Can someone explain to me how human emotion evolved out of nothing? How can a species go from being an intensely instinctual animal into a being which feels intense emotional connections to others and has the ability to kill itself out of sadness?

Since evolution can technically create anything given enough time, I guess the real question would be, how did these emotional characteristics survive in a being living amongst a group without them. They would not allow this individual any advantage as they would certainly be a weakness.

No. EVERY significant emotion must have an evolutionary advantage in the long run. However, understand that the key is VARIATION of emotional make-up within the species as a whole. Given an environment X, most of the individuals within the species will have the set of emotions which are most adapted to environment X. But there will be some individuals who have a somewhat different (but not fatally different) set of emotions. If the environment changes to Y, most of the species may DIE OFF, but some will survive -- those with the most adaptive set of emotions.

It doesn't, however, have to be life threatening environmental cause for the change to occur. Selection can take place due to sexual preferences. Thus, females may tend to select individuals with a certain set of emotional makeup over those with another set of emotional makeup -- more courageous versus more fearful, or whatever. In this way, the species can change over time based not on a life threatening environment but selection by the females. If the females, though, make a mistake, and choose too many individuals with an emotional makeup that would not be well adapted to some life-threatening environmental change that unexpectently happens, the entire species might die off because of the females' mistake. Perhaps some will survive, because some females preferred the original set of emotions -- and that set of emotions is better adapted to the new conditions. Then the species will change in emotional makeup, but survive.

Since evolution can technically create anything given enough time, I guess the real question would be, how did these emotional characteristics survive in a being living amongst a group without them. They would not allow this individual any advantage as they would certainly be a weakness.

Some of our emotions may turn out to be evolutionary dead ends. Like the white altruism to non-whites.

But others are clear cut once you see them in the right light. Think of love and sadness. When you are away from the woman you love for say a few days, you start to feel sad and lonely. Once you get back to her the bad feeling goes away. That emotion helps motivate you to be with her, which increases the odds of reproduction.

In this case, I have no idea what the thread is about. I suspect you don't really understand what the THEORY of evolution proposes.

Evolution is a pseudo-science at best. After hundreds of years, either a) it cannot be proven, and is a pseudo-science, or b) it is wrong.

Jesus is real, but cannot be proven. /sarcasm

Donger proposed to de-brainwash me of my evolution beliefs, which he assumed were imposed from without -- rather than arrived at through a process of reasoning.

So far he hasn't succeeded, which suggests either I'm too far gone in my delusional state -- or he's wrong and I'm right. (I think it's the latter.)

Devere, I think Donger is probably right. Your reasoning may be sound, but much of evolutionism is carried in on the back of factual science, such as natural selection. Evolution, or the theory that new and heretofore unknown life forms can spontaneously exist is preposterous. Life is a mystery and there are many religions that supply weak minds with the answers they need. All religion is bullshit - evolutionism included.

Someone PM'd me, saying that macro and micro evolution cannot be reconsiled. They also questioned the "Big Bang" theory. I thought my response was worth CCing here:

There is nothing to suggest an impediment, given enough time, to macro-evolution. There is everything to suggest that this indeed happens.

Big Bang? We don't know. We can't know, as we weren't there. We can only speculate, given understood scientific precepts. Where did the "bang" stuff come from? Those who evangilize the theory don't say that the bang came from nothing as you imply, but from a dense singularity, iirc.

Or, you could just throw your hands up and believe it's a father-figure in the sky that just so happens to save us from the worst fear--common to humanity--death.

If we were having a discussion 5,000 years ago, the argument for the existence for God would include thunder and the trees. 200 years ago (when we understood more about thunder and trees), God was in the sky. Now that man has ventured into the skies, God went far out into space, and now in another dimension altogether.

Devere, I think Donger is probably right. Your reasoning may be sound, but much of evolutionism is carried in on the back of factual science, such as natural selection. Evolution, or the theory that new and heretofore unknown life forms can spontaneously exist is preposterous. Life is a mystery and there are many religions that supply weak minds with the answers they need. All religion is bullshit - evolutionism included.

But, Joseph, that is NOT what evolution is. Evolution is the theory that explains how species change, usually gradually, genetically over time. Natural selection (including survival selection and sexual selection) and artificial selection (by an outside force such as via human intervention, as in agriculture) are the mechanisms by which evolution happens. Little changes, over time, can add up to a new species.

A good -- and fossil verified -- example is the change of a wolf-like shore creature, which fed on fish that swam close to the shore, gradually developed fins and so on enabling it to better catch fish, until the land mammal changed over the milennia into a porpose or dolphin, a sea mammal. There must have been a large survival advantage over a long period of time to catching fish, rather than land animals, for this particular animal -- for this gradual evolutionary change to have happened. But it DID happen.

The DNA code is similar to computer programming (machine language code). A complicated life form might be compared to a complicated computer application (like, say, adobe photoshop). The idea of a computer program "evolving" without a very intelligent and studious EFFORT by a competitent PROGRAMMER(s) is ludicrous.

It is only a comparison, but, it makes MORE SENSE to imagine that the various DNA codes for the various distinct life forms were programmed, somehow. Just tossing out billions of lines of random computer machine code will NEVER produce anything but pure junk in the computer's memory. Just tossing out billions of DNA sequences, willie nillie, is also not likely to produce a life form, but only organic slush.

From my standpoint (not a christian), the question isn't whether or not the DNA code was programmed, but, by WHOM and HOW. Where is the instruction manual for DNA? That is the burning question I will probably die with.

When scientists finally (if ever) figure out how to specify the DNA code for a DESIRED VARIATION to a simple life form (such as a paramecium), then we will have taken the most giant of steps in mankind's known history. Such as, changing the cilia (little hairs) so that they end in a weblike spread instead of spearlike (as they are now). Any kind of such test that allows for a design change to be specified, and then a method for specifying required DNA sequence to produce that change, will suffice.

We don't need to get philosophical about it - just delve into some of the mind-numbing effects of reading tons of machine-language computer code and you will get the idea of the immensity of massively complex systems. Nothing vodoo about it, just the need for an equally immense intelligence to comprehend it all.

If we were "created," it was a piss-poor job, I would say. We use most of our energy simply on the immune system!

Little changes, over time, can add up to a new species.

The tiny changes you are talking about are called mutations. Darwin had little understanding of mutations. Today, we know that mutation of an organism is virtually never a bonus. In every observable case, the mutation serves to limit longevity, reproductive capacity or survival of the organism itself. But if we look at only the possible, rare mutation that actually improves an organism, we find that in order for the mutation to propagate, the genetic code must be altered to match. Unbeknownst to Darwin, DNA exists and the DNA sequence is locked and unaffected by the surrounding organism. Hence, if you chop your arm off, then breed, your offspring will still be born with both arms very much intact.

(This goes to the abortion argument and the "when does life begin" question. It doesn't. The argument is based on a false premise. Life "began" long ago. It does not begin in the womb or anywhere else, but began in time immemorial. Life is a continuum.)

Let's suppose that our unlikely subject's DNA was mutated by gamma rays and yielded a new or enhanced property, say, super-strength. In order for this change to benefit our specie, this one-in-a-million must now seek out and mate with another subject having the exact same mutation at the exact same time in history and at the exact same locale. Then, supposing this super-strength bearing DNA has suffered no other modification, such as sterility (common to irradiated organisms) it must successfully mate and produce offspring capable of surviving to maturity so as to mate with mom or dad. Alternatively, our youngster can get extra lucky and happen to stumble across another like itself. They'd be a 2-in-a-million pair and just lucky enough to be opposing sexes.

If you think that sounds impossible, you're right. It is the theory of evolution via micro mutation. A statistical impossibility.

The theory of evolution was proposed before we knew anything about DNA and is incompatible with modern science. The fact is, evolution is made impossible by DNA.

If we were "created," it was a piss-poor job, I would say. We use most of our energy simply on the immune system!

TBH, not sure what I "believe".

But:

To say the least, it's kind of bizarre how we, as a race, conveniently forget what the Jew does again and again throughout history...

Sort of a blindfold is thrown across humanity's eyes every few hundred years and they, the Jews, return to their plan of destroying the world nation by nation.

Can science explain why we keep allowing this to happen ?

Much to my dismay, religion does offer an explanation for why it continues.

.

lol I will help our Aryan apes out

http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=449812&postcount=10

2nd Law of Thermodynamics

Let alone things tend from high order to low order.

amoeba > ape > human is low to high process

[color="Red"]Warning: Violation!

Where is the massive energy source do this?

Where is the communication system to transport this info?

(I will be out for a bit)

2nd law only works in SEALED OR LIMITED SYSTEMS.

The earth is not one of these.

The massive energy source to do this is...

(are you ready)...

THE SUN!

The actual transportation system by which this energy gets into living things is 1)photosynthesis 2)consumption of plants by animals 3)consumption of animals by other animals.

The massive communication system responsible for evolution? Why, it's naught else than a little thing called...deoxyribonucleic acid.

Creationists LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to trot out the 2nd law of thermodynamics to "disprove" evolution. But the law only works in sealed systems, not open systems!

Using your own logic, I'll give you another example of a violation of the second law: the formation of crystals! According to your logic, salt and clays shouldn't exist, since crystal formation means...

...going from a state of lower complexity to a state of higher complexity...

Again, sodium and chloride are not usually present in sealed systems, so they can "violate" the 2nd law. So can carbon, which can come together to form diamonds and graphite crystals.

Much to my dismay, religion does offer an explanation for why it continues.

.

Evolution does, as well. Read what Hitler had to say about jew evolution in Mein Kampf.

Well yes I just proved evolution is not real. It violates 2nd Law Thermo.
To go from low to high order one needs energy and communication.
Crack an raw egg. Has one every refromed itself? That is the flow > high to low. Evolution is the opposite.

As a matter of fact evolution is not science. Science is making statements gather from empircle data observations (erm that sound redundant). Since no human scientist has been alive for millions and million of years as evolutionists(?) claim. Thus there is no observations and therefore there is no science. A theory yes but no science.

(3-2-1.... carbon 14 claim...)

Again with carbon 14 dating noone existed to start a scientific observation to test whether carbon 14 was accurate against the actual passage of time.

I'm afriad you're using a definition of science that was outdated in the 19th century. There are two branches of investigation science can encompass: inductive and DEDUCTIVE reason. Evolution is an example of DEDUCTIVE reasoning.

Yeah, Jews hate Christians, big whoop. Creationism is dearly clung to by Christians. The ACLU is a Jew organization. Therefore, the ACLU attacks creationism, etc.

But just because Jews dig it, doesn't mean that evolution is not science.

(And yes, I can think of a way to re-form that cracked egg!)

2nd law only works in SEALED OR LIMITED SYSTEMS.

The earth is not one of these.

The massive energy source to do this is...

(are you ready)...

THE SUN!

The actual transportation system by which this energy gets into living things is 1)photosynthesis 2)consumption of plants by animals 3)consumption of animals by other animals.

The massive communication system responsible for evolution? Why, it's naught else than a little thing called...deoxyribonucleic acid.

Creationists LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to trot out the 2nd law of thermodynamics to "disprove" evolution. But the law only works in sealed systems, not open systems!

Using your own logic, I'll give you another example of a violation of the second law: the formation of crystals! According to your logic, salt and clays shouldn't exist, since crystal formation means...

...going from a state of lower complexity to a state of higher complexity...

Again, sodium and chloride are not usually present in sealed systems, so they can "violate" the 2nd law. So can carbon, which can come together to form diamonds and graphite crystals.

Good to get someone posting who really knows what he's talking about. As for me, I'm no scientist. My claim to fame is simply that I'm probably one of the few people who has actually read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. It was a while ago, but I think I remember the basic ideas. Good book. I highly recommend it.

I'm afriad you're using a definition of science that was outdated in the 19th century. There are two branches of investigation science can encompass: inductive and DEDUCTIVE reason. Evolution is an example of DEDUCTIVE reasoning.

Yeah, Jews hate Christians, big whoop. Creationism is dearly clung to by Christians. The ACLU is a Jew organization. Therefore, the ACLU attacks creationism, etc.

But just because Jews dig it, doesn't mean that evolution is not science.

(And yes, I can think of a way to re-form that cracked egg!)

Nice point about deductive reasoning versus inductive reasoning. How can you refore the cracked egg?