It was late last night when I wrote my initial dismissal of your idea so now, with a little time, let me expand.
The problem begins here:
Evolution is not a religion. It does not care if you believe in it or not. I'll accept your word that you 'believe' in it but the fact is that you do not seem to know much about it. Evolution does not share your prejudice in favor of "intelligence." You have created an artificial hierarchy of traits and (surprise) placed yourself at the top of the pyramid. Evolution by natural selection enables an organism to survive in a given environment and pass its genes along to the next generation. Period. Birds have evolved to fly. Grizzly bears have evolved to have great size and big teeth and claws. While you apparently consider yourself the hottest thing on the planet you might stop to consider the end result of this scenario. You are standing on a high cliff with a digital camera taking photos. A duck is standing next to you. From behind at a distance of ten yards a grizzly charges out of the woods at you. The duck flies away. Your choice is to follow the duck or fight the bear unarmed. In either case your much-valued intelligence is not going to do you much good. In fact, while the bear is mauling you, you might wish that evolution had skimped a little on the "intelligence" and given you greater size as well as useful teeth and claws. Of course, if you jump off the cliff instead you can muse on your wonderful artistic superiority as you fall to your death. The duck will fly nearby but without passing judgment on the rather ineffectual being which is hurtling earthward at increasing speed. The far less "intelligent" bear and duck will survive to participate in the next mating season. You will be dead.
I am not denigrating "intelligence" in terms of human evolution. Frankly, when you compare our physical traits to those of most animals it is the only reason we survived at all. But the earliest manifestation of that intelligence was the ability to make tools....not write philosophical treatises. Those tools were little more than rocks with a sharp edge but it did give a small band of ape-like creatures the ability to survive in a harsh environment and once that process started it evolved on its own and resulted in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. But the ability to write an opera would have been of no use to those early humans but that spear was a useful tool.
That's enough for now.
The problem begins here:
Quote:I should note that while I believe in God, I am not an extreme bible belt fundamentalist. I believe in evolution,
Evolution is not a religion. It does not care if you believe in it or not. I'll accept your word that you 'believe' in it but the fact is that you do not seem to know much about it. Evolution does not share your prejudice in favor of "intelligence." You have created an artificial hierarchy of traits and (surprise) placed yourself at the top of the pyramid. Evolution by natural selection enables an organism to survive in a given environment and pass its genes along to the next generation. Period. Birds have evolved to fly. Grizzly bears have evolved to have great size and big teeth and claws. While you apparently consider yourself the hottest thing on the planet you might stop to consider the end result of this scenario. You are standing on a high cliff with a digital camera taking photos. A duck is standing next to you. From behind at a distance of ten yards a grizzly charges out of the woods at you. The duck flies away. Your choice is to follow the duck or fight the bear unarmed. In either case your much-valued intelligence is not going to do you much good. In fact, while the bear is mauling you, you might wish that evolution had skimped a little on the "intelligence" and given you greater size as well as useful teeth and claws. Of course, if you jump off the cliff instead you can muse on your wonderful artistic superiority as you fall to your death. The duck will fly nearby but without passing judgment on the rather ineffectual being which is hurtling earthward at increasing speed. The far less "intelligent" bear and duck will survive to participate in the next mating season. You will be dead.
I am not denigrating "intelligence" in terms of human evolution. Frankly, when you compare our physical traits to those of most animals it is the only reason we survived at all. But the earliest manifestation of that intelligence was the ability to make tools....not write philosophical treatises. Those tools were little more than rocks with a sharp edge but it did give a small band of ape-like creatures the ability to survive in a harsh environment and once that process started it evolved on its own and resulted in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. But the ability to write an opera would have been of no use to those early humans but that spear was a useful tool.
That's enough for now.