Hermit wrote:
...if you agree with those definitions, we can start discussing your list of notions that in your mind define "atheist ideology" in detail. If you disagree, we're stuck with discussing the meaning of "ideology" for a bit longer.

Over to you.

I think you have said a lot of this before and I didn't take issue with it then, so fine, I accept.

In this grotesque attack you accuse me of mental illness, bigotry, rejecting astrophysics, then rejecting all basic science and telling filthy lies.

Aye: he's got you pegged, hasn't he?

For example, Roberts (“The Incredible Unlikeness of Being”) tells this story with hardly a mention of the most intimate and intense relationships our ancestors had with other living things, which was with their predators.

Wrong: absolutely wrong.

The most intense relationships any individual has is with members of its own species.

I've explained this to you before, but as usual, you ignored it.

Any given species has a range, a diet, a biome, etc.; individuals of other species may overlap in certain areas, for example, perhaps both monkeys and squirrels feed on the same fruit of the same trees and therefore may come into contact with each other quite regularly. But the members of one's own species overlap in every area all the time, and are permanently in potential conflict for that same space, same food, and same desires. This is only heightened in species which are highly social.

Interactions with predators are relatively infrequent comparative to interactions with members of their own species. Predators aren't trying to snatch your preferred foods - they're trying to catch you. Predators aren't competing to mate with individuals of your species. Predators aren't competing with you for the things you want - they're competing just to kill you - the rules of the competition therein are actually comparatively simple. That's why sociality is a very important topic when it comes to talking about primates; all primates, not just the ones you are ideologically motivated to emote at.

Here's the rub: you ignore anything inconvenient for you - but that doesn't mean it's disappeared. It remains true regardless of your interest or disinterest. Ignoring it just means you signal that you're unwilling to learn, or to engage honestly in discussion. You mantra at people with no regard to what they say, then complain that you don't get what you want. What you appear to want is for people to genuflect to your brilliantly devised armchair declarations. It's not going to happen JJ - you manifestly do not know anywhere near enough about these topics for your opinions to be valuable in and of themselves. You should hove towards evidence, learn, and maybe one day you might have enough of a clue to warrant substantive discussion.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I argue that a prevailing ideology has messed up the human origin story told in the name of science.

Where's the argument that a prevailing ideology has 'messed up' anything as regards human origins? You keep stating it flatly, without argument, that the human origin "story" must include our relation to something "greater than ourselves". You call it "Nature" (which is ridiculous, given your bona-fides) and with that you denote the supernatural ("creative" forces for which you cannot specify evidence of intent), and your bigotry is directed at those who find execrable the vacuous wank and fundie religious dogma you keep repeating like a mantra. Religious belief is for soothing your fear of death, not for promoting a competition with science.

You're a creationist, JJ., someone who believes in divine (i.e., supernatural and intentional) creation of life and of humans, and not even a very clever creationist, even by the shitty standards of which hidebound creationists show themselves capable. Your "messed up" is a statement of bigotry, since you refuse patently to say what's messed up about it, other than it does not devote itself to honoring what you (and lots of other fundie fanatics) call its "Creator". Bigotry.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I’m sorry, I don’t have time to deal now with the other responses you made to my list. They are likely to come up again in one form or another.

If you lack the time, it's because you lack the argument, and wisely understand that repeating your vacuous wank is a waste of your time and mine. It's not complicated, JJ. Saying you "lack the time" (given the time you've devoted to this thread) is dissembling. You don't have to accept defeat, JJ, because so far, you have not mounted an argument. You claim that you've argued, which is different. If "messed up" and "denying the Creator" are not tautological, explain the difference. If you claim your notion of creativity gives creativity no intent, then the term evolution is a description of what we see.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Ideological notions are affirmed wore strongly than the word “assume” implies; they seem to be foundational or axiomatic.

The only axiom in view is that you declare the human origins story is messed up because it doesn't acknowledge the Creator in which you so devoutly believe. Your bigotry is endlessly directed at those who do not share your vacuous fundie religious beliefs. If you don't accept that your notions of "messed up" are tautological with "denying the Creator", you're a lot dumber than you already think I think you are, because you clearly comprehend the tautology each time I tell you about it. Your silence in unraveling that is tacit evidence that you lack a cogent response you've had ample time and opportunity to prepare, and you beg off, saying you lack the "time". You're a creationist, JJ, a religious fanatic, and you're behaving like a child in denying your errors, prevarications, and outright lies. Face it. Creationist dogma is a sack of shit, brimming with the unsupportable assumptions of devout fundamentalist religious dogma. In your case, it's the repeated assertion that the human origins story is "messed up" because it doesn't acknowledge the Creator in which you devoutly believe. So you can fuck off with that one, or else make "messed up" into something besides your pet peeve with "atheist ideology" you never seem to be able to articulate.

I love how it's a 'peremptory demand' for something that's unarguably the most basic requirement of this entire 5 year old thread.

Self-serving tone policing is so JJ.

Jayjay4547 wrote:We are in relation with Nature and her current state, compared with her state a billion years ago, does show that Nature has been more creative than we (humanity or the individual person) have been. A billion years ago there were algal mats. Today there are still algal mats, and also people who can talk and make telescopes that reveal space events that happened long before there were algal mats. That was highly creative.

Without establishing intent, you're misusing the term 'creative', Typical lying, arrogant creationist bullshit. You can't complain that ideology is responsible for refusing your redefinitions of terms to suit your own stupid, creationist ideology. Your reverence is only for the intent you believe (without inspection) is underpinning your "Creation". How is ideology responsible for not participating in that brand of idiocy? Creationist? Cretinist? What?

Then you assert nature has been more (bolded for emphasis) creative than individual organisms or species. Will it also be a 'peremptory' request to ask you to lay out a scale for what is "more" creative? More or less? Especially since the big lie is that any of it creative, more or less, by re-defining creativity. You should delve into complexity studies a little, JJ.

I don't know what to call someone who feeds the way you do from making himself a linguistic pariah. A masochist, maybe. Nobody's doing this to you. You're hiding behind your keyboard in the anonymous internet, soiling your own discursive pants. Nobody else gets to see where the stench is coming from.

We are in relation with Nature and her current state, compared with her state a billion years ago, does show that Nature has been more creative than we (humanity or the individual person) have been. A billion years ago there were algal mats. Today there are still algal mats, and also people who can talk and make telescopes that reveal space events that happened long before there were algal mats. That was highly creative.

No; that's not 'creative' except in a metaphorical sense, a point which I have course made to you before.

That you get lost with your poetical turns of phrase doesn't thereby confer these metaphors onto the universe. All lions are lion-hearted, even the cowardly ones.

OlivierK uses the word agency in what appears (to me) to be the same way I use intent. In Olivier's case, he's addressing jamest in the "absolute chaos" thread, but the problem is the same one. That is, a lot of vague "theology" we see around here is trying to establish agency in a disembodied entity. I'm getting the notion that agency is more official than intent (or in filosofese, intentionality. A couple of additional syllables always helps in filosofese.) This all gets at responsibility as much as anything else, and slips in a moral dimension to creativity.

See also, consciousnessnessness. Theologians (especially the filosofeezers) are positively fizzing with a cocktail of morality, consciousnessness, intent/agency, and freedom. What I don't understand is what they hope to get out of it besides, you know, finger-wagging. For extra emphasis, you can construct a gesture involving fingers wrapped toward the thumb, combined with a series of exaggerated up-and-down wagging movements of the entire hand.

FAP Ain't Philosophy. It's one of those recursive acronyms beloved of computer scientists.

Jayjay4547 wrote:for us there is a high God and no other smaller gods below Him. So we get into the realm of controversy and ideology.

Not in my case, JJ. Don't forget: Rather than using the atheist label, which I reject, I identify as atheological. That is, I contract to comment on other people's theology as such, and leave off talking about God / gods. There can be no controversy in a nonsense utterance. Theology is discourse about God/gods, but without ever specifying what that is. And little wonder. There's a bit of psychology behind superstitions like the tetragrammaton. Superstition, JJ. Learn about it. Now think about this, JJ: If there really is a divine creative force, what is the significance if someone else has failed to recognize it? Is it merely a threat to a great wisdom that has recognized the divine creative force, or is your anxiety about this recognition nothing but a silly superstition? Narcissism, JJ. Learn about it. How long can you go on refusing to answer the questions that are put to you here before somebody starts thinking of you as a self-absorbed twat?

Fenrir wrote:Bit late.

Yes, it bites.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:I argue that a prevailing ideology has messed up the human origin story told in the name of science.

Where's the argument that a prevailing ideology has 'messed up' anything as regards human origins? You keep stating it flatly, without argument, that the human origin "story" must include our relation to something "greater than ourselves". You call it "Nature" (which is ridiculous, given your bona-fides) and with that you denote the supernatural ("creative" forces for which you cannot specify evidence of intent), and your bigotry is directed at those who find execrable the vacuous wank and fundie religious dogma you keep repeating like a mantra. Religious belief is for soothing your fear of death, not for promoting a competition with science.

That dense pile of you-know-what shows yet again that you just some here to throw it, not to show that you understand what I am arguing and where you think it is wrong. I’m specially offended by your false claims that I present a mantra of fundie religious dogma and bigotry. I can’t be sure whether you have worked yourself into a state where you genuinely believe that, or are just trying to prejudice any new viewer.

Cito di Pense wrote: You're a creationist, JJ., someone who believes in divine (i.e., supernatural) creation of life and of humans, and not even a very clever creationist, even by the shitty standards of which hidebound creationists show themselves capable. Your "messed up" is a statement of bigotry, since you refuse patently to say what's messed up about it, other than it does not devote itself to honoring its "Creator". Bigotry.

I don’t claim to be clever but am presenting a novel line of argument that the establishment position is vulnerable to, because my argument relies on asserting that those who tell historical stories are influenced by their ideology. I’m trying to develop a historiography of those who tell the human origin story in terms of evolution. Without doubt, cleverer people could do that better than me.

The heart of how atheist ideology has messed up the human origin story, is that it has blinded youse to even seeing what type of animals our ancient hominin ancestors were. I said many times, that they (Australopithecines) were “fully adapted into the use of kinetic hand weapons for predator avodance”. But that is to grope for the right word, which I now see, is “warriors”. Atheist ideology has blinded you from seeing that before they could speak, our ancestors were warriors.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:I’m sorry, I don’t have time to deal now with the other responses you made to my list. They are likely to come up again in one form or another.

If you lack the time, it's because you lack the argument, and wisely understand that repeating your vacuous wank is a waste of your time and mine. It's not complicated, JJ. Saying you "lack the time" (given the time you've devoted to this thread) is dissembling. You don't have to accept defeat, JJ, because so far, you have not mounted an argument. You claim that you've argued, which is different. If "messed up" and "denying the Creator" are not tautological, explain the difference.

Individually, you and Spearthrower put up more posts on the current topic than I do, which shows how much you are invested in slapping down creationism. You do that without applying your mind to what I say. As to my time I have to earn a living. But like I said, anything I leave out now, is bound to come up again later. If there is some argument I made that you would particularly like to take up, by all means quote it and I will try to respond.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:Ideological notions are affirmed wore strongly than the word “assume” implies; they seem to be foundational or axiomatic.

The only axiom in view is that you declare the human origins story is messed up because it doesn't acknowledge the Creator in which you so devoutly believe. Your bigotry is endlessly directed at those who do not share your vacuous fundie religious beliefs. If you don't accept that your notions of "messed up" are tautological with "denying the Creator", you're a lot dumber than you already think I think you are, because you clearly comprehend the tautology each time I tell you about it. Your silence in unraveling that is tacit evidence that you lack a cogent response you've had ample time and opportunity to prepare, and you beg off, saying you lack the "time". You're a creationist, JJ, a religious fanatic, and you're behaving like a child in denying your errors, prevarications, and outright lies. Face it. Creationism is a sack of shit, brimming with the unsupportable assumptions of devout fundamentalist religious dogma. In your case, it's the repeated assertion that the human origins story is "messed up" because it doesn't acknowledge the Creator in which you devoutly believe. So you can fuck off with that one, or else make "messed up" into something besides your pet peeve with "atheist ideology" you never seem to be able to articulate.

If you disagree that ideological notions seem to be used axiomatically, then can you expand on it a bit?

Spearthrower wrote:

For example, Roberts (“The Incredible Unlikeness of Being”) tells this story with hardly a mention of the most intimate and intense relationships our ancestors had with other living things, which was with their predators.

Wrong: absolutely wrong.

The most intense relationships any individual has is with members of its own species.

Like, you and me, Spearthrower? We are the same species. But in our relationship my heart rate stays steady, I don’t even get up from my chair.

Spearthrower wrote:
I've explained this to you before, but as usual, you ignored it.

Nah, we have been over this ground a few times.

Spearthrower wrote: Any given species has a range, a diet, a biome, etc.; individuals of other species may overlap in certain areas, for example, perhaps both monkeys and squirrels feed on the same fruit of the same trees and therefore may come into contact with each other quite regularly. But the members of one's own species overlap in every area all the time, and are permanently in potential conflict for that same space, same food, and same desires. This is only heightened in species which are highly social.

Surely, our being highly social means that we are distinctively cooperative rather than competitive? If social structures were disrupted by an economic depression, our stress levels would go up.

Spearthrower wrote: Interactions with predators are relatively infrequent comparative to interactions with members of their own species. Predators aren't trying to snatch your preferred foods - they're trying to catch you. Predators aren't competing to mate with individuals of your species. Predators aren't competing with you for the things you want - they're competing just to kill you - the rules of the competition therein are actually comparatively simple. That's why sociality is a very important topic when it comes to talking about primates; all primates, not just the ones you are ideologically motivated to emote at.

Yes, in its whole life a prey animal only has one fatal interaction with its predator, but that interaction is highly consequential for its ability to breed. And that breeding is central to natural selection. The fittest prey is the one that avoids being eaten, so there the individual is in a fitness competition with others of the same species.

While predation events are infrequent compared with relations within a social species, the threat of predation is always present: a prey species needs to continually appear to be unsuitable to its predator. If our Australopithecine ancestors used hand weapons to avoid predation, they must have carried them around, so as to have never appeared vulnerable.

The level of predation threat affects what places can be foraged in, how far from a night refuge, and in what array, at what time of day and in what season foraging is possible.

Spearthrower wrote: Here's the rub: you ignore anything inconvenient for you - but that doesn't mean it's disappeared. It remains true regardless of your interest or disinterest. Ignoring it just means you signal that you're unwilling to learn, or to engage honestly in discussion. You mantra at people with no regard to what they say, then complain that you don't get what you want. What you appear to want is for people to genuflect to your brilliantly devised armchair declarations. It's not going to happen JJ - you manifestly do not know anywhere near enough about these topics for your opinions to be valuable in and of themselves. You should hove towards evidence, learn, and maybe one day you might have enough of a clue to warrant substantive discussion.

No Spearthrower, it’s you who have ignored the counter-arguments above, that I have raised before. You are getting bye on championing the ratskep position. You do have a point about my lack of standing, considering that western society has given anthropologists the authority to tell the human origin story and in terms of what works for the advancement of knowledge, that is a good and maybe essential working strategy. But there are several complications:

(a) What happens if the science is used as an ideological stick by a group who think they own it, and that is plainly visible to outsiders?

(b) Seeing that what is discovered by science enters the public space, how healthy is it for the public to just suck up what is presented? Without mulling it over critically?

(c) On this forum, what is the actual level of discussion? I’m not as impressed with the level of your arguments as I am with say zoon who, while having the same position as you, presents herself as a considering person. It humiliates me to think that in some way I must deserve antagonists like you and Cito

Jayjay4547 wrote:That dense pile of you-know-what shows yet again that you just some here to throw it, not to show that you understand what I am arguing and where you think it is wrong.

None of it is right, JJ . You even admit that talking about God is controversial, at best. What do you claim to be right about? Mostly you offer the opinion that the story is "messed up", but that's just you being unhappy about someone who doesn't agree with you that goddidit.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I’m specially offended by your false claims that I present a mantra of fundie religious dogma and bigotry.

Sorry you're feeling offended today. So, what else is new?

Jayjay4547 wrote:my argument relies on asserting that those who tell historical stories are influenced by their ideology

That doesn't show that the scientific story of human origins is "messed up". For that, you have to specify errors, instead of making up stories of your own about australopithecine "warriors" and scenes of valiant mano-a-mano combat with predators.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I’m trying to develop a historiography of those who tell the human origin story in terms of evolution.

Yes, of course, JJ. But if you think there are errors, point them out. I think you already tried to do that, but somebody pointed out it was you making errors about identifying the species or sex of a fossil, for one clear example.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Without doubt, cleverer people could do that better than me.

Yes, JJ. A cleverer person would not make the errors of fact you are making in order to promote your delusion that the story of human origins is "messed up" because it does not genuflect to the glory of your metaphorical flights.

Jayjay4547 wrote:The heart of how atheist ideology has messed up the human origin story, is that it has blinded youse to even seeing what type of animals our ancient hominin ancestors were.

"Type of animals" is not a scientific term. At best, it's metaphysical nonsense. You're merely re-asserting the story is "messed up" because it doesn't cater to your non-scientific verbiage. Your non-scientific verbiage is bullshit, JJ.

Jayjay4547 wrote: I said many times, that they (Australopithecines) were “fully adapted into the use of kinetic hand weapons for predator avodance”.

But you didn't demonstrate it. You're just going back to spouting ideology that's been debunked countless times with facts you are unable to use correctly.

Jayjay4547 wrote:But that is to grope for the right word, which I now see, is “warriors”. Atheist ideology has blinded you from seeing that before they could speak, our ancestors were warriors.

It's not the "right word" you need, JJ. It's facts.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Individually, you and Spearthrower put up more posts on the current topic than I do, which shows how much you are invested in slapping down creationism.

Well, you obviously believe creationism needs a better hearing, but you've told nobody why that is, except with your tautology about how the scientific human origins story is messed up because it doesn't recognize creationism.

Jayjay4547 wrote:You do that without applying your mind to what I say.

Hmm. Applying my mind to assessing mindless drivel as something else. Let's see where you're going with that.

Jayjay4547 wrote:If there is some argument I made that you would particularly like to take up, by all means quote it and I will try to respond.

You haven't made the argument, yet, JJ. So far, we have a tautology between the story of human origins being "messed up" and a failure to accept creationist drivel.

Jayjay4547 wrote:[If you disagree that ideological notions seem to be used axiomatically, then can you expand on it a bit?

You haven't identified any ideology, JJ. So far, you've constructed a tautology between the human origin story being "messed up" and the failure to accept creationist drivel.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

The most intense relationships any individual has is with members of its own species.

Like, you and me, Spearthrower? We are the same species. But in our relationship my heart rate stays steady, I don’t even get up from my chair.

Never mind that, JJ. I'd only ask that you pull your thumb out of your ass for a minute or two each day, as you must have to do while you're working for a living. The fictional character Hannibal Lecter is noted to keep his heart rate steady, too, and he is depicted as a murderous, cannibalistic psychopath. Ability to keep your heart rate steady is more impressive if you try to take some exercise. It's your lack of engagement that is in view, here. You disengaged years ago, and now go through the motions.

Jayjay4547 wrote:It humiliates me to think that in some way I must deserve antagonists like you and Cito

How is that relevant? You're making your posts in a public forum. Anyone reading can reply to them. You're being punished only by your dedication to coming back for more punishment. As I noted earlier, you're nothing but a masochist Christian, all dressed up in his hairshirt, and no place to go.

Jayjay4547 wrote:(a) What happens if the science is used as an ideological stick by a group who think they own it, and that is plainly visible to outsiders?

You've already stated your tautology between the scientific human origins story being "messed up" and failure to accept creationist drivel as a substitute. You've come up with another way to try to disguise that tautology. If you were cleverer, as you say, you might be able to do a better job of it.

As the Bard of Hibbing once intoned, "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose." It's true, JJ. You have nothing to lose by playing your sad clown act here every day you don't have to pull your thumb out of your ass in the office. The Bard of Hibbing also sang, "Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth. You're an idiot, Babe, it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Hermit wrote:
...if you agree with those definitions, we can start discussing your list of notions that in your mind define "atheist ideology" in detail. If you disagree, we're stuck with discussing the meaning of "ideology" for a bit longer.

Over to you.

I think you have said a lot of this before and I didn't take issue with it then, so fine, I accept.

Excellent. So, to recap, you agree with the following definition(s) of "ideology":

(a) a set of beliefs or principles, especially one on which a political system, party, or organization
(b) a set of normative beliefs and values that a person or other entity has for non-epistemic reasons

Now, let me know if you agree with this definition of "atheism":

an absence of belief in the existence of a deity

Jayjay4547 wrote:……
While predation events are infrequent compared with relations within a social species, the threat of predation is always present: a prey species needs to continually appear to be unsuitable to its predator. If our Australopithecine ancestors used hand weapons to avoid predation, they must have carried them around, so as to have never appeared vulnerable.
……

As you say, a prey species will normally have some means of flight or defence at all times if there are predators in their environment. Modern chimpanzees and baboons, in spite of their large canine teeth, do not attempt to defend themselves against the major predators of the open plains, the groups of lions and hyenas. Instead, they stay near trees, and climb them when necessary. There is every reason to suppose that that is what australopithecines did.

Modern archaeology has shown that australopithecines stayed near trees. Dart did not know this; when he put forward the hypothesis that australopithecines shaped and used weapons he supposed that they spent much of their time on the open plains and needed to defend themselves against the large predators. He was wrong, though at the time, in the 1930s, it was a reasonable guess.

This leaves the smaller, solitary climbing cats as the most likely major predators of australopithecines, as they are of modern chimpanzees and baboons. Again, the primates are better climbers than the cats, their grasping hands enable them to hang from branches and move between trees. Leopards are ambush hunters; once a baboon or chimp has seen a leopard at a distance and climbed into a tree, the leopard will not usually waste its time and energy in a chase (though it does happen occasionally). Again, there’s every reason to suppose that australopithecines used similar tactics, and carrying sticks would not merely not have been useful, it would have been a thorough hindrance.

Chimps and baboons mob leopards on occasion, and, again, it’s most probable that australopithecines did the same; they were a social species with much the same size and strength as modern chimps. A group of a dozen enraged female chimps is enough to give a leopard pause.

zoon wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:……
While predation events are infrequent compared with relations within a social species, the threat of predation is always present: a prey species needs to continually appear to be unsuitable to its predator. If our Australopithecine ancestors used hand weapons to avoid predation, they must have carried them around, so as to have never appeared vulnerable.
……

As you say, a prey species will normally have some means of flight or defence at all times if there are predators in their environment. Modern chimpanzees and baboons, in spite of their large canine teeth, do not attempt to defend themselves against the major predators of the open plains, the groups of lions and hyenas. Instead, they stay near trees, and climb them when necessary. There is every reason to suppose that that is what australopithecines did.

Modern archaeology has shown that australopithecines stayed near trees. Dart did not know this; when he put forward the hypothesis that australopithecines shaped and used weapons he supposed that they spent much of their time on the open plains and needed to defend themselves against the large predators. He was wrong, though at the time, in the 1930s, it was a reasonable guess.

This leaves the smaller, solitary climbing cats as the most likely major predators of australopithecines, as they are of modern chimpanzees and baboons. Again, the primates are better climbers than the cats, their grasping hands enable them to hang from branches and move between trees. Leopards are ambush hunters; once a baboon or chimp has seen a leopard at a distance and climbed into a tree, the leopard will not usually waste its time and energy in a chase (though it does happen occasionally). Again, there’s every reason to suppose that australopithecines used similar tactics, and carrying sticks would not merely not have been useful, it would have been a thorough hindrance.

Chimps and baboons mob leopards on occasion, and, again, it’s most probable that australopithecines did the same; they were a social species with much the same size and strength as modern chimps. A group of a dozen enraged female chimps is enough to give a leopard pause.

Good post, zoon.

The heart of how atheist ideology has messed up the human origin story, is that it has blinded youse to even seeing what type of animals our ancient hominin ancestors were.

Yes, you're wrong. This is hubris. This thread shows that it's actually you who doesn't know what they're talking about when it comes to human ancestors. Thus you made mistakes like not knowing one species from another (several times), was unable to tell the difference between male and female members of a species, and couldn't tell the difference between adults and juveniles of a species, among a litany of other similar errors.

This is just Dunning-Kruger illusory superiority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E ... ger_effect

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.[1]

That paragraph accurately depicts your role in this thread from outset to your last post: 5 years of exemplifying this.

Darwin wrote:Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge...

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Like, you and me, Spearthrower? We are the same species. But in our relationship my heart rate stays steady, I don’t even get up from my chair.

What has that got to do with anything JJ?

Obviously, I made no claim that all humans will always feel powerful emotions at all times when interacting with other humans, so you're not actually responding to anything I've said. You're evading by talking about a specific rather than a general - i.e. another routine form of argument you use to evade ever acknowledging your errors, and about what you personally feel about X as if your feelings establish some kind of objective point. They don't. They never do.

However, if a beefy man with murderous intent was hellbent on killing you, or a sultry fine deva was overtly signalling her desire to make sweet loving with you, then your heart rate would be far from steady.

That you don't get up from your chair is hardly surprising as it wouldn't help in any way in any terms of our 'relationship'. I can't see you, so if you launched yourself from your chair in anger, that display would only be for yourself - not for me.

But you not getting up from your chair is quite problematic, I think, as you seem to believe that perching there gives you a grand perspective from which to make declarations about nature that don't need to be evidenced, just asserted.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
I've explained this to you before, but as usual, you ignored it.

Nah, we have been over this ground a few times.

Yes; I've explained this to you before, but as usual, you ignored it.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote: Any given species has a range, a diet, a biome, etc.; individuals of other species may overlap in certain areas, for example, perhaps both monkeys and squirrels feed on the same fruit of the same trees and therefore may come into contact with each other quite regularly. But the members of one's own species overlap in every area all the time, and are permanently in potential conflict for that same space, same food, and same desires. This is only heightened in species which are highly social.

Surely, our being highly social means that we are distinctively cooperative rather than competitive? If social structures were disrupted by an economic depression, our stress levels would go up.

No, that's not remotely true, and it would offer another learning potential for you if you were interested in learning.

Being social doesn't logically make us 'distinctly' anything aside from social. Engaging in social behavior is not necessarily cooperative: herding/shoaling/schooling/grouping etc, for example, is not cooperative - each individual takes part in it for their own individual benefit - there are other targets for predators. A zebra doesn't need to outrun lions, it need only outrun other zebra.

As I've just written in the paragraph you're responding to - members of your own species share all the same needs as you, whereas no other species has exactly the same needs as you. Therefore, whenever you want X - whether that be food, mate, or territory - no other animal is going to compete for all of those, all the time, in every way like another member of your own species.

Please try and address it, not ignore it and try to assert the opposite. If you don't understand, then say so.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Yes, in its whole life a prey animal only has one fatal interaction with its predator, but that interaction is highly consequential for its ability to breed. And that breeding is central to natural selection.

I've explained to you before several times why this is wrong. Breeding is indeed central to natural selection, whereas that fatal interaction with a predator is the end of breeding, the end of furthering your genetic legacy into the next generation, and consequently the end of whatever suite of behaviors and characteristics particular to your genome. Thus, you don't find prey animals engaging in combat with predators of vastly greater size because there is very little opportunity for any 'win' scenario for the prey animal. Even if it somehow beats off its predator, then it is very likely going to have received substantial damage that may result in the same outcome as having been killed by the predator in the first place.

That's why flight is the standard response you'll see across the entire animal kingdom - the variations that didn't flee went extinct.

Jayjay4547 wrote: The fittest prey is the one that avoids being eaten, so there the individual is in a fitness competition with others of the same species.

You're misusing the term 'fittest' here. Fitness is about reproductive success in a given landscape, not about physical fitness. There's no need to be good at avoiding being eaten, for example, if nothing is trying to eat you - in fact, possessing great traits for avoiding predators that don't exist could potentially be a malus to your reproductive success: bearing the cost, but not garnering the rewards.

Unlike between predator and prey, breeding success is not necessarily a zero sum game. The fact that you had children doesn't impact my ability or likelihood of having children.

However, different species engage in different reproductive strategies, so for example among gorilla where 1 male rules over a harem of breeding partners, then breeding does become competitive - winner takes all, and this is why we see the males of such species accrue adaptations towards fighting off and defeating their opponents for access to mates. The better they are at fighting off those mates, the more represented those fighting traits are in the next generation. It's a positive feedback loop. So, male canines among primates are, as I've pointed to many times in the past, usually correlated with agonistic breeding strategies. Whereas, when violence in a group is coalitionary, or pair-bonding occurs, then there is little reason to bear the cost of all those fighting adaptations - you're not leveraging a trait that grants you a statistically higher chance of genetic representation in the next generation, and those traits thereby are not selected for iteratively, meaning we see a consequence of - for example - canine reduction.

Again, this is vastly more impactful in terms of an evolutionary driver than fighting off predators because predators absolutely have to feed on you - they are obliged to try and eat you. You, on the other hand, are not obliged to stand and fight them. Given the potential risk to your well-being, to being wounded and therefore either dying through blood loss and infection (this latter being something a lot of non-biologists fail to appreciate as being a potent cause of death in the wild), or having long term disadvantage to collecting nutrients, or outrunning future predators. There are many ways to fail to fight off a predator; statistically, it's not conserved comparative to the numbers of prey animals that die to predators losing their 'fighting off predator' genes from the pool.

Jayjay4547 wrote:While predation events are infrequent compared with relations within a social species, the threat of predation is always present:...

It's not, actually. It might be typical, it might be common, but it's not universal and omnipresent. However, even when there are predators nearby, evolution doesn't care if you can successfully survive depredation forever; had you died from a lion attack on your 20th birthday, you may still have been rewarded evolutionarily if you'd managed to father dozens of children prior to that, while another male may have been fantastic at avoiding predators but still be childless at the age of 50 and therefore have 'failed' in the evolutionary terms we're discussing.

Jayjay4547 wrote:... a prey species needs to continually appear to be unsuitable to its predator.

Again, no. In a herd, for example, it just needs to be less tempting than others.

Most prey species are inherently suitable to their predators as their predators have specialized over many thousands of generations into hunting them in particular.

What a prey species needs is to be able to avoid becoming the predator's next meal, and by far the most typical and typically successful way of doing this across all species is via adaptations for outrunning, outmaneuvering and generally escaping your prey. There are very, very few scenarios where prey species turn round and fight off their predators - which is not to say it doesn't happen, but to say that it's rare, and even when it does occur, it's often far from the most desirable strategy for a prey animal to employ.

Jayjay4547 wrote: If our Australopithecine ancestors used hand weapons to avoid predation, they must have carried them around, so as to have never appeared vulnerable.

And if they had B15 Stealth Bombers, they could have annihilated their predators from above at no risk to themselves. Of course, they didn't, so there's little reason to consider this just as there's little reason to consider the idea that australopithecines lived in a state of perpetual armed readiness on the off-chance of encountering a hunting predator when their adaptations are far more suited to escaping in trees. Such small creatures are not going to stand off against a pride of lions and come out in a net benefit comparative to a troop of australopithecines which didn't carry round encumbering weapons all the time and instead fled up trees.

Jayjay4547 wrote:The level of predation threat affects what places can be foraged in, how far from a night refuge, and in what array, at what time of day and in what season foraging is possible.

And hunger presents an ever more compelling constraint as starvation is surely lurking round the next bush whereas felines might not be.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote: Here's the rub: you ignore anything inconvenient for you - but that doesn't mean it's disappeared. It remains true regardless of your interest or disinterest. Ignoring it just means you signal that you're unwilling to learn, or to engage honestly in discussion. You mantra at people with no regard to what they say, then complain that you don't get what you want. What you appear to want is for people to genuflect to your brilliantly devised armchair declarations. It's not going to happen JJ - you manifestly do not know anywhere near enough about these topics for your opinions to be valuable in and of themselves. You should hove towards evidence, learn, and maybe one day you might have enough of a clue to warrant substantive discussion.

No Spearthrower, it’s you who have ignored the counter-arguments above, that I have raised before.

Don't lie to my face, JJ.

Jayjay4547 wrote: You are getting bye on championing the ratskep position.

This is a standard diversionary comment you toss out every now and then to stir the pot a little. What's ironic about this is how closely it resembles the overarching claim of this thread, and how it is equally lacking in substance, support or any attempt on your part to justify it: you declared it, therefore it's gospel.

Of course, in reality there's no such thing as a 'ratskep position' - there's no stated position by the site on most things. Among the members here, there are numerous diverse positions mutually incompatible with each other across an array of topics. You, of course, don't know any of this because you're not here to be a proper member of this website, you're here to play antagonist. You lock yourself into one thread, churn out rubbish in a disagreeable manner, and then pretend that the reactions you are netting in response to your particular behavior as an individual thereby represents some kind of group action. It's not even nonsense, it's just unfettered delusion.

Jayjay4547 wrote: You do have a point about my lack of standing, considering that western society has given anthropologists the authority to tell the human origin story and in terms of what works for the advancement of knowledge, that is a good and maybe essential working strategy.

Yet more nonsense: Western society has done no such thing. Want to make this claim? Fine, point to the laws, statutes, constitutions, decision making bodies etc. which support the claim that Western society has done thing.

You can't, you won't. Therefore it's dismissed as contrived, self-serving fiction in your endless self-mythologizing.

Rather, the fact is that anthropologists study a particular area of evidence and thus cause themselves to become the advancers of knowledge in the area of human origins. What drives them by and large is interest. It's certainly not money, not fame, nor to gain access to mates... yes, we've done this before as well, haven't we? It's amazing how often you repeat yourself without taking into account what other people have said.

You have no standing among anthropologists because a) you're not even trying to have standing among anthropologists - this isn't a forum of anthropologists, or of anthropology b) because you have no background or relevant knowledge in the field and c) because you refuse to employ the scientific method underpinning all the sciences, including anthropology. Thus, even if you were to attempt to reach out for standing among anthropologists by, for example, publishing an article in a peer-reviewed journal, the endeavour would inevitably fail as specialists in the field would immediately see you for what you really are relative to this field: clueless.

Jayjay4547 wrote: But there are several complications:

Necessarily so when it comes to nonsense being played as fact.

Jayjay4547 wrote: (a) What happens if the science is used as an ideological stick by a group who think they own it, and that is plainly visible to outsiders?

What happens to what? To whom? To where? You only asked half a question. What happens if X? X happens.

As for 'plainly visible' - what happens when self-mythologizing ideologists engage in self-serving make-believe? Answer: they produce self-serving make-believe, and nothing more.

Jayjay4547 wrote: (b) Seeing that what is discovered by science enters the public space, how healthy is it for the public to just suck up what is presented? Without mulling it over critically?

Mulling it over critically presupposed some degree of proficiency. I don't "mull over" discoveries made by quantum physicists because I lack the knowledge and ability to engage with it critically. The problem is that some people fool themselves that what they are doing is 'critical' when it's really not - it's just knee-jerking at science based on their ideological presuppositions. A good example of this is with climate change denialists who think, even though they lack any relevant knowledge of capacity to engage substantively with the material that their knee-jerk rejections are them 'thinking critically'. What happens is they sit there blowing smoke up each others' arses until one day they run into someone who is actually knowledgeable and capable and that person then annihilates the bollocks they uncritically tout... but of course, because the same suite of knowledge and cognitive abilities are involved in a) knowing stuff and b) knowing how to evaluate the knowing of that stuff - those people are all too often permanently immune to seeing their errors.

If you hadn't guessed, that's analogous with you when it comes to the field of Biology, knowledge of science, and sometimes even of History.

Jayjay4547 wrote: (c) On this forum, what is the actual level of discussion?

You might be able to answer that if you partook in this forum, but obviously you don't, and I think the reason you don't and the reason you're asking this question originate in the same fundamental problem.

Jayjay4547 wrote: I’m not as impressed with the level of your arguments as I am with say zoon who, while having the same position as you, presents herself as a considering person.

Firstly, and less importantly, no Zoon does not have the same position as me. She and I have disagreed many times across many threads. Of course, you couldn't know this because you're a one trick pony, but of course, you don't let your comprehensive lack of knowledge stand in the way of making sweeping claims you obviously lack the ability to know.

Secondly, am I supposed to care whether you're impressed by my arguments? Do you think I'm trying to impress you? You are ideologically predisposed to deny my arguments, and you are personally hostile to me simply because you assign me to an outgroup and bungle a load of negative labels onto that outgroup like any small-minded bigot. I'm not having a discussion with you JJ - you failed at having a discussion many, many years ago on so many levels. I am here debunking your bullshit in a forum called 'Debunking Bullshit' - well, Creationism, but they're synonyms. I would say that you could aspire to engender someone worthy of discussion and of wanting to impress, but that ship has long, long, long since sailed. I'm afraid that in all honesty, from my perspective you have shown yourself to be an incredibly deceitful and arrogant person to such a degree that I'd be ashamed if you were impressed with me.

Jayjay4547 wrote: It humiliates me to think that in some way I must deserve antagonists like you and Cito

You don't deserve anything JJ. I mean that quite literally.

zoon wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:……
While predation events are infrequent compared with relations within a social species, the threat of predation is always present: a prey species needs to continually appear to be unsuitable to its predator. If our Australopithecine ancestors used hand weapons to avoid predation, they must have carried them around, so as to have never appeared vulnerable.
……

As you say, a prey species will normally have some means of flight or defence at all times if there are predators in their environment. Modern chimpanzees and baboons, in spite of their large canine teeth, do not attempt to defend themselves against the major predators of the open plains, the groups of lions and hyenas. Instead, they stay near trees, and climb them when necessary. There is every reason to suppose that that is what australopithecines did.

OK

zoon wrote: Modern archaeology has shown that australopithecines stayed near trees. Dart did not know this; when he put forward the hypothesis that australopithecines shaped and used weapons he supposed that they spent much of their time on the open plains and needed to defend themselves against the large predators. He was wrong, though at the time, in the 1930s, it was a reasonable guess.

I don’t know what grounds Dart used for his ODK hypothesis in the 1930s but in 1925 he didn’t infer from their habitat that Australopithecus used weapons for “defence and offence”, but from their lacking fangs and having their hands free.

zoon wrote: This leaves the smaller, solitary climbing cats as the most likely major predators of australopithecines, as they are of modern chimpanzees and baboons. Again, the primates are better climbers than the cats, their grasping hands enable them to hang from branches and move between trees.

Leopards also have the advantage of retractable claws, that enable them to climb a tree trunk at speed. In this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR2m4Q2WCqI a solitary baboon takes refuge in the terminal branches of a tree where it’s not clear that a heavier, ”twohanded” hominin could have reached. So as alternative prey to the baboon in this scanario, a hominin would seem to have been non-competitive, and much the preferred prey for a leopard.

zoon wrote: Leopards are ambush hunters; once a baboon or chimp has seen a leopard at a distance and climbed into a tree, the leopard will not usually waste its time and energy in a chase (though it does happen occasionally).

You seem to be channelling Spearthrower there, without reference to the observed aggressive behaviour of both baboons and chimps. Boesch (1991)observed that when chimps become aware of leopard they Keep together, with hair on ends, move silently in the direction of the supposed leopard (p223) and chase it away.
Cheney et al (2004)reported that in the day, baboons frequently chased leopard. (p407). They cited also a review by Cowlinshaw (1994), that male baboons are particularly aggressive towards leopard and in 4/11 cases, a leopard was killed.

zoon wrote: Again, there’s every reason to suppose that australopithecines used similar tactics, and carrying sticks would not merely not have been useful, it would have been a thorough hindrance.

Agreed, hominins might well have used similar antipredation tactics to baboons. But in the instances of aggression cited above, the primates attacked baboons on the ground. And on the ground, sticks would have been more useful to hominins than their canines, whereas for baboons, their canines do seem to be useful in that context (see Cowlinshaw again)

zoon wrote: Chimps and baboons mob leopards on occasion, and, again, it’s most probable that australopithecines did the same; they were a social species with much the same size and strength as modern chimps. A group of a dozen enraged female chimps is enough to give a leopard pause.

Here is a comparison of female primate skulls, showing that a dozen enraged female hominis would create less of a biting threat than a dozen female chimps, baboon or gorilla. If I added pics of their males, the contrast in biting threat would appear even more clear.

In your discussion you rightly point to the many similarities between our ancestors and other primates, But one thing you are NOT pointing to, is the startling differences in their body plans. If baboons and hominins are so similar in aspects of their relationships with other species, why do they look so different? Why did arboreal monkeys converge on the dog-shape of a baboon, while hominins converged on such a different and unique bauplan?

That question has to do with our ancestors not being “special”, which I argue, is one of the atheist ideological notions.