Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'

[lukec]

You see, this is the type of evolutionary thinking that drives me to maddness. You explain something you can't understand or . . . well, actually explain . . . by assuming it works an observable way when in fact you are just randomly organizing peices of a puzzle which fits in your mind and yet doesn't necessarily give the accurate picture.

You see this sort of propaganda on nature shows on the tele. The picture is of a fish waiting beneath a nut or fruit tree for the fruit to drop and then the fish eats it. The narrator says, most confident, that these fish evolved teeth to eat the fruit.

Hmm. Well you're definitely right in that no one was there. Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. The reason I said that it's explained quite well by evolutionary theory is that IF you're thinking in terms of evolution, and in that case, human evolution, my explanation is perfectly rational. To expound, a hypothetical: two hunter-gatherer groups have exactly the same living conditions, same population, etc. The only difference is that one group has a tendency to form strong bonds with other members of that group and the second group does not. Now, if to start off food was plentiful and easy to find, the groups might do exactly the same. But suddenly if you decrease the food, and make it so, for instance, only those talented hunters could get food, which group is more likely to have members starve? In the "love" group, you could expect those who are able to get food share with others in the group- and this tendency would be selected for. This is not, obviously, a very natural example and I just made it up, I'm only trying to show that there are ways to explain how human behaviors can actually evolve. I'm not saying it happened like this, but if that "unlove" group were decimated, then "love" would be considered an adaptive trait, which bettered an organism's (and in this case, social group's) ability to survive and propagate. I know what you're saying- this is speculation. However, this is supported by looking at related animals such as chimps or even who form social bonds. Grazing animals who surroung their young in a defensive ring. If you view "love" as a trait, then a parent "loving" their young is an incredibly powerful adaptive tool which gives the parent some added security that their genes are passing on. And obviously, I don't mean that the parents actually care. But the genes which lend to "love" certainly would become prevalent in the gene pool.

To summarize that heap of words, obviously you will disagree with what I have to say if you are thinking of what I am saying as evidence for evolution- but that's not what I meant it as. If you think in TERMS of evolutionary theory though, it's a very plausible reason that we have "love" now.

You see this sort of propaganda on nature shows on the tele. The picture is of a fish waiting beneath a nut or fruit tree for the fruit to drop and then the fish eats it. The narrator says, most confident, that these fish evolved teeth to eat the fruit.

Okay, I don't know about these fish you are talking about, but I will give an example involving the same Galapagos finches which Darwin saw.

This is all taken from Prothero, 2007 (paraphrased)

In 1977, on the island of Daphne Major, there was a drought in 1977. So, there was a shortage of food- only tough seeds were available. So, that year, many finches without powerful beaks died, as they were not able to crack the hard seeds and get the food they needed. As such, the next generation of finches were primarily those with hard, powerful beaks. This is just one single year. The drought did not continue, and more normal beaks were again able to survive.

However, imagine if you will that this drought continued. That there was a global warming. Can you see how the trend would continue? Those birds best able to eat the most food would be more likely to survive- so, if stronger beaked birds get the most food, they are most likely to get their genes into the next generation, where the process repeats. Over a sufficient amount of time, there would be a population of finches with "superbeaks" but otherwise normal. Could they mate with the original finches? I have no doubt that they could... if there were no other selection pressures. Perhaps all of a sudden now, after the development of these superbeaked birds, a new pressure arises. Perhaps there is a colonization of the island by a dangerous diurnal predator. Now, the finches are being selected not only for strong beaks, but perhaps superior night vision, for foraging when the predators are all asleep. Perhaps another pressure selects for powerful legs, and another for green tints which aid in camoflauge, etc etc etc. Now, add up all these changes? A population which would not be able to breed with the original species.

I got off track completely here, and what I was actually trying to say is, yeah, you can evolve teeth which are effective for a certain purpose, as the beaks are for finches. Perhaps these fish you are speaking of live in a place where there is little other food to eat other than these fruit. Now, could a normal fish eat fruit very easily? Not with the jaws of a typical telost fish, which are not used for much chewing or tearing, since those fish often eat by "sucking" in prey with an influx of water.

Ugh, it's late, sorry for writing so much.