(Part 2) Best books about evolution according to redditors
We found 783 Reddit comments discussing the best books about evolution. We ranked the 273 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
There is an argument using evolutionary theory that agriculture was only adopted to increase group fitness at the cost of indivual fitness.
Lots of civilisation diseases started with the adoption of agriculture.
So there is the argument that agriculture made civilisation possible but at the cost of pure indivual strength and physical prowess.
There is lots of evidence that early agricultural societies had less than healthy members compared to hunter gatherers.
When you think about it, the indivual skills of a warrior in a large army is less important than pure numbers, most armies in the past were farmers called to war once a year, and yet the prevailed most of the time against nomad societies whos way of life made them formidable indivual warriors like the steppe people, just by numbers alone.
Edit:
If someone is interested where these theories come from, I recommend these books:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0996139516
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691178437/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=joseph+henrich&qid=1558984106&s=gateway&sprefix=joseph+henr&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=not+by+genes+alone&qid=1558984151&s=gateway&sprefix=Not+by+ge&sr=8-1
Alvin Toffler called this 45 years ago in "Future Shock". Too much choice is overwhelming, and people faced with it are often paralyzed rather than liberated with the amount of options they are faced with. Couple that with the logistics of having a store bloated with options, and you get the market pressure for something like Aldi.
Edit: Since this is getting attention, I would encourage who hasn't already to check out his book Future Shock. It's pretty incredible the stuff he was able to predict. Definitely changes the way I look at the modern world.
It’s only evidence that we evolved eating meat regularly. Which no one serious, or in the anthropology field, is actually trying to dispute. The idea that we were “made” to be anything or that it means we “should” be a certain way now is the naturalistic fallacy.
Evolutionarily, a long time ago we were primates related to today’s chimps, bonobos, and gorillas. We were herbivores and likely shared their ability to ferment and absorb B12 in our guts. Our diet changed to include both cooked starches, and more animal products over time. We became used to highly absorbable calories from both these sources and our intestines shrank and lost the ability to ferment. We stopped being able to make our own B12 and were fine because in the paleo days we did hunt (and scavenge) and eat meat regularly.
The evolutionary perspective should be considered, but not above more rigorous types of research that show, as you mentioned, that a plant based diet is optimal for long term health (which has little to do with our evolutionary diet as evolution only selects for traits that are beneficial for reproduction and child rearing). The near-historical cultures that ate mostly plant based diets, ate around 10% animal products, which provided sufficient B12 and were otherwise functionally similar to a 100% plant based diet.
If you want to learn more of the anthropology, there are some good papers, books, and blogs:
Paleofantasy by Marlene Zuk (or free Scientific American article)
Plant foods and the dietary ecology of Neanderthals and early modern humans
Paleovegan - blog by a vegan anthropologist it's defunct, but you can read it on the Wayback machine
The Paleoanthropology and Archaeology of Big-Game Hunting: Protein, Fat, or Politics?
Deconstructing the Paleo Diet- by vegan dietician Brenda Davis
Loren Cordain's original works are very illustrative as well - and for one, show that the majority of near-equatorial hunter gatherers ate diets low in fat and saturated fat - after all, wild game animals are very lean. Also, we have a functional upper limit on protein intake (50% at the absolute most, but under 20% is very typical for all human societies) that prevent us from getting too many of our calories from animal sources when they are low in fat. Paleo diet proponents typically ignore this.
If you like reading you could check out this book by Chris Stringer, I think it has a different title in the US. He is one of the anthropologists that feature in that video, it is a good read, really easy to get into(if you like reading). It is really fairly balanced and looks at competing theories pretty objectively. It is a good modern look our recent evolution. Pick it up from the library if they have it!
https://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivors-Came-Humans-Earth/dp/1250023300
I really like this sort of stuff, to me it is one of the most interesting and epic of journeys.
Author of this steaming pile of garbage which got glowing reviews. /s
Also his wiki. I think this one's too far gone.
No kidding. He wrote a positive review(First in Editorial Reviews) for the book [this junk article] (http://www.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/2ylx8r/tw_wall_street_journal_research_has_found_that/)(currently on the TiA front page) was based on.
>>Sci-fi stands for science fiction, so... sci-re for science reality? Sci-non-fi? Maybe just sci.
Alvin Toffler came close with Future Shock.
But that doesn't quite capture what i'm after here, which is the element of not merely something new, but something you'd expect in sci-fi becoming actually real.
"..Dr. Konner is a professor in the department of anthropology and the program in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University. This essay is adapted from his new book, “Women After All: Sex, Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy.”"
http://www.amazon.com/Women-After-All-Evolution-Supremacy/dp/0393239969
>A lively, richly informed argument for the natural superiority of women from the acclaimed author of The Tangled Wing.
>There is a human genetic fluke that is surprisingly common, due to a change in a key pair of chromosomes. In the normal condition the two look the same, but in this disorder one is malformed and shrunken beyond recognition. The result is a shortened life span, higher mortality at all ages, an inability to reproduce, premature hair loss, and brain defects variously resulting in attention deficit, hyperactivity, conduct disorder, hypersexuality, and an enormous excess of both outward and self-directed aggression.
>It is called maleness.
>In Women After All, Melvin Konner traces the arc of evolution to explain the relationships between women and men. With patience and wit he explores the knotty question of whether men are necessary in the biological destiny of the human race. He draws on multiple, colorful examples from the natural world—such as the mating habits of the octopus, black widow, angler fish, and jacana—and argues that maleness in humans is hardly necessary to the survival of the species.
>In characteristically humorous and engaging prose, Konner sheds light on our biologically different identities, while noting the poignant exceptions that challenge the male/female divide. We meet hunter-gatherers such as those in Botswana, whose culture gave women a prominent place, invented the working mother, and respected women’s voices around the fire. Recent human history has upset this balance, as a dense world of war fostered extreme male dominance. But our species has been recovering over the past two centuries, and an unstoppable move toward equality is afoot. It will not be the end of men, but it will be the end of male supremacy and a better, wiser world for women and men alike. Provocative and richly informed, Women After All is bound to be controversial across the sexes.
Look forward to reading it.
You put your finger on a subject I've been entertaining for some time now. Here are some of the web resources I cumulated over time related to this very specific idea:
Have fun! :-)
if you have the time you could read Adharanand Finn's Running with the Kenyans. I just finished reading it and it has some pretty detailed accounts of life in an elite training camp. I'm pretty sure they all eat a kind of rice dish all the time and not too much else.
Darwin's Radio is a good one, if you are looking for something that details what would happen if humanity underwent a sudden evolution right now (2000's).
I loved that book. There is a lot of science language (details of how and why the evolution occurred), but I enjoyed that very much.
His work is the most nihilistic Scifi you can find.
Not Big Lebowski nihlism but a cold dark unyielding Universe that is indifferent to any amount of suffering nihilism.
Since you haven't heard of him check out this playlist of him in a role of a scholar holding a seminar where he is reporting his findings in biology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WdCvGDpM9k&list=PL30ED0756E00786E2
and then read a book by him called Blindsight found for free here on the authors website or just here if you want to throw a few bucks to the author.
He is an evolutionary biologist that started writing fiction so you can call his books ultra hard SciFi. But be warned, he's not for everyone and even if you like him he'll make all SciFi seem a bit simplistic and childish.
In Howard Bloom's book Global Brain, he talks about an experiment someone did with bees. They put a bowl of sugar water a certain distance from the hive, and the bees congregated on it. For the next several days, they put the bowl out again, at exactly twice the distance as the day before. Then one day they didn't put the bowl out...and the bees congregated at the exact spot where they would have put the bowl, twice as far out as the previous day.
Sometimes things that are apparently "scientific consensus" aren't at all, like that saturated fat is a significant contributor to heart disease. That started with some doctors recommending a low saturated fat diet to heart patients and it seemed to work. It became conventional wisdom and even a government recommendation, but there weren't scientific studies to back it up. Now that the studies have been done it appears that the conventional wisdom (not scientific consensus) was largely wrong.
So I think a lot of the stuff that has been changed just hadn't been scientifically studied in the first place. But that aside there is an idea called "the half life of facts" or "the half life of knowledge" that suggests that about half of our scientific knowedge today will be obsolete or proven wrong in about 45 years.
Somebody wrote a book about it which I hope to read sometime before the end of the year. "Half Life of Facts: Why everything we know has an expiration date"
you should read Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. It'll give you predictions from 40 years ago or so, and then you can see for yourself what did or didn't happen.
> Legitimately, did you come up with this eloquence on your own?
Read a lot on the topic.
Recommend A Generation of Sociopaths for the details on tax breaks/regulations and empirical breakdown on how they flopped on things like marijuana, abortion, and immigration based on what was convenient and desired at the time.
For a good write up on how the meritocracy was hijacked and turned into a tool for inherited wealth transfer, How the Boomers Broke America, written by a Boomer no less who profited from the original meritocratic system they took over.
How America Lost Its Mind goes even beyond the Boomers and gets into the culture of "Democracy means my opinion is as valid as anyone else's facts" and how the young Boomers of the '60s tripping on acid, deciding all reality was subjective would eventually end up glued to Fox News & Rush Limbaugh being spoon-fed their desired subjective reality decades later.
The War on Science isn't written with a specific generation in mind, but shows how an ocean arose between the scientific community and Americans as a whole during the Cold War and guaranteed government funding for all things science to win it. Gets into the psychology of what happens when people aren't intimate with empiricism and become mistrustful of experts and facts.
If you look at demographic trends, such as Pew Global, you see a lot of interesting things: Longer working hours for us now than they grew up with, from the mid 70s onwards median wages stagnating as productivity grew multiple-fold as labor laws/unions were weakened, Millennials have lower rates of drug usage, teen pregnancy, abortion, pre-marital sexual partners, etc. yet still get bashed as being "bad" by their multiple divorcee parents.
If you have specific questions or whatever, feel free to ask.
Cheers
Edit: Note that this isn't a scathing indictment of every individual Boomer. My father inadvertently checks a lot of the more negative generational stereotype blocks without necessarily being a bad person for example, just how he was raised and the effects of living in a society dominated by his peers. There are plenty of good Boomers, this is an analysis of how their culture came to change the nation when they became a supermajority with over 50% of all votes by the early 80s, and were able to completely hijack public policy to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. It's a warning, as millennials will soon be the largest demographic, and barring a Black Swan type demographic event, will enjoy nearly that level of political power and potential for abuse in the decades to come as the Boomers die out.
It's symbolism. Period. Did God actually remove a physical rib and mold it like silly putty into the shape of a woman? That's just ridiculous. There are plenty of faithful mormons who "believe" in evolution. Check our Relics of Eden by Daniel Fairbanks. Fairbanks is the former dean of undergraduate education at BYU. In his book, he doesn't talk at all about mormonism, but he basically shows, using DNA evidence, that evolution of man is supported by science.
The best SF books I read published in 2014 were:
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.
The Peripheral by William Gibson.
Echopraxia, sequel to Blindsight by Peter Watts.
Lines of Departure, sequel to Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos.
Ancillary Sword, sequel to Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.
Cibola Burn, 4th in a series that starts with Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey.
A Darkling Sea by James Cambias.
http://amzn.com/0393239969
Read the book, too. Understand that the war on science is *not* a right-wing thing (opposition to vaccination, opposition to GMO, the left is not innocent), and vote for people who aren't anti-science.
Erm, no.
I suggest you read this book by Cavli Sforza,
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Geography-Human-Genes-paperback/dp/0691029059/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1474759290&sr=8-2&keywords=cavalli+sforza
It does a pretty good job of explaining all this stuff. I never said that aborigines are European, I said that they were more closely related to Europeans than Africans, which is correct.
Blindsight by Peter Watts
>Canadian author Watts (Starfish) explores the nature of consciousness in this stimulating hard SF novel, which combines riveting action with a fascinating alien environment. In the late 21st century, when something alien is discovered beyond the edge of the solar system, the spaceship Theseus sets out to make contact. Led by an enigmatic AI and a genetically engineered vampire, the crew includes a biologist who's more machine than human, a linguist with surgically induced multiple personality disorder, a professional soldier who's a pacifist, and Siri Keeton, a man with only half a brain. Keeton is virtually incapable of empathy, but he has a savant's ability to model and predict the actions of others without understanding them. Once the Theseus arrives at the gigantic and hideously dangerous alien artifact (which has tellingly self-named itself Rorschach), the crew must deal with beings who speak English fluently but who may, paradoxically, not even be sentient, at least as we understand the term. Watts puts a terrifying and original spin on the familiar alien contact story.
This book, Relics of Eden, on the overwhelming genetic evidence that humans and other primates have a shared ancestor was published by a BYU academic. Most excellent read.
However has a semi-apologetic last chapter on reconciling faith and science.
Caveman or paleo diets are about as half-baked as any diet out there. Advising someone to go to a meat-based diet from a vegetarian one without considering the reasons for their vegetarianism is rather presumptuous.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-paleo-diet-half-baked-how-hunter-gatherer-really-eat
http://www.amazon.com/Paleofantasy-Evolution-Really-Tells-ebook/dp/B007Q6XM1A
I think your student may be borrowing ideas from E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, seen partially here - which is frequently cited in literacy debates. So then I wonder if he's taking his ideas from E.D. Hirsch, Jr's several best-selling books on "cultural literacy" (like Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know). It does sound quite similar to what he describes in the small paragraph you've given us.
For example: Hirsch contends that "literacy is more than just the actual mechanics of reading. Literacy means understanding what you read and to understand what you read you need to have the appropriate background knowledge." He criticizes the formalistic theories of literacy that focus almost entirely on formal reading skills without paying much attention to the background knowledge or schema that students need to know before they can comprehend a given text. ... Hirsch concludes "that shared information is a necessary background to true literacy." Source - Cultural Literacy in the New Millennium: Revisiting E.D. Hirsch.
The "cultural processes" that your student refers to seem to relate to Hirsch's argument that we must understand how students utilize and process "background knowledge" aka their personal "cultural literacy" to gain full understanding of what they encounter in education and in readings.
If you're worried, I'd look into Hirsch's work a little further to see if he seems to be pulling more from it. It does look like he may be doing so, particularly because of he describes "true literacy" (a phrase Hirsch uses) a lot like how Hirsch describes cultural literacy. He may not, though! It's definitely your call in the end what's going on here.
EDIT: It is definitely from the article mentioned in /u/od_9 's post, but the author (a prof at UC Berkeley) is using cultural literacy ideas from Hirsch and similar scholars, so I wasn't completely off-track!
Evan Currie's Odyssey One series is more military than pure space opera, but it is awesome.
The Golden Oecumene series by John C Wright is a Transhuman Space Opera of epic proportions. I highly recommend it.
Rachel Bach has a great series called Fortunes Pawn. Also a lil closer to military sci-fi but it has some nice Space Opera themes.
Joshua Dalzelle has a great series called the Black Fleet, again more military sci-fi than true space opera, but very good none the less.
The Reality Dysfunction series though, if you are looking for a meaty Space opera to lose yourself in is a must read series.
____
I almost forgot about the Manifold Series by Stephen Baxter and the Darwin's Radio series by Greg Bear. Both are phenomenal reads, and while technically they are set in the near future and aren't space opera per say, they are must reads for anyone into Sci-Fi.
Some great answers in here, but if you really want to understand then you will want to dive into a documentary, lecture, or book.
Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7WHs6I1NLs
Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x858bOny4Gw
Audiobook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG0j_lvW6A0
Books!
Relatively light reading: https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Planet-Search-Origins-MacSci/dp/1137278307/
A bit higher level: https://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivors-Came-Humans-Earth/dp/1250023300
Textbook: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-World-Human-Evolution-Second/dp/0500288984
https://media3.giphy.com/media/d2YVk2ZRuQuqvVlu/giphy.gif
“A Métis Civilization,” Saul makes a strong (if counterintuitive) case that Canadian culture owes more to its native roots than to the European settlers and their Judeo-Christian belief system
A Fair Country : Telling Truths About Canada N/A https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0143168428/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdo_TfXLzb1W1DE1S
These are great recommendations. Here are some other futuristic scifi books that explore the concept of identity like Altered Carbon does.
Ja, sakte. Det har egentlig gjort det lenge, men Flynn-effekten har maskert det. Nå har Flynn-effekten stoppet opp og vi ser nedgangen: https://www.amazon.com/At-Our-Wits-End-Intelligent/dp/184540985X
If you're interested in literature (both for and against) Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, there is a whole volume of essays on it featuring some very notable philosophers.
With regard to pressupositionalism, a long time ago, I wrote a blog post dealing with pressupositional apologists like Sye Ten Burgencate. I no longer think everything I say there, but it might be interesting to you.
https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Waging-Matters-About/dp/1571313532
This is a very interesting book, have you heard of it? You should check it out.
Also, do you know there is almost complete scientific consensus on the fact that co2 is damaging to our ecosystem? And on top of that almost complete consensus that its human beings exacerbating that damage? Is it interesting to you that the people who tend to reject these scientific claims and debate the objective truth happen to be the giant energy industries, the politicians who support these industries, and religious groups?
A Fair Country by John Ralston Saul is a good read that addresses this question. He has a fascinating POV on it.
For books, The Fossil Trail and The Complete World of Human Evolution are good overviews, while Sapiens and Lone Survivors are interesting accounts of evidence about the emergence of our species.
I also really recommend the CARTA lectures available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1B24EADC01219B23.
You can browse through that playlist to look for interesting topics, or search for something like 'carta university california' or 'carta uctv' or 'carta uctv [topic]' to see what's popular, or follow YouTube's recommendations between videos. Each one is pretty short at ~20 min, with 3 sometimes linked in hour-long videos.
There's a wide range of evidence and interpretations about things like coexistence of varieties vs intra-population diversity, the general nature and causes of genetic structure between populations, extinction due to direct conflict or competition vs. other factors, and so on - so it helps to see the range of viewpoints between different researchers, and range of evidence and interpretations from different fields.
These are some examples:
Emergence of Homo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W005V6OV_E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CazsHKnxmHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vOgDK3BKs
Sapiens origins, population movements, non-sapiens admixture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdP-Wjd1qSY&t=888s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ2H9NUn150&t=2343s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzcPSMz1tA
'Self-domestication':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaS-teo33Zo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaS-teo33Zo
Climate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcBMrw9JQgA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLmCbBVq0xM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRk_gcNf7jo
Violence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRsQDfgwP08&t=12s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGaQ-oEpNG0
Art:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCuQw5I1-z0&t=423s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0TKYxAYGGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2rodmJcn7g
E. D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy often gets attacked as being too conservative. I haven't actually read it to give my own opinion, but that's the reputation.
Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind might interest you, too. Bloom was definitely conservative, but the book curiously gets a certain amount of play among leftist thinkers.
I recommend [A Fair Country.] (http://www.amazon.ca/Fair-Country-Telling-Truths-Canada/dp/0143168428/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320394310&sr=1-2) It's more of a sociological perspective, but I definitely enjoyed it.
We haven't gotten smarter.
Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA written by Daniel J. Fairbanks formerly a dean of Undergraduate Education at BYU.
https://www.amazon.com/At-Our-Wits-End-Intelligent/dp/184540985X/ref=nodl_
Ed Dutton has a youtube channel as well where he has a few long form conversations with Michael Woodley among his other videos.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EHEltPuFelQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kLQGLXJutfU
My favorite author, and this is his most fun book even if he has a couple better received books
Bukowski is an amazing author regardless of what succs say.
Great book. Brought the term grok into existence
Really cool graphic novel series
David sedaris is probably the best comedic novelist i've ever read/heard. I recommend audio though because he has great delivery, which is what made him such a popular guest on NPR
selfish gene by dawkins. I know Dawkins is a meme, but this book is actually really good along with a lot of his earlier books.
I'm about 380 pages into it so far. It is a long book. Otto has some pretty good suggestions and I agree with almost all of them.
FYI, it is a massive tome and loaded with sooo much information. I'm not sure it lends itself to tl;dr methods. One thing's certain: there has been a constant effort to demean science and cast doubt on it. That effort is funded immensely by fossil fuel industries to prevent and delay legislation; and of course the baying fundies love it because they hate science (especially evolution).
Otto's book really nails it: names, emails, internal memos, monetary expenditures, dishonesty, etc.
On the other hand, the book is very affordable. You can order it here
I use Amazon Smile because they donate a portion of your purchases to a charity of your choice (and I use the FFRF).
It's called Running Away from Nothing. You can get it here. There's also a book called Running with the Kenyans that I'd recommend reading.
It would make sense given that "easier" discoveries would have already been made in the past. What remains is going to be more difficult and costly and increasingly so as time goes on. Add to that, humans are not really becoming more intelligent; in fact, the opposite may be happening.
Sexual selection can lead to a trait that makes genes more likely to be passed on, but doesn’t help an individual’s survival.
For example, a peacock’s tail improves his chances of finding a willing peahen and passing on his genes, but the vibrant plumage may put him at greater risk of being caught by a predator.
It makes sense to think of it from the gene’s point of view. “What would make a gene more likely to be passed on?” is a better question than “What would make an individual animal survive.”
You are quite right in the vagueness of 'equality'. Almost as bad as 'sovereignty association' isn't it? Obviously at some point we need to move from the general to the specific. How about 'equality' that is implicit in provincial powers? Take a look at A First Nations Province by Thomas Courchene and Lisa Powell ( http://www.queensu.ca/iigr/pub/archive/aboriginalpapers/misc/AfirstnationsprovinceCourcheneandPowell.pdf ).
As for the significance of the 1701 Treaty Of Montreal, read A Fair Country by John Ralston Saul, the president of PEN International and husband of past Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson ( http://www.amazon.ca/Fair-Country-John-Ralston-Saul/dp/0143168428 ). In his book, he suggests a number things particularly pertinent to this discourse:
reserves or residential schools there. It was this treaty that enabled the peaceful (relatively) settlement of what was to become Canada and laid the groundwork for the country we have today. When the English took over, the Treaty was not overturned. Yes, new laws came about that were in conflict with it, that's why we have a mess. But in a civilized society new laws don't automatically wipe out older laws. They have to be worked out by all parties concerned. That's what we need to do right now.
You could start with a book like this: E. D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy or Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book or How to Think About the Great Ideas.
Or you can, like you've said, gather some info. about certain historical periods or cultural eras and decide to learn more about them. It's not easy, but you're living in a time where you can easily and freely access a lot of information.
Our genes are selfish...
>I want some sort of rhyme and reason for creatures to exist where they do, and I'm not too familiar with evolution and how it would factor into this.
I think to some degree you need to "write what you know", that is, write about subjects you're familiar with. However, a bit of research can buff you up quite a bit.
Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene is a transformative popular science book that explains why form follows function, and it's a surprisingly quick read.
Have a look through Dougal Dixon's After Man, The New Dinosaurs, etc. for inspiration. Also, browse Deviant Art and shamelessly steal the ideas of artists creating alien lifeforms.
> How do you rebutt Christians who claim that prophecies like [Isaiah 53] predicted Jesus and his death?
This is a very, very complex passage. There are literally entire books about proper interpretation of ancient texts; say what you want about the legitimacy of OT scripture, it is a historical document that requires an understanding of the context and culture of its writing. For a brief primer, check this out.
>I have parents that are anti-evolution but know nothing about it. What can I do (if anything) to show them that evolution is fact.
You can do nothing if they are unwilling to investigate it on their own. Being against something you are (willfully) ignorant of is, with all due respect, the epitome of ineptitude.
>Not some wacky theory that some drunken scientist came up with after beating his wife, but fact.
I'm honestly not aware of any well publicized scientific theory that originated from a drunken, wife beating scientist, so there's nothing I can contrast this with. (However, I'm convinced John was on shrooms when he wrote Revelation) If there is any hope, I would begin with the proper explanation of what a "theory" is in the scientific perspective. To simplify (and probably over-simplify), something can still be a theory, scientifically, but also be a fact.
As a demonstration, I would tell them to jump off a bridge. After all, gravity is only a theory.
>Have a favourite Dawkins quote? :)
Yup.
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
>What single argument was the single greatest point in debunking your creationism? (I ask because I often debate creationists).
Genetics. By far. The DNA evidence is astounding. I highly suggest The Relics of Eden and The Making of the Fittest.
>f I have any questions about the Bible I'll be sure to message you. You sound quite knowledgable on it. Cheers!
I would welcome it. At least I could now put some practical use to all this knowledge in my head. :)
https://www.amazon.com/How-Became-Stupid-Martin-Page/dp/0142004952
https://www.amazon.com/Half-Life-Facts-Everything-Know-Expiration/dp/159184651X
I also like titles, doesn't mean that everything you read is true.
But let's say that Europeans and Russians did create Israel.
I doubt that happened considering that most Russians Jews were only allowed to leave in the late 1980's almost 40 years after the creation of Israel.
I don't know where these mythical Jews came from. And those Europeans were mostly holocaust survivors so I don't see the relationship?
You do know that there are more Sephardic jews than Ashkenazi jews right? As in more Sephardic jews at the creation of Israel.
So....
Boyd and Richerson with their book, Not By Genes Alone - http://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342577928&sr=1-1&keywords=not+by+genes+alone , is their take and advocacy for dual-inheritance theory. They have a couple of thoughts on memes. Firstly, they do not accept that memes are analogous discrete cultural replicators in the way the genes are, there is a greater vulnerability to mutation and not as high a fidelity of replication as there is with genes. However, they do think that even though there are these differences between their concept of culturally evolving information and memes, the underlying process of cultural evolution proceeds under Darwinian principals.
> Nothing can exist outside the laws of nature.
You think so and I think so too. But how do you know this? Do you know this? Does anyone?
Apologist star philosopher Alvin Plantinga has written a whole goddamn book in which he purports to prove that Naturalism is false, and therefore what you just wrote as well. I think his claim is bullshit but I'm not qualified to prove him wrong. Other folks are probably trying, but this is not the kind of discussion that ever reaches a clear result.
Again, the question of whether Naturalism is true is roughly equivalent to the question of whether God exists. There could be things that go bump in the night, and if so, God may be one of them. We skeptics and rationalists are pretty sure there are no such things, including no such God. Unfortunately, the only evidence available is in the form of philosophy based on the assumptions of whoever is making the claim. A very unsatisfactory situation to those of us who enjoy certainty and clarity.
Read/watch more Sagan. He really wanted to talk more about science than superstition. Even the social/political situation about it.
https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469
Also, have you read any of Dawkins' books about biology, rather than superstition? He really didn't start directly attacking religion until he realized that anti-reality stuff was so prevalent in society.
I have to admit, first time I read this one..I had to have a dictionary open alongside it. :D
https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Landmark-Science-ebook/dp/B01GI5F2FS/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=richard+dawkins&qid=1554875427&s=books&sr=1-2
> Although, I'm struggling with the point to existence
I have to be honest. I really don't understand why so many people have this concern. I do understand that they feel it's legitimate, I just don't understand why.
I suspect my personal experience is behind that..I grew up Southern Baptist, and my first realization was full-tilt "I'M FREE!"
I don't care if there's no 'greater celestial reason' for my existence. I exist. I might as well do the most I can with it.
I love good food. I love sportscars. I love a woman's company. I love my daughter. I love soccer.
> and why the universe is the way it is.
I really don't know..but only the religious people in my life act as if that's some great crime. Personally..I'll just read the works of the people who are actually looking for it, instead of performing mental fellatio upon the pack of lying shamans who claim they actually know.
> I simply don't want to believe that I'm just an accident
Well, you're not! Go study more biology. That old Christian whine about "..the Earth is perfectly tuned for life!!" is pathetic.
The Earth came first. We're here because we come from it. Of course it's 'perfect' for us. It's our mommy.
> I'm done being force-fed information. I want to find out for myself.
And you can, if you just get past the fear. And I know that the fear can really blow around your mind for awhile. Wishing you well with it.
Right, I have a bit of a terrible memory so here are some... not all of them have a woman as the main but generally more than just 'supporting' or 'girlfriend' roles :)
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear. This is part of a series and I'm pretty sure this is the first in that series with Darwin's Children the next one.
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.
Ender's Game.
Mainly my favourite authors are Greg Bear, Greg Egan, Neal Stephenson, Stephen Baxter, Philip K Dick - the usual crowd. Do you have any recommendations?
You should totally check this book out, Running with Kenyans
There's a book called Running With the Kenyans https://www.amazon.com/Running-Kenyans-Discovering-Secrets-Fastest/dp/0345528808 that goes into a personal endeavor to figure out why this is. Good read.
https://www.amazon.com/Relics-Eden-Powerful-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1616141603
This is one of my favorite books on evolution. It is written by a Genetics professor who is also a Christian.
I’m super excited to learn about the holometric super conducted project. This wasn’t as difficult to read as it looked at first glance. I think I’m on the same page about a lot of this, and will sometime soon, read the whole thing. But for now I sleep. Hope you’re well until then.
Edit: recently came across the book [Global Brain] (https://www.amazon.com/Global-Brain-Evolution-Mass-Century/dp/0471419192) by Howard Bloom in a bout of synchronicity. Literally wandering through the library. It’s basically about the meta personality. He’s a fascinating guy, the philosopher at the end of the universe.
I suggest reading this
>For the most part, they don't--very few professional philosophers pay any attention to Plantinga's philosophy of religion.
Sure. they. don't...:eyeroll:
Ernest Sosa, Dan Dennett, Jerry Fodor, Michael Tooley...etc.
Thinking of Dawkins made me think of Darwin's Radio which is a great read purely as a work of fiction, but is based around a fun premise of endogenous retroviruses triggering evolutionary jumps; basically a sci-fi explanation for punctuated equilibrium. His book Vitals was pretty good too, although the ending made me want to punch someone.
Many, but here's 3:
Future Shock by Alvin Toffler suggests that in an era where media takes more and more of people's time, the generation gap grows more significant and generations grow closer together. That is, generation 4 and 5 are only five years apart, but have marked generational differences because their cultural identities are bound with the media they consumed at formative ages. Later, the gap between generations 5 and 6 is even fewer years, with even larger cultural differences.
Really underrated futurist.
>I want to create an alien planet and have life evolve on it. The problem is I am not a scientist and I want my aliens to be believable without going too deep into hard sci-fi territory.
Here's the thing: in writing, the rule is, write what you know. That's a general rule, but it's a good one. You want to write about subjects you're familiar with, because the confidence you have in this familiarity will show through in your writing. If you're really into Pokemon, you can write about Pokemon, and it sounds like you know what you're talking about. Readers have confidence in your authority.
I think the solution is that it's going to go to your benefit to do a bit of research, and actually study and learn a bit more about biology and evolution than you presently know.
A great primer might be Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.
You can find some great science fiction primer vids from Kurzgesagt and Artifexian. Be careful though, because it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole with both these channels...
You might also like r/worldbuilding
▬▬▬
>These aliens evolved on a carbon planet, and I want to know how that would impact life. I imagine life could develop without water or oxygen, but it would certainly be very different from earth.
Okay. The thing is, you want your planet to be in the Goldilocks zone, because water is liquid there. You want water to be liquid so you can have solutions with lots of dissolved stuff. Essentially, the cellular fluid in our own cells is a sort of replication of the solutions found in tide pools that first gave birth to living cells. It's probably a good idea to make your aliens composed of cells, or else they might all be ameboid in nature.
There's no such thing as a carbon planet, but you can have carbon-based lifeforms living on a rocky planet. Earth is a rocky planet, as opposed to a gas giant. Carbon is plentiful and is easy to work with, chemically. You can have photosynthetic organisms store sunlight energy as glucose, made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Glucose can also be used to make strong fibers, cellulose, which can be used as a structural material.
Beyond that, you've got a ton of leeway. To your advantage is the fact no one knows what alien life might be like. So as long as you don't break any physical laws and avoid pseudoscience, your aliens are probably going to be potentially believable.
The half life of facts in the social sciences is shorter than the half life of facts on the hard sciences. "Truths" are more frequently overturned, say every 5 years in psychology about 50% of accepted truths are proven wrong. In physics it's about every 15 years (or something) that 50% of the "truths" are proven wrong.
This is how science works, constantly revising itself. Different disciplines just have different rates.
https://www.amazon.com/Half-Life-Facts-Everything-Know-Expiration/dp/159184651X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge
I'd recommend Lone Survivors: How we became the only Humans on Earth by Chris Stringer. It has some wordy technical terms, but overall a pretty accessible read.
Short synopsis: There are several types of Parrots, Bovine species and so on, so why aren't there several types of co-existing Hominid species? This books takes a look at our distant origins and explores some reasons as to why we're the only Humans left on Earth.
You appear to neither be aware of this book (http://www.amazon.de/The-Selfish-Gene-Richard-Dawkins/dp/1491514507) nor the definition of a meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme).
Furthermore, which right would that be? The right to lie in public with the intent to mislead people? I am sorry, this right does not exist in Europe, therefore this also no rights violation.
Bullshit, the evidence is overwhelming, you are looking like a liar and a troll for not admitting it after seeing that set of papers. Any decline is the fertility rate of a group has significant long term consequences. The environment has changed, again, and as it has always been those humans best able to adapt will prosper.
And for a good explanation of how active and rapid evolution still is even in modern humans you should read this,
http://www.amazon.com/Paleofantasy-Evolution-Really-Tells-ebook/dp/B007Q6XM1A
http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/racial-differences-intelligence/race-differences-in-intelligence-how-i-changed-my-mind
https://www.amazon.com/Race-Evolution-Behavior-History-Perspective/dp/0965683605
Klar, hier: http://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/04/15/brain-size-race-and-iq/
> There is good evidence that the races evolved different brain sizes in response to climate. Specifically, various studies have found that a population’s brain size correlates with climate related variables. For instance, Pearce and Dunbar (2011) ‘s data set produces a correlation of .74 between a population’s brain size and its latitude. Similarly, Ash and Gallup (2007) found a correlation of .48 between the size of 109 fossilized human skulls and the latitude at which they were found. Further still, Bailey and Geary (2009) analyzed 175 skulls ranging in age from 10,000 years old to 1.9 million years old and found a correlation of -.41 between brain size and winter temperature and -.61 between size and latitude (larger brains were found in areas more distant from the equator).
Edit: Die beiden Tabellen sind quasi die "Rohdaten":
http://i0.wp.com/thealternativehypothesis.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1-5.png?w=489 http://i2.wp.com/thealternativehypothesis.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2-6.png?w=494
Quelle der Tabellen: https://www.amazon.com/Race-Evolution-Behavior-History-Perspective/dp/0965683605
Cultural Literacy is the the foundation of the second book Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.
It's the Reader's Digest Condensed version of what you seek, but it could be a good springboard for you so that you're able to find things you might want to learn more about.
Alvin Plantinga's argument is a bit more subtle than that and you are misrepresenting it. It is not as easy as it may seem to tackle. There is an entire book out featuring prominent philosophers trying to take the argument down. http://www.amazon.com/Naturalism-Defeated-James-K-Beilby/dp/0801487633
>So because you can logically deduce altruism that cannot be the law of God? I don't quite understand what you're getting at. My point, and the point of C.S. Lewis is that people can follow the law of God, love your neighbor and love God, without implicitly knowing Christian law. Regardless of if you can logically deduce morality or not, I don't see how that invalidates the main point.
Because there is ZERO reason to believe there IS a "law of God" or that the phrase "law of God" means anything.
>without implicitly knowing Christian law.
There is NO reason to believe "the law" is "Christian".
As I've said, cooperation and altruism occurs in nature and tying it to anything supernatural is superfluous. What seems more likely is that the authors of the Bible observed cooperation and altruism and then attributed it to their conception of their deity.
Check out The Selfish Gene. If natural selection occurs at the replicating gene level, then altruism at the organism level isn't a mystery at all...nor, again, does it require any divine explanation.
> if you can logically deduce morality
I suppose you may be saying God created the material process by which organisms become altruistic in more evolved species (i.e. humans). Okay. That's more deism, but okay. Not really falsifiable. And not terribly parsimonious as an explanation. But, okay.
>I don't know if you're familiar with the differing sects of Christianity
Abundantly. Familiar.
> The ideals I strive to live by are love, mercy, forgiveness etc... But it all basically falls under the umbrella of love. Do I live by these ideals perfectly? Absolutely not, we are all sinners, even the saints, that doesn't mean that I flippantly ignore my ideals, it just means that even the best of us stumble.
Here. This will help you. Words don't inherently mean something, and you can use them in ways that make it seem like there are distinctions when there aren't.
link studies on what...genetic component to altruism? here, read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Richard-Dawkins/dp/1491514507
IQ and genetics?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/genes-dont-just-influence-your-iq-they-determine-how-well-you-do-school
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n1/full/mp2014105a.html
Deary IJ, Johnson W, Houlihan LM. Genetic foundations of human intelligence. Hum Genet2009; 126: 215–232. | Article | PubMed | ISI |
Plomin R, DeFries JC, Knopik VS, Neiderhiser JM. Behavioral genetics, 6th edn. Worth Publishers: New York, 2013.
https://www.amazon.com/IQ-Wealth-Nations-Richard-Lynn/dp/027597510X
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121002150027.htm
I dunno...do you need more sources? This is a good intro reading, there are many thousands more studies...
they all contradict the politically correct narrative, and they all suggest that importing 3rd world immigrants into wealthy nations is an excellent way to destroy those nations. This is not controversial speculation...for actual scientists it is a known fact. This should make you feel a bit uncomfortable...unless you live in israel or china of course.
If we are talking about social progress I honestly believe it is because of racism. Canadians are comfortable with complexity and understand that both individual and group rights are important. Americans live in a perceived power struggle (within themselves and between groups) that they can't reconcile.
>The long winters that the first settlers faced, forcing them to look out for one another?
And the First Nations people that showed these settlers how to live and brought them into their ever-growing circles and showed them what acceptance really looks like.
Book? -->
http://www.amazon.ca/Fair-Country-Telling-Truths-Canada/dp/0143168428
My favorite running books are Running in the Clouds (which is about trail running in England) and Running with the Kenyans. Neither is likely the kind of fiction that she prefers, but both are full of helpful tips. Both books depict regions where running is a way of life and embedded in the local culture. Both books emphasize that the key to becoming a good runner is simply the movitation to run.
Yeh, except it goes deeper than just crime.
https://www.amazon.ca/Race-Evolution-Behavior-History-Perspective/dp/0965683605
If you're truly interested in learning, check that book out.
> A true fact, as opposed to a false fact.
People think things are facts and later find out they were incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge
https://www.amazon.com/Half-Life-Facts-Everything-Know-Expiration/dp/159184651X
There's also physical problems one must consider. It's been shown that the more distant genetically the population, there's a loss to any benefit of hybrid vigor (increased fitness) suffer outbreed depression (decreased fitness). The further apart they are, the more outbreed depression exists.
While two peoples will be genetically adapted to two different locations, the offspring will be adapted to neither. So if a group that has resistance to a disease (ie malaria) marries outside the the group, the offspring would become more susceptible to it. One study recommends that to avoid outbreed depression, to not outbreed with any group that is more than 500 years apart in genetic mutations.
There's also evidence it can cause immunological incompatibility between mother and offspring which results in greater chance of stillbirth. Other things like finding bone marrow transplant is extremely difficult for a mixed race person.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2003.02026.x/abstract
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/dg-dlc020408.php
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/319/5864/813
https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2875-7-150
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01662.x/abstract
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marrow-donors-rare-for-mixed-race-patients/
It's natural for a person similar to animals, to choose a mate that is genetically closer to them to increase genetic fitness.
http://www.humanbiologicaldiversity.com/articles/Rushton%2C%20J.%20Phillipe.%20%22Inclusive%20fitness%20in%20human%20relationships.%22%20Biological%20Journal%20of%20the%20Linnean%20Society%2096%20(2009).pdf
It's been shown people are more altruistic towards people genetically similar to them, and people generally make friends that are more genetically similar. A parent's intensity of grief with the death of an offspring will be determined by perceived physical similarity.
http://www.humanbiologicaldiversity.com/articles/Rushton-ethnicnationalism-geneticsimularity.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3783426
Cavalli-Sforza has written books comparing the genetics of the different races. He demonstrated that the differences genetically between the English and Italians is 2.5 times greater than the differences between the English and Danish. The Japanese is 59 times greater, sub-Saharan Bantu is 109 times greater.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865475296/ref=sim_books/103-0702805-3403066
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691029059/o/qid=959105295/sr=8-3/ref=aps_sr_b_1_3/103-0702805-3403066
HBD
Darwin’s Enemies on the Left and Right Part 1, Part 2 (Blog Post)*
The History and Geography of Human Genes (Abridged edition) – Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
The 10,000 Year Explosion – Gregory Cochrane
Race, Evolution, and Behavior – Rushton
Why Race Matters – Michael Levin
****
Intelligence and Mind
The Bell Curve – Charles Murray
The Global Bell Curve – Richard Lynn
Human Intelligence – Earl Hunt
Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence – Robert Sternberg
A Conflict of Visions – Thomas Sowell
The Moral Animal – Robert Wright
The Blank Slate – Stephen Pinker
Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature – Murray Rothbard (essay)
****
Education
Real Education – Charles Murray
Inside American Education – Thomas Sowell
Illiberal Education – Dinesh D’Sousa
God and Man at Yale – William Buckley
Weapons of Mass Instruction – John Taylor Gatto
The Higher Education Bubble – Glenn Reynolds
****
​
If you want a really good read on the diet from a scientific point of view, look at the book titled 'Paleofantasy' by Marlene Zuk. It is a fantastic book full of interesting info.
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B007Q6XM1A
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184540985X/
Thus, anyone who studies genetic variation among humans will print a boilerplate statement somewhere in their paper stating that race does not exist and is a social construct.
This book is one of my favorite examples
Greg Bear wrote a sf novel (very fanciful, of course, but with plenty of real science, too) about this very topic. Darwins's Radio. You can read it for a layman's explanation of the real process and with lots of very imaginative applications!
> Ahh, you sure love to repeat the same BS over and over again.
I repeat it because you refuse to address it and just reiterate your points which are lies about what Comicsgate is.
So let me answer you by reiterating things I've already said.
>So please tell me, Mr Not-At-All-A-Child,
>> I'm not going to take the bait and argue that I'm old; but I will say: what difference does it make?
> what is the lovely "Comics Gate" opinions?
>> They're saying that forced political plot lines in comics, suck.
> And only them can decide what is a "forced political point"?
>> Determining that is a matter of taste and opinion.
> And even by your Dawkins interpretation, it makes no sense.
>> I am using the both definitions but specifically referring to the second:
an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video)
or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through
social media
> So everything that was spread in comicsbooks at that time that was amusing or interesting is by your definition is a meme?
That's another strawman argument. I never said that. You seem awfully fond of this tactic. I can tell you that it doesn't work, unless you are speaking to people that already agree with you.
Meme's are themes that are replicated and transmitted throughout a culture. I'm not going to be your single source for this. If you are truly interested then I suggest you start with the Selfish Gene and then move on to Not by Genes Alone finally Memes in Digital Culture.
But I truly doubt that you are here for any serious discussion about anything other than to smear people that point out your fallacious statements.
> That would make the comicbooks a meme in and of itself.
No. Comic books are a medium for transmission of information that may or may not contain memes. "Comic books" in general is not a meme unto itself.
> Because in my opinion, and I am not strawmanning everything here, this whole Comic Gate BS is just the same people that did the Gamergate BS which is the same people that is in the Alt Right BS, it is people who dislike seeing women and minorities in comics so they whine about "forced politics". This have been going on for so long and they grew tired of harassing game devs that they decided to go harass comic book writers and artists instead.
You are entitled to your opinion but it doesn't reflect other people's opinion. That is, what actual leaders of comics gate actually think is divorced from what you say they think.
Well I gave you a link. I suppose it flew over your head because:
> requires the neural network itself to grow
That's not how a brain works. Where did you hear about a neural network, because you seem a little confused about what a neural network is. A neural network is a computer model based on how a brain might form ideas. It is not a human brain.
When you say "Brain cells are like that to network & become able to recognize faces, etc." (sic) it's hard to tell what you are saying because you are so inarticulate. I suppose you are trying to make some statement on how neural pathways are formed?
Your statement doesn't take into account how hormones like adrenaline, testosterone or estrogen influence the formation of neural pathways. It doesn't talk about dopaminergic projections that control the formation of neural pathways based on pre-existing inherited structure.
Neural pathways are guided by the design of the brain itself. For example Brocca's area in the brain is where the human brain conjugates language. In your simplistic statement -there would be no need for the brain to compartmentalize because apparently there is no pre-existing influence of genes on brain development.
I've provided several links now.
> where have YOU been getting your information from?
I already gave you several links. It's obvious that you don't know anything about this. So here's several books that you should read before you show your general ignorance of the topic:
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Brain-Book-Rita-Carter/dp/1465416021/
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Human-Behavior-Darwinian-Perspectives/dp/0262533049
http://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125/