No, there isn't scientific proof that neoteny explains the changes you asked about, but you already knew there wasn't proof on this matter when you asked for "a plausible explanation". Riiight? You are moving the goal posts.
I was just trying to be as unaggressive as possible when I initially asked for something plausible. Of course, my main concern here is that there isn't scientific proof. And plausible is a relative term anyway. For me it isn't plausible to say humans lost their hair because they eventually walked out of the forrest. Neoteny, whatever its merits may be, remains a theory beyond testing. For me at least, that in and of itself represents another weakness.
Is there an alternative explanation?
Well, the alternative explanation could be that we
didn't in fact evolve from a common ancestor. Of course this doesn't explain much at all, but then, it isn't the position making an untestable scientific claim.
If not evolution and plausibly neoteny, then what is your answer?
You're asking me to explain a weakness in a position I myself am unsure of? I don't have one. But then I am not the one claiming all life evolved from a common source.
Note: I am not asking for proof of any kind, just "a plausible explanation" like neoteny but different somehow. Use your imagination if necessary.
I guess I don't have much of an imagination. As far as the fossil evidence goes, is it possible that these skulls come from a different species altogether with no connection to either humans or apes? Does genetic similarity necessarily mean a common source? I want to reiterate again that I am leaning towards evolution
on this point. While you are here, I will stop beating about the bush and just come out with what I am getting at before further derailment takes place.
My main problem with evolution theory is that it supposes
all life evolved from a common source. This means at some point in time the first cell came to life and eventually branched off and produced bacteria, plants, birds, sea life and animals. I am still having trouble wrapping my mind around the notion that, due to natural selection and adaptation, animals grew wings and learned to fly. From everything I have read about NS and adaptation, this flies in the face of reason.
Yes, I understand this is supposed to have happened gradually over billions of years, and not over night. But all this does is further undermine the adaptation explanation. At what point did animal X start developing wings, and why? Adaptation and natural selection cannot explain this. Did its natural habitat become too dangerous for it to survive, that it needed to find refuge in the skies? Well if that is true, then what was the intelligence driving this mutation? Genes don't have goals or intentions and it couldn't have been natural selection. So what then?
Let's try picturing this mutation together so maybe you can see where I am coming from. Let's say an animal lost its legs and grew wings (as evolution suggests). Naturally this was a gradual process over many millions of years. So
how could a creature continue to reproduce and survive over the course of millions of years with legs that were disappering and useless extensions that would later become wings? And what was the intelligence driving the development of wings?
Something had to have known that this creature would be able to take flight, right? If not, then why grow wings?
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. What good is it to take flight unless you have the eye sight of a bird? Did birds develop their enhanced vision while still living on the ground? If so, then what intelligent source knew that they would need to have this in order to survive in the air? A bird wouldn't last one week in the air without its enhanced vision for hunting insects from high altitudes (let alone millions of years trying to develop it). Were they also growing claws while still walking on the ground?
You see it is one thing to make a connection between primates hunched and primates walking upright. That is an easy diagram to draw, and that explains why it has become the poster for Darwinism. But the explanations for the mutations and the survival capacity of mutating/evolving bird life is really implausible at this point. It standard explanation uses the ape-human connection and then the evolution of all other life is simply taken for granted.
EA's point is that the scientists you cited in your second hand quote-mining do NOT question certain aspect of evolution theory as you are suggesting.
No, his point is to "call me out" for being dishonest or incompetent. That's his point.
Though I would be interested to see how Kerkut's words were taken so far out of context by Bergman that it could be said he
didn't question certain aspects of evolution. Ditto for Thompson's comments.
My statement was made tongue-in-cheek, and was simply a way of teasing you for your silliness on this thread, wherein you repeatedly assert, as you have here, that belief in evolution constitutes some sort of "religion".
But it isn't silly at all. I have already illustrated the similarities between theistic religion and non-theistic religion, whether you like it or not. I know it really pisses you off, but this is social science. Evolution is a doctrine in the church of academia whose denial is punishable by academic and social penalty. It is similar to many other doctrines taken for granted such as multicultural relativism and global warming. Whether any of these doctrines are true, is irrelevant to the fact that they have become so accepted that they reach the status of doctrine. Their denial carries with them all of the professional and social ramifications that are involved in denying a set of theistic doctrines. Even Dawkins referred to Antony Flew's "tergiversation," which is simply a fancy way of saying apostasy. The parallels are many, and can be discussed in a separate thread on another day.
Shouldn't any continuation of this thread go into the off-topic forum?
It doesn't matter to me. You guys can move it if you want. I am probably done posting for the week and will probably continue it in another thread anyway. But if you move it, someone kindly pm me in a few days and remind me where it was moved to.
I feared this might be the case. But I don't think many readers of this board will blame me for trying ... let us hope that dartagnan will be busy enough in coming months so that, in spite of himself, he learns the virtues of concision in on-line communication
chap, what the hell are you complaining about? This thread was dead until I brought it back to life. I haven't posted in two weeks, and the second I come back you get pissed off because....? Because it isn't shoved away in a corner of the forum that gets the least amount of traffic and exposure? As I said, go ahead and move it. In fact you can shove it wherever you want.
PS: I find it interesting that of the dozens upon dozens of worthless and short-lived threads on this board, you're complaining about this one because of the "virtues of concision"? If you don't like the way this thing has played out, then start pointing fingers at the usual suspects who came in and derailed. I am the only person in this discussion constantly nagged to respond to numerous people at a time. Everyone else has it easy, so give me a freakin break.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein