

Adversity breeds strength -- and perhaps human intelligence


I. Life on the Chaotic Savanna




Tanzania Gorge





II. Adversity Breeds Evolved Intelligence




human intelligence
[Image Source: Pace J. Miller]


Sources: PNAS [1], [2]

Comments     Threshold


RE: Interesting new research paper
By Paj on 1/2/2013 6:05:10 AM , Rating: 2
Can you supply one that conclusively proves there is no God, Yahweh, flying spaghetti monster, higher power?

In my view, atheism and theism share similar logical fallacies. We cannot conclusively prove either one is true.

The account of creation as given in the Bible is another matter - thats pretty much been blown out of the water.

By wgbutler on 1/2/2013 6:45:14 PM , Rating: 2


True. But you can look at the claims of both and see which has the best explanatory power given the reality that we live in.

Atheism claims that everything came from nothing, that all the fine tuning of the Universe and design of biology is due to blind chance, life came from non-life, and consciousness came from non-consciousness. I think these claims have about as much credibility as religions that say that the world was hatched out of a giant egg.

Theism, on the other hand, states that a powerful Intelligence created and designed the universe, and life, which fits all of the data that we are able to scientifically ascertain since we know that the Universe has not always been here, that it is fine tuned, and we have no way to create life from scratch out of non-living components. Between the two hypothesis, theism has far greater explanatory power.

I guess you could say that other options could be true (i.e. we are really in a computer simulation) but philosophically you still have to deal with the issue of origins and morality.



Actually, the account of creation is quite remarkable, especially given that it was written thousands of years ago in a world dominated by pagan beliefs. Think about it for a minute:

1) It claims that the Universe had a beginning, something even scientists did not finally believe until the twentieth century.
2) It claims that the sun, moon, earth, and stars are not divine beings that should be worshiped but are simply created objects - quite a heretical claim given the time that it was written!
3) It claims that light was the first distinct thing in existence, which we know to be true as light first came out of matter 380,000 years after the big bang.
4) It outlines a general history of life on Earth, culminating with the appearance of mammals and finally mankind, something the fossil record validates.

Regarding the days and creation week, this is easily explained that the timeframes being used are from God's point of view, which is really the only logical explanation as the sun didn't even exist until the 4th day of creation. And we know that time is relative and passes differently depending on where you are in the Universe. Why would it be so hard to think that what passes for a day in the realm of an eternal Being would be billions of years for someone standing on Earth?

