who show birds to build nests

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well evolution makes more sense than your idea that has zero evidential support whereas evolution has mountains of evidence.

Ideas are ideas and should always be allowed to proliferate. Since when scientists have started closing their minds ?
Evolution certainly is supported by evidence of fossils of skeletons and other bodily developements of various species over the years but where is the hard physical evidence regarding the variation and adaptation of traits, habits over the generations ?
In the video of the crow dropping stones into the water container to raise the water level, so as to eat the worm, which I have requested you to see, the crow is seen observing the water level after each dropping of the stone suggesting that it has preplanned the entire operation. Does such an ability as preplanning and observation in a crow count as an evolutionary adaptation ?

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
Is this a sarcastic comment or straightforward advice ? I am presuming the latter.

Straight forward advice. They are really pretty and some do a complicated dance to attract a mate. Lamarkian processes cannot explain the looks of these birds as this is not something one learns - whereas standard evolutionary theory explains it in exactly the same way it explains the behaviour.

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
Ideas are ideas and should always be allowed to proliferate.

Well that depends on the ideas. I am against encouraging racism for example.
However, you will notice that I have not said your hypothesis or Lamarks hypothesis has no place in science or is unscientific. I have said that it is a failed hypothesis ie it has been tested scientifically and found not to be supported by the evidence.

Since when scientists have started closing their minds?
I don't believe they have. But you seem to expect scientists to accept any idea as fact regardless of the evidence simply because you personally can't think up a better explanation - even though you haven't actually investigated the facts yourself and are basing your opinion on personal guess work.

Evolution certainly is supported by evidence of fossils of skeletons and other bodily developements of various species over the years but where is the hard physical evidence regarding the variation and adaptation of traits, habits over the generations ?
There is mountains of it.

In the video of the crow dropping stones into the water container to raise the water level, so as to eat the worm, which I have requested you to see, the crow is seen observing the water level after each dropping of the stone suggesting that it has preplanned the entire operation. Does such an ability as preplanning and observation in a crow count as an evolutionary adaptation ?
Yes. Intelligence is definitely an evolutionary adaptation and is not unique to crows.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well that depends on the ideas. I am against encouraging racism for example.
However, you will notice that I have not said your hypothesis or Lamarks hypothesis has no place in science or is unscientific. I have said that it is a failed hypothesis ie it has been tested scientifically and found not to be supported by the evidence.

[b]Since when scienti ...[text shortened]... ?
Yes. Intelligence is definitely an evolutionary adaptation and is not unique to crows.[/b]

Intelligence is a non-physical entity. How does one inherit that through the physical media ? sonhouse says that the DNA carries coded information ( from generation to generation ), which to me appears to suggest / lead to what I thought about Instinct being a built in subroutine type programme. googlefudge does not agree with sonhouse on this matter. What do you say ? You had stated sometime back that mind is a process and not an entity, fine, how does one inherit a process ?
There has to be an obvious physical limitation also in storage of information and passing it on to next generations. How does an ant store and carry information to the next generation ? The poor worker ants cannot even pass on that information being incapable of reproduction. How, by the way, does evolution explain why and how the worker ants developed in the species of ants ?

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
Ideas are ideas and should always be allowed to proliferate. Since when scientists have started closing their minds ?
Evolution certainly is supported by evidence of fossils of skeletons and other bodily developements of various species over the years but where is the hard physical evidence regarding the variation and adaptation of traits, habits over th ...[text shortened]... such an ability as preplanning and observation in a crow count as an evolutionary adaptation ?

Evolution certainly is supported by evidence of fossils of skeletons and other bodily developments of various species over the years

correct.

but where is the hard physical evidence regarding the variation and adaptation of traits, habits over the generations ?

that IS the “ hard physical evidence regarding the variation and adaptation of traits, habits over the generations” ( i.e. fossils and observed “ bodily developments” etc ) albeit just part of it.

the crow is seen observing the water level after each dropping of the stone suggesting that it has preplanned the entire operation. Does such an ability as preplanning and observation in a crow count as an evolutionary adaptation ?

only in the narrow sense that the general problem-solving intelligence in a crow evolved because it helps it survive but, obviously, that intelligence did not evolve to solve any one particular problem esp a problem that was artificially set up by us but rather it evolved to be much more generic so it could deal with many of the problems and opportunities that would typically present themselves in the natural wild environment.

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
Intelligence is a non-physical entity. How does one inherit that through the physical media ? sonhouse says that the DNA carries coded information ( from generation to generation ), which to me appears to suggest / lead to what I thought about Instinct being a built in subroutine type programme. googlefudge does not agree with sonhouse on this matter. Wh ...[text shortened]... y the way, does evolution explain why and how the worker ants developed in the species of ants ?

Intelligence is a non-physical entity.

that depends on how you look at it and exactly how you would define “physical entity”.
Intelligence can be viewed as something that is generated by physical arrangement of matter in the brain or, according to some philosophers, it could be literally viewed as BEING the physical matter and/or processes in the brain. I am honestly unsure which of those two would be the more semantically correct way of the two ways of describing intelligence but it must be one of those two or both and which one/ones is correct is just a matter of pure semantics thus is purely academic.

How does one inherit that through the physical media ? sonhouse says that the DNA carries coded information

that's your answer. Although, obviously, intelligence only partly comes from inheritance because environment and the animals life experience also plays a big part.

You had stated sometime back that mind is a process and not an entity, fine, how does one inherit a process ?

DNA. There are genes for brain development and also for instinct and memory capacity and ability to reason etc.
I don't know why you may think that inheriting a process would be problematic. Metabolism would be another process that is inherited via DNA, do you see that as problematic?

There has to be an obvious physical limitation also in storage of information and passing it on to next generations.

that physical limit would be huge. A genome can be very large and curry more info than a thousand books.

How does an ant store and carry information to the next generation ?

DNA.

The poor worker ants cannot even pass on that information being incapable of reproduction.

actually it can do so indirectly by serving the queen that shares its genes and thus, by helping to make its queen's genes pass on, it is helping to pass on at least half of its own genes which, according to may biologist, is good enough for this to work. Actually, I think that very last bit is simply wrong!
The reason? Well, to ask why a worker ant serves the queen and even though the worker cannot reproduce is a bit like asking why a flagella of a cell serves the rest of the cell even though a flagella cannot reproduce. The problem with this question is that it is sort of the wrong question because, to answer it, you need to answer a different question namely; why does the queen ant produce worker ants programmed to serve her?
The answer to this is that queen ants evolved to do this because having slave ants serving the queen helps to increase the chances of survival of her and passing on her genes. This actually makes it totally irrelevant what genes the worker has in common with the queen! Hypothetically, although this would not be biologically plausible, this would still work even if the worker ant had NO genes in common with the queen! That's because the worker ants do what they do simply because that is what they are genetically programmed to do and there doesn't have to be a reason “why” that goes beyond that.

How, by the way, does evolution explain why and how the worker ants developed in the species of ants ?

strange question: no worker ant/ants “developed into the ant species” but rather a non-ant species of insect evolved into the ant species.

Originally posted by humy

Intelligence is a non-physical entity.

that depends on how you look at it and exactly how you would define “physical entity”.
Intelligence can be viewed as something that is generated by physical arrangement of matter in the brain or, according to some philosophers, it could be literally viewed as BEING the physical matter and/or proc into the ant species” but rather a non-ant species of insect evolved into the ant species.

If the reason why worker ants are produced by the queen ant is that the chances of her survival increase as a result; it is frankly unconvincing, as it is a circular argument. Why the other insect species do not have workers ? Why only the Ant species ?
Intelligence can be defined here for the sake of our discussion as a set of characteristics of the individual which decide how the individual analyses external input, how does it use the stored information of previous inputs to analyse the present input and how does it come to a decision.
These are not processes but capabilities. And certainly not physical capabilities.
In case of insects,since they may not have a specialised organ like brain, let us call them pseudo physical capabilities. How are the capabilities transmitted ? If sonhouse is correct, then Lamarck's theory starts to get back into reckoning. Then why does googlefudge disagree ?
Actually my guess is that sonhouse is correct.

Originally posted by humy

Intelligence is a non-physical entity.

that depends on how you look at it and exactly how you would define “physical entity”.
Intelligence can be viewed as something that is generated by physical arrangement of matter in the brain or, according to some philosophers, it could be literally viewed as BEING the physical matter and/or proc ...[text shortened]... into the ant species” but rather a non-ant species of insect evolved into the ant species.

Yes my question reg.evolution of worker ants was wrongly phrased.It should have been how worker ants evolved WITHIN the main ant species. But you have given your answer to that.

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
If the reason why worker ants are produced by the queen ant is that the chances of her survival increase as a result; it is frankly unconvincing, as it is a circular argument. Why the other insect species do not have workers ? Why only the Ant species ?
Intelligence can be defined here for the sake of our discussion as a set of characteristics of the in reckoning. Then why does googlefudge disagree ?
Actually my guess is that sonhouse is correct.

If the reason why worker ants are produced by the queen ant is that the chances of her survival increase as a result; it is frankly unconvincing, as it is a circular argument.

how is it a “circular argument”?
A “circular argument” means that the argument has its conclusion as its own premise.
The statement “ the reason why worker ants are produced by the queen ant is that the chances of her survival increase as a result” is not even an “argument” since it simply just states the reason why worker ants are produced by the queen without giving a premise and, also, without a premise, a statement cannot have its conclusion as its own premise. So, logically, for both of those reasons, that statement cannot be a “circular argument” be definition.

Why the other insect species do not have workers ?

but they do! Haven't you heard of the worker bee? Or the worker termite?
But if what you are trying to ask here is why do some insect species have workers while other do not, one answer is that different evolutionary pathways almost inevitably give different survival strategies and different biologies.

Intelligence can be defined here for the sake of our discussion as a set of characteristics of the individual which decide how the individual analyses external input, how does it use the stored information of previous inputs to analyse the present input and how does it come to a decision.
These are not processes but capabilities. And certainly not physical capabilities.

OK.

In case of insects,since they may not have a specialised organ like brain,

? what species of insect doesn't have a brain? Certainly an ant has a brain.

How are the capabilities transmitted ?

you mean from one generation to the next? If so, DNA; or to be more specific, genes. Genes determine the “set of characteristics of the individual which decide how the individual analyses external input, how does it use the stored information of previous inputs to analyse the present input and how does it come to a decision” as you just described “intelligence” as.

If sonhouse is correct, then Lamarck's theory starts to get back into reckoning. Then why does googlefudge disagree ?

I wouldn't know. I am not familiar with that conversation.

it's circular

Originally posted by tim88
it's circular

how so?

Anyway, he said “circular argument” and not just “circular” and that particular statement wasn't even an “argument” for it was merely an “assertion”.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
do you have any sources that are not a mythology in support for your statement by fiat that a god created birds?

and what about the birds that don't fly? what about the ones that run or swim instead?

and what about bats, they're not birds yet they fly "across the vault of the sky"

How old are you? You ask more question than my 7 year old grandson.

Originally posted by RJHinds
How old are you? You ask more question than my 7 year old grandson.

That is what happens when you don't self cauterize your mind. It actually asks questions. You can't ask questions, your mind is cemented in place so naturally you would think it strange someone can have curiosity. A trait someone like you with your self cauterized mind cannot imagine, it is not in your mental set of skills. That is the difference between minds that are not locked in place by a 2000 year old religion that has no place in a modern world.

Modern minds asks questions, questions authority, generates genius. Sorry, you are not in his league.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That is what happens when you don't self cauterize your mind. It actually asks questions. You can't ask questions, your mind is cemented in place so naturally you would think it strange someone can have curiosity. A trait someone like you with your self cauterized mind cannot imagine, it is not in your mental set of skills. That is the difference between mi ...[text shortened]... minds asks questions, questions authority, generates genius. Sorry, you are not in his league.

I guess I have gained so much knowledge over the years that I no longer need to ask many questions. HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord!

Originally posted by RJHinds
I guess I have gained so much knowledge over the years that I no longer need to ask many questions. HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord!

Or your self cauterized brain can no longer think in that mode, being stuck in one groove so long you could never have such features as curiosity or questions outside your tiny mental world.