Flat Earth Christians

Originally posted by FabianFnas
"Any thoughts about this?"

Everytime we talk of humans as 'smart', meaning 'intelligent', then we have to define the very word 'intelligence'. There is no definition of 'iintelligence' covering everything.

Humanity is 'intelligent', most individuals are not. Hell, I haven't passed stoneage. I don't know how to cultivate the soil in order to grow veg ...[text shortened]... the stars. But as individuals we are soon dead.

Only some thoughts of mine.

I'd like to see you design something as smart as you are, you are
a lot more than your giving yourself credit for in your last.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'd like to see you design something as smart as you are, you are
a lot more than your giving yourself credit for in your last.
Kelly

No, actually, I'm not smart, I'm not intelligent.

Put me in the middle of the desert, and I will soon die.
Put me in the Amazonas rain forrest and I will soon die.

Without books, education, and experience, I'm nothing.

I think that humankind is intellignet and smart, the individuals are not. Like a stack of ants (right word?). They have also a kind of collective intelligence. They survive as a whole, not as individuals.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I really think you need to look at that ice discussion closely, the
fact that if you didn't know that there was a some seasonal melting
going on it would have been very easy to think the layered method
suggests thousands of years had gone by. Now the thing that is
interesting is that you refuse to think you could be wrong about
other evidence, not that dismiss all other possible reasons, I'd say you have a very
healthly amount of faith.
Kelly

Now the thing that is
interesting is that you refuse to think you could be wrong about
other evidence, not that the your models don't work provided that
the evidence is what you think, but that the evidence really may
not mean what you think it does, in which case your whole foundation
of reason is built upon a pile of shifting sand

Please refrain from telling me what I think. You are wrong 100% of the time when you do. I don't tell you what you think, if I think you believe something that you haven't said, I ASK YOU!

I don't refuse to think I could be wrong.

Originally posted by KellyJay
The trouble with the evidence being just inside of us is that it is only
a snap shot, and people are painting a much larger picture of time
with just a small piece of information.
Kelly

But that's just it. Here in our DNA we can show that the more sequences differ from DNA taken from other animals, the more different they are. Some unusual things turn up, like whales being not to far away in differences, and therefore likely to be more closely related. There is so much work done in this area it would be hard to absorb a fraction in a lifetime, and it's not difficult to find.
It must have been difficult for Darwin, social (and religious) pressures and all, to say these things out loud. He is supposed to have changed his mind on publishing some of his work because of this conflict. But how absurd that one of the finest ideas ever came under fire in that way.
However I suspect that you will read very little of it; I wish you would; science needs skeptics to challenge everything, it will however only take you seriously when you present evidence or concepts backed with evidence.
This is almost diametrically opposite to what faith requires. However I think we need both.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
No, actually, I'm not smart, I'm not intelligent.

Put me in the middle of the desert, and I will soon die.
Put me in the Amazonas rain forrest and I will soon die.

Without books, education, and experience, I'm nothing.

I think that humankind is intellignet and smart, the individuals are not. Like a stack of ants (right word?). They have also a kind of collective intelligence. They survive as a whole, not as individuals.

FabianFnas, you give me more grief than anyone on this site at the
moment bar none! Yet, not for one second do I think you are stupid
or untelligent (Just don't tell anyone I said that, okay? Don't want
anyone getting the wrong idea! 🙂 ) You reason, you take stands, you
apply yourself in areas, you play chess, and the list goes on. I defy
you to come up with a way you are not intelligent those are real things.
With respect to desert or rain forrest, you are wise enough to avoid
those places without a guide or training. That to me is something you
do not see by accident.
Kelly

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
Now the thing that is
interesting is that you refuse to think you could be wrong about
other evidence, not that the your models don't work provided that
the evidence is what you think, but that the evidence really may
not mean what you think it does, in which case your whole foundation
of reason is built upon a pile of shifting sand

Please ...[text shortened]... eve something that you haven't said, I ASK YOU!

I don't refuse to think I could be wrong.

I'll tell you what, you stop telling me what I think I'll stop telling you
what you think! Agreed.
Kelly

Originally posted by snowinscotland
But that's just it. Here in our DNA we can show that the more sequences differ from DNA taken from other animals, the more different they are. Some unusual things turn up, like whales being not to far away in differences, and therefore likely to be more closely related. There is so much work done in this area it would be hard to absorb a fraction in a ...[text shortened]... .
This is almost diametrically opposite to what faith requires. However I think we need both.

I can show you things that are designed that carry things that do the
same thing differently and other things that are the same, it does not
mean one evolved from the other.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'll tell you what, you stop telling me what I think I'll stop telling you
what you think! Agreed.
Kelly

I didn't tell you what you think so there's nothing for me to stop.

If I have, point it out because I don't see one case. If you do, I'll apologize and wait for you to have the class to do the same.

Originally posted by KellyJay
FabianFnas, you give me more grief than anyone on this site at the
moment bar none! Yet, not for one second do I think you are stupid
or untelligent (Just don't tell anyone I said that, okay? Don't want
anyone getting the wrong idea! 🙂 ) You reason, you take stands, you
apply yourself in areas, you play chess, and the list goes on. I defy
you to come ...[text shortened]... laces without a guide or training. That to me is something you
do not see by accident.
Kelly

No single human can think up a computer, yet humankind is able to do it. So the intelligence of the human specie is far beyond any individual person. That's what I'm trying to tell you.

What is your definition of intelligence? To be able to play chess? Any computer can do that...

Originally posted by KellyJay
I can show you things that are designed that carry things that do the
same thing differently and other things that are the same, it does not
mean one evolved from the other.
Kelly

go on, what is your example?

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
I didn't tell you what you think so there's nothing for me to stop.

If I have, point it out because I don't see one case. If you do, I'll apologize and wait for you to have the class to do the same.

I don't want to run through all the pages of our conversation, so I'll
just say my bad I'm sorry and move on, if that is okay?
Kelly

Originally posted by FabianFnas
No single human can think up a computer, yet humankind is able to do it. So the intelligence of the human specie is far beyond any individual person. That's what I'm trying to tell you.

What is your definition of intelligence? To be able to play chess? Any computer can do that...

I rub shoulders with people who make up computers from time to time
and they are just like you. The point is they are very sharp, they are
also very sharp in their own little areas, and others make those little
areas work together, others plan it out, others do this, that, and the
other thing. Granted together we are better than by ourselves, but
that does not for one moment mean by ourselves we are not smart
or intelligent.
Kelly

Originally posted by snowinscotland
go on, what is your example?

We can look at that several different ways, one example I'd use are
bridges, they can be rope bridges, wooden, concrete, train trestles,
suspension bridges and so on, they all hold to basic design
function, yet evolution does not have a tree falling over a river in
Africa the direct ancestor of the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco.

We can look at computer electronics, there we see a enormous amount
of design similarities, similar components yet evolution didn’t have
a thing to do with a walkman evolving into a Quad Core processor, or
a Sony Play station.
Kelly

Originally posted by FabianFnas
No, actually, I'm not smart, I'm not intelligent.

Put me in the middle of the desert, and I will soon die.
Put me in the Amazonas rain forrest and I will soon die.

Without books, education, and experience, I'm nothing.

I think that humankind is intellignet and smart, the individuals are not. Like a stack of ants (right word?). They have also a kind of collective intelligence. They survive as a whole, not as individuals.

BS! 🙂

The collective intelligence—at least in some species—is a collective of individual intelligences that may or may not choose (volunteer) to pool their resources for increased chance of survival (or flourishing). The individual’s urge to survival (or flourishing) in such cases may or may not trump survival of the collective, depending upon circumstances. The same might not be said for all species—such as the ants you mention; I simply don’t know.

Our collective knowledge of science and art is sometimes derivable from collective efforts, sometimes from competitive efforts later chinked together, sometimes from individual genius, etc.

Some individuals may survive fairly well alone if excommunicated from the group. That depends upon their skills and adaptability vis-à-vis the environmental conditions.

Now—with all that said—your basic point is well-taken. Human beings are in general social animals; real hermits are far out on the tail of the distribution (and, of course, cannot procreate as strict hermits—but your post was about intelligence). That you yourself have no intelligence—such as is necessary to absorb the knowledge that you have been exposed to, and to individually expand upon it—is BS. You press your point too far.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I don't want to run through all the pages of our conversation, so I'll
just say my bad I'm sorry and move on, if that is okay?
Kelly

No problem.

For what it's worth, I am sorry if I have done it to you.