Is Man the climax species?

[waxcap]

Originally Posted by davecatt

Could it be that we face the choice to re-evaluate or go the same way as the Dinosaurs ?

I believe that the Dinosaurs were around for a period of 160 million years. It would be great if we could manage a tenth of that. The Trilobites managed 300 million.

We can re-evaluate as much as we like but we'll certainly be outlasted by Slime Moulds. They have been around for a billion years and will be around long after we are extinct. And as far as I know - they don't think at all.

Anyway it's not a competition. It's not the winning that counts - it's the taking part!

Dave

[davecatt]

Originally Posted by fairplay

I'm tempted to say I don't have a clue what you are on about because man has been trying to think outside the box ever since Galileo made a fool of the Vatican.

Neil.

BTW, An imagined 'deity' and nature are 2 entirely separate things - I cannot see how you could possibly confuse the 2.

So the invention of the wheel and the discovery of how to use fire was not an example of thinking outside the box then?

Innovative thinking is responsible for the comparatively rapid evolution of man.

Cant we learn from that and use it to improve our chances of survival through education?

Your second point: Perhaps the confusion is yours. Perhaps the idea of a deity was originally allegorical?

waxcap:I agree totally with your final comment Dave But I do believe there are a couple of differences between us and the Dinosaur (or the slime mould for that matter) As well as having the ability to knowingly cause our own destruction we also have the potential to avoid causing our own destruction. If we get it right perhaps we may even out live the Dinosaurs,barring a catastrophic act of nature of course

[fairplay]

You are choosing to place 'the box' where it suits you. I am placing the box to the time when man was no longer suppressed by the Vatican and were free to discover how we really did get here and how things grew.

Second point: "Perhaps ... ... " ? "Perhaps ... ..." ? You remain confused evidently.

Neil.

[davecatt]

Have you seen this Neil?
http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...tml#post871004
Perhaps we could discuss this in greater depth on Debs forum?

Dave

[Deb London]

Interesting thought. It's nice to think I'm not suppressed in any way. These days I can even create a forum to discuss religion - how liberating. Yes, bring it on fairplay. You are more than welcome. With quotes like this:

An imagined 'deity' and nature are 2 entirely separate things - I cannot see how you could possibly confuse the 2.

I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself.

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

[fairplay]

Originally Posted by davecatt

Have you seen this Neil?
http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...tml#post871004
Perhaps we could discuss this in greater depth on Debs forum?

Dave

Thanks for drawing my attention to this - I seldom visit the 'treehouse' so was unaware. Seems a complicated system for joining though.

Neil.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by davecatt

So the invention of the wheel and the discovery of how to use fire was not an example of thinking outside the box then? Innovative thinking is responsible for the comparatively rapid evolution of man. Cant we learn from that and use it to improve our chances of survival through education?

So do corvids ‘think outside the box’ ? Clever Crows Use Tools in New Way | Wired Science | Wired.com

Equating behavioural change with evolution is problematic, and while one could invoke epigenics as a source of evolutionary instigation of behaviour change, epigenic changes are frequently ephemeral. The notion of ‘invention’ as a single ‘eureka’ event is very much a 19thC notion, linked to the apparent instantaneous production of new and wondrous things by new and wondrous men (the absence of women in that story is very telling). We need to cut through the self congratulatory propaganda of the ‘industrial age’ to understand what invention might actually be.

Use of fire need have been no more than applied observation, responded to variously by hominims over millions of years. Fire may be a rare natural event in northern Europe, but it happens with great frequency on the African savannahs and near savannah woodland. Making use of ‘nature’ cooked food, fire shattered stoned or fire hardened wood need not have been anything other than slow absorption of a natural process into species behaviour. Generating fire at will is clearly a more specialised behaviour, but with fire a familiar phenomenon other behaviours such as striking rocks together as anvils (sparks produced) for opening nuts may have allowed sophistication over protracted time.

As to the wheel, it’s tempting to see it as a single entity developed in one go for a single purpose – yet there’s no reason for that to be the case. The wheel as technology for transport is only useful given certain parameters, either human made roads, or ground that is naturally dry and firm, of flatish or at least smoothish profile, lacking obstructing vegetation and rocks. Other transport technologies such sleds, pack animals and water transport offer far more facility than the wheel in many environments. The development of wheels may have been ancient – the use of sticks for winding fibres, with spindles being a sophistication, pulleys being a further development and only then after thousands of years, actually applying a wheel to run along the ground to carry a load.

That humans are capable of rapid behavioural change is clearly the case, but how we get there may not be because of ‘eureka’ moments but far less ‘considered’ processes.

CM

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by Cotham Marble

As to the wheel, it’s tempting to see it as a single entity developed in one go for a single purpose – yet there’s no reason for that to be the case. The wheel as technology for transport is only useful given certain parameters, either human made roads, or ground that is naturally dry and firm, of flatish or at least smoothish profile, lacking obstructing vegetation and rocks. Other transport technologies such sleds, pack animals and water transport offer far more facility than the wheel in many environments. The development of wheels may have been ancient – the use of sticks for winding fibres, with spindles being a sophistication, pulleys being a further development and only then after thousands of years, actually applying a wheel to run along the ground to carry a load. CM

The wheel was almost certainly a natural progression from the use of tree trunks or logs used as rollers to move large objects such as stone blocks.
Probably not much of a "Eureka" moment, but fairly obvious really.
Dorts.

[fairplay]

Originally Posted by Dorts

The wheel was almost certainly a natural progression from the use of tree trunks or logs used as rollers to move large objects such as stone blocks.
Probably not much of a "Eureka" moment, but fairly obvious really.
Dorts.

Another less obvious possibility is it could have started out with tribes that lived near the sea. Any pebbly beach will have flatish stones with a hole in it worn away by tidal action. Any child finding one would be tempted to put a thin stick in the hole and look around for any more he could find to pass away the time.

Then he becomes bored, leaves the stick with a few pebbles attached on a flat but sloping surface, the stick starts to roll down the slope, older brother puts his thinking cap on and not only do we have the wheel, but the axle as well.

Next comes the cart with stone wheels, they cruise inland at a steady 2 mph, spot some fallen trees, pick up on Dorts suggestion and before long we have wheels made from wood because it's easier to shape than stone.

Yes ? or perhaps ... no.

Neil.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Dorts

The wheel was almost certainly a natural progression from the use of tree trunks or logs used as rollers to move large objects such as stone blocks. Dorts.

There might be some chronological difficulties with log rollers as the genesis of free turning wheels. There are at least two depictions dating to 5,000 years before present (BP), a wall decoration and a ceramic piece, and also recent discovery of a wheel and axel carbon dated to a similar period: The Right Wheel: Tellure Rota's Blog | World’s Oldest Wheel… and Slovenian Marsh Yields World's Oldest Wheel. At 5,000 BP (3,000 CE) this is well before the major monumental building phases seen in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and in the latter case sled and lubrication based solutions seem to have been preferred to rollers. On ballance I'd still see spindle and pulley technology as being the most likely line of wheel evolution.

Originally Posted by fairplay

Another less obvious possibility is it could have started out with tribes that lived near the sea. Any pebbly beach will have flatish stones with a hole in it worn away by tidal action. Any child finding one would be tempted to put a thin stick in the hole and look around for any more he could find to pass away the time.

Yes ? or perhaps ... no.

This isn't so fanciful as it may seem. Stones with holes in them appear fairly regularly in the archaeological record and although many such finds are associated with ritual sites, their use as loom weights and spindle whorls shouldn't be discounted. Holed stones may not be a direct progenitor of load bearing wheels, but they may have formed part of the technological ancestry of using rotational forces to do useful work.

CM