The Human Question

If SJ Gould's thesis (uh, I think he and another guy first proposed it) of spandrels is a valid scientific claim, then it can be tested. The alternate hypothesis, I propose, is over-engineering (that is, in spite of my thumbing my nose at ID, today, Saturday, Oct. 16, 2010, I am taking it seriously). Why are the humans who belong to tribes that only count up to 4 able to math as well as others (when given an education)? Why is there a Mozart, Einstein? They have cognitive abilities that are over and above what would be needed to survive and thrive in an imagined prehistoric scenario, so why is that so? Sexual selection? Were brainy guys babe-magnets compared to the jocks way back when? Gould's answer is that these amazing abilities are the result of the convergence of two different survival-relevant characteristics. They are like the spandrels in buildings. Not structurally relevant, but very ornate. But, as I pointed out waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, when I first started this b...

The discussion below is a response to S J Gould's comparison of evolution with a drunk man walking. The latter eventually walks in the gutter/groove in the road, not because he was aiming for it, but because it serves as a kind of guide, etc. No teleology, just coincidence and good fit. Something similar happens with attaining higher and higher levels of complexity. Once each level fits, we stick with it. Organisms don't aim to become more complex. It just happens. My reply is an analogy Suppose I leave a raccoon trap outside my house and a week later it catches a raccoon. It would be correct to say that the trap caught a raccoon on purpose. But if we consider the fact that many different raccoons were in the vicinity of the trap, some of them came very near to it, a few touched it, but only one took the bait, we can say that it was by chance that I caught this raccoon at this time. We can say the same about planting an IED on the road. In both cases, the very sam...

Intelligent design is not the only alternative to random variation. The other alternative is a genus, non-random. ID is a species of non-random explanations, one that can be further divided into first-cell ID, creationist ID (start off with more than one life form), and stages ID (that is, a series of miracles guide evolution). The other species within the genus of non-random evolution is teleological evolution that does not admit of mechanistic explanation (ID is essentially a theory about biochemical mechanics). The other major species can be divided in to different species (all of which may be dubious, but that's another question). Those species include the already discredit Lamarkian explanation of evolution, which is that use modifies inheritance. Another would be more gene savy, but deny that mutation proceeds like, as Gould said in Full House, a drunk man walking... Instead, the telos of the first life form was the human. A kind of unconscious force, as it were. Now ...