oh, ya, he throws the word fractals out like it's some kind of magic spell: The Mayans used fractals to calculate such and such and the whole Universe is fractals... I swear some people wouldn't know what skeptical means if I bludgeoned them with it.

 

[mosaix]

You have my deepest sympathies, Heck Tate.

 

[Parson]

I'm unsure what "word fractals" are. I know the phrase as a way to describe writing words as pictures, and I know fractals are a way of talking about the chemical composition of things. But neither of those definitions seem to suit what you are talking about. Would it be like working with fractions, or some sort of mathematics?

 

[Dave]

The Mayans used vigesimal base 20. We use decimal base 10 because we count on ten fingers, the Mayans no doubt also counted on their toes as well as their fingers. I don't think there is anything incredible about them using a different base. 3-fingered green aliens would presumably use base 6, unless they had 3 arms, then it would be base 9. Probably, more useful if we used hexadecimal base 16.

A fractal is a geometric shaped pattern that on closer examination is made up of smaller parts that are reduced-size copies of the whole. A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion. Computers can be used to produce geometric fractals based upon mathematical equations that are mathematical fractals, but geometric fractals occur frequently in nature - in plant leaves and tree branches, in coastlines, snowflakes, crystals, blood vessels, river networks, mountain ranges, ocean waves, and lightening. So again, I see nothing incredible about the Mayans recognising this.

 

[Heck Tate]

I'm unsure what "word fractals" are.

Haha, sorry if I was unclear. He keeps throwing around the word "fractals," not "word fractals."

 

[Parson]

Haha, sorry if I was unclear. He keeps throwing around the word "fractals," not "word fractals."

Thanks Dave and Heck, I will go put on my dunce cap and sit in the corner for awhile.

 

[Vertigo]

Numbering systems have always fascinated me and the best and easiest one to use would have been base 12. Now everyone always says that would be really difficult (just look at the hassles when we in the uk and 12 pennies in a shilling). However they are missing the point; it is only difficult when doing base 12 maths in a base 10 numbering system. To switch over you would have to also adopt a base 12 numbering system, then it would be just as easy as base 10; multiply by twelve and just move the decimal point to the right or add a zero, divide by twelve and just move the decimal point to the left. Simple! What makes it difficult is mixing the systems; your maths and your numbering system both need to match.

Why would base 12 be better? It is the most divisible number available for the base, being divisible by 2,3,4 and 6, base ten is only divisible by 2 and 5. This is why our day is split into two lots of twelve hours because we can easily halve and quarter it - if it was ten hours you could not do this easily.

whoops sorry drifting off topic there!

 

[Moonbat]

I wonder what the outcome of using a prime numbered base maths & numbering system, being that they would only be divisible by themselves and 1.
Although I suppose binary counts as a prime number base system.

 

[Dave]

Well off-topic now, but pre-decimalisation in the UK, people using Imperial measurements had no difficulty dealing with all kinds of base maths within a decimal numbering system. Not only were there 12 shillings to a pound, but 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone.... They were just not told it was meant to be hard.

I can't think of a link that takes us back to Evolution, but glad we've stopped discussing Creationism. So, what did the New Scientist article say?

 

[mosaix]

Well off-topic now, but pre-decimalisation in the UK, people using Imperial measurements had no difficulty dealing with all kinds of base maths within a decimal numbering system. Not only were there 12 shillings to a pound, but 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone.... They were just not told it was meant to be hard.

I can't think of a link that takes us back to Evolution, but glad we've stopped discussing Creationism. So, what did the New Scientist article say?

Err, Dave that should be 12 pence in the shilling and 20 shillings in the pound.

 

[chrispenycate]

And eight stone in a cwt (which is so close to fifty kilos it only matters to scientists.

And five and a half yards was a "rod, pole or perch" (ruddy big perch, if you ask me), a fortieth of a furlong.

And if you could handle those, and guineas, you might not be much of a mathematician, but could certainly be factored in as an arithmetician, with or without your abacus.

 

[Dave]

Err, Dave that should be 12 pence in the shilling and 20 shillings in the pound.

Sorry, that was what I meant to say. I'm allowed one mistake every 1000 posts.

Also, I said base 16 would be a good base to use for a numbering system because I was thinking it is divisible by 2, 4 and 8. But Vertigo is correct with 12 being better as it is divisible by 2,3,4 and 6. It is the reason that things are still made and sold by the dozen, even today in our pre-packaged, automated world.