400,000 Year Old Cranium Found in Portugal

[LastPoet]

Wow.... we traced our ancestry back 12 generations to Calabria, Sicily.  I'm proud. Only second generation born in this country too.

The important thing is that people fucked around.

[Minimalist]

Where would we be without that?

[Flavius]

You could throw those idiotic monkeys back in time to observe the very earliest occurrence of biological life and they will still manage to substitute their deity into the story to make it fit their standards. It's called confirmation bias, and it's imbedded so deep into their skulls.

[Brian37]

You could throw those idiotic monkeys back in time to observe the very earliest occurrence of biological life and they will still manage to substitute their deity into the story to make it fit their standards. It's called confirmation bias, and it's imbedded so deep into their skulls.

That "conformation bias" is deep rooted, but it is evolution, not just our species. "confirmation bias" is a term humans use. In evolution we see other mammals and other species as well create groups, and by cooperating they develop patterns. Life at the same time, even solitary species as well as social species like ours, can base their patterns on completely false perceptions. It is because life evolved not always having the time to slow down and test and confirm what it senses. So our brains gap fill.

Why is it a predatory insect wont eat a butterfly with the big eyes on the back of it? Because the predator falsely sees the pattern of the butterfly as being real eyes. As Dawkins describes falling for false perceptions in his book "the God Delusion" as being akin to "the moth mistaking the light bulb for the natural moonlight".

In our early species we did not have our modern scientific knowledge, we didn't even have written language 150,000 years ago. So back then the world was scary, like a volcano, or storm, or animals. So we ended up projecting human qualities on those things, on nature and animals, and created rituals in order to bargain with what we thought was controlling those things. Early gods/spirits/deities were earthy. When humans learned how to farm in one place, and started building cities, the gods became more human like, then of course some created monotheism, and the God of Abraham was not the first attempt at monotheism.

Today worldwide most confirmation bias is due to the young being indoctrinated at birth. Since we evolved to be social humans end up defending that which is local and that can still be totally based on a falsehood. Just like the Egyptians were successful for 3,000 years centering their society around completely false gods. Unfortunately today most humans are not introspective enough to see that even today, they are still making the same mistake the Egyptians did.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How do we know animals have confirmation bias, please?

[Brian37]

How do we know animals have confirmation bias, please?

I didn't say animals do, I said OUR confirmation bias is rooted in gap filling, which other species do do. Confirmation bias is simply a human form of gap filling. Animals do learn from their parents just like humans do. I was just watching a PBS documentary the other day about a species of monkey, in this troop the social norm, or pattern of bearing teeth, is a sign of respect to the alpha leader or any higher up. It is also a form of pattern seeking and learning to develop social order. Even those monkeys don't know over time don't have our higher cognition to know, while that pattern works short term, the leader eventually gets old and a younger one competes to take over. So even on a primitive level while it isn't "confirmation bias" like humans, the monkeys confirm their roles through the patterns they develop over generations.

The point is our brains developed to gap fill. Just like a predator insect wont eat that butterfly with the eyes on it's wings.

---

To the "fine tuner"advocates in this thread, lets see if this analogy works to explain why you should consider you are wrong.

Lets pretend we have two billionaires. One got 50 million from their parents when they turned 18 and built their wealth with a good head start. But the second one started out in a poor family with nothing and worked their way up to being a billionaire?

Which would seem much more difficult and unlikely to make it to the top? The one who had help, or the one who had no help?

I do see life as and the universe as amazing. I think theists stupidly try to argue or falsely think we cant have a sense of awe but we do. I find life and the universe extremely amazing, with all the good things and destructive things in it. I find trying to plop a magic puppeteer in as an answer cheapens all this by trying to explain it with such a concept.

By no means is this an economic argument. Just metaphor to explain why the "fine tuning" argument makes no sense. But the big three monotheistic religions of Abraham are not the only religions with creator god concepts regardless.

[Flavius]

You could throw those idiotic monkeys back in time to observe the very earliest occurrence of biological life and they will still manage to substitute their deity into the story to make it fit their standards. It's called confirmation bias, and it's imbedded so deep into their skulls.

That "conformation bias" is deep rooted, but it is evolution, not just our species. "confirmation bias" is a term humans use. In evolution we see other mammals and other species as well create groups, and by cooperating they develop patterns. Life at the same time, even solitary species as well as social species like ours, can base their patterns on completely false perceptions. It is because life evolved not always having the time to slow down and test and confirm what it senses. So our brains gap fill.

Why is it a predatory insect wont eat a butterfly with the big eyes on the back of it? Because the predator falsely sees the pattern of the butterfly as being real eyes. As Dawkins describes falling for false perceptions in his book "the God Delusion" as being akin to "the moth mistaking the light bulb for the natural moonlight".

In our early species we did not have our modern scientific knowledge, we didn't even have written language 150,000 years ago. So back then the world was scary, like a volcano, or storm, or animals. So we ended up projecting human qualities on those things, on nature and animals, and created rituals in order to bargain with what we thought was controlling those things. Early gods/spirits/deities were earthy. When humans learned how to farm in one place, and started building cities, the gods became more human like, then of course some created monotheism, and the God of Abraham was not the first attempt at monotheism.

Today worldwide most confirmation bias is due to the young being indoctrinated at birth. Since we evolved to be social humans end up defending that which is local and that can still be totally based on a falsehood. Just like the Egyptians were successful for 3,000 years centering their society around completely false gods. Unfortunately today most humans are not introspective enough to see that even today, they are still making the same mistake the Egyptians did.

The confirmation bias being part of our instinctual desires can still be overwritten to some extent by any open-minded individual. Problem being that once you become unaware of it, or say - too comfortable with your environment, it soon begins to take over, and once again do not take in consideration other's perspectives. The Egyptian's deities may or may not have benefited them, but there comes a time when morales of an archaic system must be refurbished to that of the individual, as we are intelligent creatures after all. 

A great example of overcoming some deeply entrenched instinctual responses would be that of allowing your pre-frontal cortex to examine the situation after your 'lizard brain'. A mere second could make a difference. Not allowing anger to overtake whilst in an argument and maintaining a relatively open mind is one way to go against the confirmation bias; and surely enough, when presented with enough evidence, any rational human being on this planet (theist or atheist) can force a new mindset.

EDIT: But the problem with religions and whatnot, is that there is no freaking evidence that thoroughly supports it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How do we know animals have confirmation bias, please?

I didn't say animals do, I said OUR confirmation bias is rooted in gap filling, which other species do do. Confirmation bias is simply a human form of gap filling. Animals do learn from their parents just like humans do. I was just watching a PBS documentary the other day about a species of monkey, in this troop the social norm, or pattern of bearing teeth, is a sign of respect to the alpha leader or any higher up. It is also a form of pattern seeking and learning to develop social order. Even those monkeys don't know over time don't have our higher cognition to know, while that pattern works short term, the leader eventually gets old and a younger one competes to take over. So even on a primitive level while it isn't "confirmation bias" like humans, the monkeys confirm their roles through the patterns they develop over generations.

The point is our brains developed to gap fill. Just like a predator insect wont eat that butterfly with the eyes on it's wings.

---

To the "fine tuner"advocates in this thread, lets see if this analogy works to explain why you should consider you are wrong.

Lets pretend we have two billionaires. One got 50 million from their parents when they turned 18 and built their wealth with a good head start. But the second one started out in a poor family with nothing and worked their way up to being a billionaire?

Which would seem much more difficult and unlikely to make it to the top? The one who had help, or the one who had no help?

I do see life as and the universe as amazing. I think theists stupidly try to argue or falsely think we cant have a sense of awe but we do. I find life and the universe extremely amazing, with all the good things and destructive things in it. I find trying to plop a magic puppeteer in as an answer cheapens all this by trying to explain it with such a concept.

By no means is this an economic argument. Just metaphor to explain why the "fine tuning" argument makes no sense. But the big three monotheistic religions of Abraham are not the only religions with creator god concepts regardless.

That made no sense. Just sayin'.

[CapnAwesome]

Good news for the Portuguese.  Bad news for the creatards.

http://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/03/400...gal/114346

The cranium represents the westernmost human fossil ever found in Europe during the middle Pleistocene epoch and one of the earliest on this continent to be associated with the Acheulean stone tool industry. In contrast to other fossils from this same time period, many of which are poorly dated or lack a clear archaeological context, the cranium discovered in the cave of Aroeira in Portugal is well-dated to 400,000 years ago and appeared in association with abundant faunal remains and stone tools, including numerous bifaces (handaxes).

“This is an interesting new fossil discovery from the Iberian Peninsula, a crucial region for understanding the origin and evolution of the Neandertals,” said Quam, an associate professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, State University of New York. “The Aroeira cranium is the oldest human fossil ever found in Portugal and shares some features with other fossils from this same time period in Spain, France and Italy. The Aroeria cranium increases the anatomical diversity in the human fossil record from this time period, suggesting different populations showed somewhat different combinations of features.”

If people are creationists, the discovery of this or that skull isn't going to be what convinces them. You already have to disbelieve everything about biology, geology and tons of other sciences.

[Amarok]

Good news for the Portuguese.  Bad news for the creatards.

http://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/03/400...gal/114346

If people are creationists, the discovery of this or that skull isn't going to be what convinces them. You already have to disbelieve everything about biology, geology and tons of other sciences.

Or mentally twist the facts to fit there preconceived beliefs

"It's not a bird transitional forms it's just a dinosaur with feathers (a bird in other words) that god created for some reason then killed off"