(June 24, 2011 at 7:29 am)SpatiumTempusque Wrote: Because we're the best there was to survive in the environment there was. I think that's a scientific explanation enough to suit even the most energized minds.
Hmmm...not to pick a fight or anything....but its early here and I still have my energy. There is a problem with Darwinian evolution as it applies to humans. What Darwin said was that species evolve when they are isolated and subject to changing conditions. In that case, those with the traits best suited to those conditions will survive to pass along those traits and those who cannot survive will die out. Over time....a concept lost on theists....they evolve into a separate species which can no longer interbreed with the original parent species.
But human culture and awareness have fucked with that model. Lions live and hunt in packs, just as ancient humans did. However, if a lion is injured during a hunt it lives or dies on its own. The rest of the pride does not tend its wounds and bring it food and water while it recovers. We have just such evidence from early homo erectus, though. Skeletons with evidence of healed fractures to leg bones. Not well healed, mind you. The person would not have been running any races but he would have been ambulatory. The implication is that other members of the group cared for him during his period of incapacitation or he would have died and we would not see the healed bone. Similarly, we have an ancient HE skull of an old person with no teeth, speculation being gum disease as the cause. Still, how does the an elderly person survive unless other members of the group are caring for it? A social structure must have grown up around some sense of "us" as a group. These were not primitive apes. They had some cultural understanding. Further, Professor Robert Bednarik has shown that they also had some sea-faring capability in order to populate the islands of Indonesia over 800k years ago and you don't build a boat without some cognitive functioning going on. We know they crossed rivers and seas and went around if not across mountains so could they have ever been "isolated" in the strict Darwinian sense?
One other though on this as I don't want it to get too long and end up tattered into a hundred separate quotations. How do animals choose their mates? In almost every case the males compete for the right to mate in some manner. The female waits for the contest to be decided and then goes off with the winner. Unlike human females who will go off with some loser who buys them a drink at closing time in the bar! The goat who is still standing after butting heads with a rival presumably is stronger or at least more agile than the rival and he is the one who gets to produce the next generation of goats. There is some genetic basis to his success not just having a working credit card.
We have to consider the impact of human culture on human evolution....if that word can even be applied to humans anymore.
