ysumlin

Reg,

On the right, Judeo-Christian values are out and Christian nationalism is in.

From the story:

This week, for example, Washington Post columnist Jason Willick looked at how Tucker Carlson has been pointedly criticizing the Hebrew Bible. He’s “shocked by the violence in it, and shocked by the revenge in it, the genocide in it” and empha…

[Read more]

Reg,

Chimps are not frozen in evolutionary time, stuck at a checkpoint on the way to being human. Modern chimps have been evolving for the exact same 6–8 million years since our lineages split from a shared common ancestor. They are not some sort of “old” humans or “failed humans”. They are modern chimpanzees and specialists in their own ecolo…

[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
But cooperative breeding, known as ‘alloparenting’, where individuals other than the biological mother help raise offspring did not start with them. Hominins before erectus already had extended childhoods, reduced canines, increased sociality, and group-based foraging, all of which support cooperative care. Homo ere…

[Read more]

Apparently the first human species to make it out of Africa was Homo erectus, ~2 million years ago, and they were the first species to do cooperative breeding, meaning that a woman could have more than one child at once, because she got help in looking after them.  This meant that human children had longer in which to mature.

The human line must…[Read more]

We know that there was a “last common ancestor” (LCA) of chimps/bonobos and humans around 6 million years ago.  I believe the human line got started around 4.5 million years ago.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
They are not some sort of “old” humans or “failed humans”. They are modern chimpanzees and specialists in their own ecological niche and with their own evolutionary pressures. Humans didn’t “progress”, we diverged.

That’s true.  But what changed was our environment, when theirs didn’t.

So, where we learned to cop…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
Simon i think you are guilty of the same mindset as the scientists who first heard about Jane’s discovery.

Not at all, I’ve read a lot of Michael Tomasello and Frans de Waal about what chimps and bonobos can and can’t do, and how they behave.  It was Jane Goodall who paved the way for them.

jakelafort wrote:
This theory suggests that during human evolution, we may have lost some ancestral short-term or working memory skills to make room in the brain for other, more complex functions, such as advanced language abilities, symbolic representation, and hierarchical thinking.

Surely we grew bigger and more complex brains throughout our…[Read more]

Jake,

Our Multipolar world evidently has been playing out among chimps for quite some time.

Before the EU supported the PA, Baron Von Butcher, Creto, Dr. Strangmind, and Dutchess were side-by-side in joint intrigues with Ali Assa Seen, Wicked Wang Fu, and Dragon Woman, in battle with chimps on the side of…[Read more]

@jakelafort – yes, Jane Goodall totally opened up the field of primatology, changing a great ape from a “what” to a “who”.

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Only a small difference in DNA, but what a difference a DNA makes.

Apparently, it’s all because of our “harsh and risky foraging niche”.  The great apes live in forests where food is easy to come by.  Humans were forced to share and cooperate as soon as their forests died back and they were forced onto the savannah.  Gr…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
Oh and i should adduce cuz what the deuce that Goodall herself was a theist.

Jake,

You don’t have to believe that humans are a special Divine Creation to see that the apes didn’t write a book or make a documentary on Jane Goodall instead of vice-versa.

Only a small difference in DNA, but what a difference a DNA makes.

Reg and Fellow Unbelievers,

“Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth.”

Science isn’t groupthink, but scientists can and do engage in groupthink and delusion like other humans.

Witness Francis Collins, who, though he headed the Human Genome Project, somehow still embraces the 3000-year-old groupthink called Creationism, not to ment…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Scientists can and do cling to pet theories.

Admitting error is the ideal but defending one’s career is the reality. The embarrassment cost is tiny, but the career costs can be enormous.

There have been scientists who continue to push false and even harmful theories even after they’ve been completely discredited, s…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth.

From my experience, if you want to convince a scientist of new ideas, they are often willing to listen, as long as you come with a convincing argument.  I find this is very different from politics or religion.

The enemy is where someone doesn’t like to admit they…[Read more]

Reg,

You got much closer to answering the questions, although PopeBeanie’s UNICEF link did also link to a Conversation article detailing the criteria for elimination status.

https://theconversation.com/canada-loses-its-official-measles-free-status-and-the-us-will-follow-soon-as-vaccination-rates-fall-269090

Thank you for clarifying that per…[Read more]

Reg,

Canada beats the USA to become the first country in the Americas to lose its measles elimination status.

This story prompts more questions than answers.

Why would Canada lose it’s elimination status for Measles before the U S.? Would it be because of Canada’s lower population and hence greater per capita infection?

And why would a…[Read more]

Reg,

The Galileo Gambit is like the inverse of the Appeal to Popularity Fallacy. Both are based on the false notion that truth depends on numbers of adherants.