You don't give our pre-history a fair shake. In a sparsely populated environment an omnivore like ourselves (equipped with the tools and numbers we love so dearly) probably spent very little time gathering food. That's what gave us so much time to think about shit like fire, sharp sticks, and maybe growing a few of those tasty red things over there instead of hunting them down. Problem is there was no reliable way of retaining this knowledge (as another poster indicated) and so only the super useful shit stuck with us until we came up with a better way to retain ideas. Consider the vast understanding of the world that was necessary to our paleolithic ancestors. We've honestly only been building on top of that foundation. Gathering all the data in the first place was the hard part.

(I've probably mentioned this in another thread, but the transition from hunter gatherer to agricultural (making civilization even remotely possible) was not a smooth one. Hunter gatherers by and large lived healthier lives, unless and until they starved to death)

(October 7, 2011 at 12:16 am)Justtristo Wrote: Those great philosophers in Greece existed 2500 years ago or so, not 4500 years ago.

You’re right, my mistake.

(October 7, 2011 at 1:52 am)Stue Denim Wrote:

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First we would need to evolve to the point where at least one human in the population is sufficiently intelligent. The whole population needn't be, just the guy/girl right at the intelligent end of the bellcurve.

However this alone is not enough. It's all well and good for a person to exist who is hypothetically intelligent enough, but if they are spending all their time hunting and gathering then they won't get around to it. What about writing materials? Prior work, they didn't invent calculus from scratch, they would have built on the work of others. Life expectancy? Motivation/drive/field of interest (Individually and culturally), Education, Social status, Gender, Knowledge transfer (and suppression), Wars, brutality, disease, preexisting mathematical system, funding, free time...

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Well I agree with what you are saying except for one small point. How is it possible for an individual to develop the intelligence necessary to do calculus if he were not using this intelligence? Since evolution is driven by necessity, developing the intelligence to do things that are not actually being done would in reality be a hindrance to the individual because energy would be spent developing and maintaining an ability that was not being used right?

(October 7, 2011 at 2:07 am)Rayaan Wrote: Not necessarily, because even if calculus first appeared in the 17th century, this doesn't mean that this is the exact time when humans developed the ability to do calculus.

…but you would admit that the mathematicians of Newton’s generation had developed a greater cognitive ability than the mathematicians of say the 1st century?

(October 7, 2011 at 9:16 am)Rhythm Wrote: We've been equipped with the same headgear for a long time. Could our earliest human ancestors have understood calculus? Yes, they could have if they received an education similar to our own.

Not according to Darwinian Evolution, mental processes and abilities would have to be developed through necessity and selection just like physical abilities. It’s no different than saying dinosaurs possessed the ability to fly before they developed wings and evolved into present day birds.

(October 7, 2011 at 10:43 am)Loading Please Wait Wrote: I think we had to mental capacity to do them, but not the intuition or the need at the time before it was invented. Many people's main goal in the past was to simply survive and pass on their genes. The few who did think and comprehend these maths were lucky and had the time and money to do so. A regular peasant wasn't worried about the derivative of 3x²-4x-1 was. The regular peasant and workers were worried about surviving another night with no food and clothes. As the people like Newton and other mathmeticians and physicist came along, they gradually found ways to improve lives to where less people were starving and working in the fields.

Ok, this is where you lose me. How could humans develop the mental capacity for something that is not providing any advantage to the organism through Darwinian means which is based off of necessity and survival?

Again, and as always, you have absolutely no idea what you're babbling about Statler. We didn't evolve the knowledge we have, we acquired it. Otherwise people would be born with innate doctorates in mathematics. Worthless creationist troll.

(October 14, 2011 at 8:09 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Again, and as always, you have absolutely no idea what you're babbling about Statler. We didn't evolve the knowledge we have, we acquired it. Otherwise people would be born with innate doctorates in mathematics. Worthless creationist troll.

Again, you are not being consistent in your own worldview and are borrowing from mine. Given a purely naturalistic universe, how can you even begin to draw a distinction between mental properties and physical properties? They have to be one and the same; matter in motion operating consistent with the laws of physics and chemistry. You can’t have it both ways I am sorry, please be consistent, for once…please….I beg of you.

Find me an infant with a PHD in physics Statler, then we'll talk.

Words and words and words and........

(October 14, 2011 at 8:23 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Find me an infant with a PHD in physics Statler, then we'll talk.

Why are you comparing human development through a person's lifetime with human development through history? Do you even understand Darwinism?

There are a bunch of people today that can not do calculus. Most probably could not solve a quadratic equation. This does not mean they have not the potential to do so, but rather a lack of education and/or need.

Ancient man may have had the potential, but without the ground work that was developed over several millennia, they had no basis or understanding.

With the lack of technology (and again, the several millennia of groundwork), they had a rough life with their focus on survival with available tools and knowledge. Anything learned was passed down generations in verbal format which leaves significant 'copy errors' and personal bias. Even collaboration with adjacent tribes would succumb to the problems with verbal continuation.

Picking the time when man was able to learn and solve calculus would probably be beyond any information would could ever glean from archaeology. Maybe if there were DNA samples intact enough for study, but that is highly unlikely.

Some aboriginal tribes today are somewhat as backward as ancient man. Can they do calculus?

Just because they did not, does not mean they could not.

Any question about evolution coming from you is immediately relegated to joke status Stat.

For the benefit of lurkers

Evolution is not "driven by necessity", the god botherers among us simply cannot remove the steering wheel from their idea of life and so they misrepresent a pretty easy to understand concept habitually. Mutations occur, regularly. Sometimes these mutations prove to be beneficial, but not always, mostly not always actually, considering the ratio of extinct shit to living shit. Our brains are the product of such a process, the contents of same said are not (directly speaking).

(October 14, 2011 at 8:27 pm)IATIA Wrote: There are a bunch of people today that can not do calculus. Most probably could not solve a quadratic equation. This does no mean they have not the potential to do so, but rather a lack of education and/or need.

Well I am talking more about the mental potential here, apes do not have the potential to do calculus, nearly all humans do.

Quote: Some aboriginal tribes today are somewhat as backward as ancient man. Can they do calculus?
Just because they did not, does not mean they could not.

Oh! You beat me to my own point; I was going to bring this up. Aborigines supposedly branched off 50,000 years ago, and yet if you adopt a baby from an Aborigine tribe your chances of teaching it advanced math are no less than if you adopt a baby from anywhere else in the world. In fact, physiologically speaking that baby would be no less perfect than babies anywhere else in the world. So it looks like humans have always been as intelligent as they are today, and have always been as physiologically adapted as they are today (Aborigines can donate blood and organs to Asians, Africans and Europeans- and vice versa).

(October 6, 2011 at 4:53 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Hello all,

So I have a question for the evolutionists on here. We all agree that the human brain is the only brain that can reason logically, conduct and comprehend advanced mathematics such as calculus and create complex pieces of music such as a musical score. How did these unique abilities develop? Given your own timeline, about what time in man’s evolution did these abilities develop? (Different dates are fine for all three abilities but please be fairly specific). Thanks!

SW

January 23, 2,084,321 B.C.

Next question please.