????????

Explain, please. It is possible that evolution will destroy us if we do not behave in a more rational and responsible manner. But, if that is the case, the cause is human stupidity, not evolution, itself.

@t1nick Things of evolutionary processes, such as preditor and prey co-evolve, can be complicated to explain and understand. How this interaction of human-on-human interactions work on a grand human animal scale is even more so complicated to understand. Religions, and governmental terrorism, taxation, control of subjects or capitalism slave laborers and intellectual control of knowledge avaliable to subjects of a particular society all plays part in "world problems " or conflicts.

The smarter , stronger, or more popular governmental officials get to kill off the lesser soldiers, subjects and such to where they reproduce less than the smarter stronger more popular.

For example:
The following from: [evolution.berkeley.edu]

2. There is differential reproduction.
   Since the environment can't support unlimited population growth, not all individuals get to reproduce to their full potential. In this example, green beetles tend to get eaten by birds and survive to reproduce less often than brown beetles do.

4. End result:
   The more advantageous trait, brown coloration, which allows the beetle to have more offspring, becomes more common in the population. If this process continues, eventually, all individuals in the population will be brown.

@wordywalt The Sun is supposedly going to expand, explode into a Red giant star in a few billion years. If people are not smart enough to get far enough away from Earth and the Sun, it will kill people off.

@wordywalt

I teach evolutionary science and have no idea what you are alluding to?

@wordywalt Natural selection=survival of the fittest=capitalism=war. Unfortunately we are not (yet) programmed for group survival, which is only for the top leadership and their families. We will need benevolent aliens to intervene, with our Homo Sapien survival threat.

@t1nick
Why am I trying to explain, when you should understand this better than me?
@wordywalt
Religion and Government is very much synonymous such that most people do not understand that the United States of America is the secret religion of the Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worshippers since their freedom from England July 4th, 1776 after the European invasion of 1492. They are following the "religious " dictates of biblical text written in metaphor and riddles that require a higher level of intelligence capabilities to understand. Or, it could be viewed as the Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worshippers are being lead by "lord of host most high worshipful, lucifer the devil a.k.a. Jesus the Christ".

Just for example of understanding the riddle and metaphor: It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. Rev. 13:16-17

What we actually see now since the Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worshippers freedom from England July 4th, 1776 is the development toward identification for taxation and government control. Requiring everyone worship government, and its laws, submit to Authority-666 pay taxes , guaranteed income, health care, retirement, and housing for governmental officials. "God Bless America " and "In God We Trust" capitalism wage slave labor. No freedom for people or original indigenous inhabitants to have their own brick home built by true masons free from mortgage, free from rent, free from taxation and free from governmental terrorism and free from religious oppression.

@Allamanda maybe chuck off homo sapiens to where homo superduperious evolves and just like the predecessor to homo sapiens are extinct, homo sapiens may work out to extinction as homo superduperious rises into existence.

@blahblah

I hate conspiracy theorists. Your rant has nothing to do with evolution. It's clear you have absolutely no idea what evolution is or how it works.

Ypu might as well join Trump and his cabal. They're all conspiracy theorists as well.

Deep State, Illuminati, Masonuc control; all bs.

@t1nick Not conspiracy theories, not specifically a trump supporter and for sure not a Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worship supporter. If you are not understanding enough then you could call it conspiracy theory erroneously.

I post the pic just show I am not a supporter but rather the opposite.

@blahblah

Conspiracy theories by their very nature cannot work and do not work in 99% of hypothetical existence.

Conspiracy usually (not always) , but usually involve large numbers of individual players all keeping a secret. E.g. Derp State, Area 51, the famed moon landing. This condition is almost impossible for the human species.

Secrets are power. Once you have a secret you have power over those that do not. However, you cannot wield that power unless the other party knows you have a secret.

Once the cat is out of the bag, the other parties will demand proof that you have a secret as human curiosity is generally unquenchable. The only way to offer proof is to give up oart or all of the secret. Once that is done, it's no longer a secret and no longer a conspiracy.

Sure many individuals can keep a secret, but not all. Human weakness to prove one specialness, and out comes the secret. Power is covered, but do easily given away in proving you had the power you claimed. Conspiracy theories do not hold water under scrutiny.

@blahblah

Because one case in Whichita Falls is connected to Masonic Lodge does not make it a widespread conspiracy.

@t1nick I am not claiming any secrets.

@t1nick United States of America (the government and its laws) are European oppression of the origional indigenous inhabitants of their land calling it America is not a conspiracy theory, it is a well documented fact.

@t1nick I do not claim expertise on all the evolutionary details like genetic drift, natural selection, allele change mutation and other such things but I have had biology classes, years ago high school and college, and have a general understanding for most of what I can remember.

@t1nick A way I see it might be more analogous than specifically scientific explination. I see people as a top of food chain organism (I know, a shark could eat a person, but sharks are not specifically endangering or threatening the entire human population). So, then, considering an analogy people- on- people interaction as compared to the predator- prey relationship people are like the predators and prey of themselves because they are at the top of the food chain, at least to say on top intellectually speaking superior to all other know creatures. So, it might be like intellectual predator-prey interaction. Which has evolutionary connections to the continued development of peoplekind, their societal structure, governmental evolution, so on.

@t1nick Do you know anything about psychological meme?

The term was famously coined by Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene, as a cultural corollary to the biological transmission of genetic information via genes and genetic recombination. Dawkins, however, is not the first to consider the meme. The German zoologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Wolfgang Semon, for one, wrote about mneme, from the muse of memory Greek goddess Mneme, in the early 1900’s. There’s an argument that memes evolve via natural selection, just as in biological evolution, with less successful memes dying out, or becoming extinct. [psychologytoday.com]

I am not dealing with conspiracy theories it can be understood thru understanding the evolution of a psychological meme in people.

Out of Egypt, thru Israel, into Rome/Europe and across the Atlantic to build up this U.S. of A.

Come on. We already have far too damned many weird conspiracy theories muddying the water and diverting attention from what is real. I am sick of such crap. @blahblah

@soquel I Biology was a focus of my undergraduate work. Your perception of evolution is a weird distortion.

@blahblah What in blue blazes does this have to do with the focus of this post?

@t1nick @wordywalt

Again it is not about conspiracy theories. However you are close in your understanding Here is an illogical atheist website that does do a part of explaining things, not that I agree with 100% of what they say.

Christianity Meme is an organization of people who wish to expose Christianity for what it really is--a mind virus that controls human behavior to facilitate its own survival. [christianitymeme.org]

@t1nick @wordywalt see how illogical atheist web site gives verfication to biblical text. ... But we have the mind of Christ.1 cor. 2:16

Psychological meme

@blahblah I don't own a bible and have not for well over 40 years. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

@wordywalt enlighten as to what?

@blahblah What the Bible verse you cite says.

@wordywalt it says what I cited. Religion defined as helping widows etc.

@Allamanda Yes...I already think that it’s the biggest contributor to wars and hatred of others...but was just adding that there are other factors which contribute...not disagreeing, but adding to the mix.

@ToolGuy I didn’t say everyone was greedy or selfish....but unfortunately a lot of people who influence events...i.e. politicians and others in position of power are greedy and selfish.

@ToolGuy I think if you care to look you said..and I quote you “people are not greedy and selfish “...that was why you disagreed with me. I still maintain that a large number are.

@ToolGuy You and I will fall out if you continue to misconstrue my words in such a way. I was replying to an item posted which states that people attribute today’s problems to religion. I merely stated that it was over simplistic to blame it purely on religion and that there many other factors including the two I mentioned. You then chose to challenge me on that by stating “ I disagree. People are not greedy and selfish”. The fact that you then went on to state that these traits are not universal does not negate your earlier statement...especially in view of the fact that I hadn’t said that I thought everyone was, but that they were human traits...which they undoubtedly are.

@ToolGuy I don’t read anything in this article which refutes my assertion that greed and selfishness are human traits...whether acquired or genetic...it’s indisputable that certain humans display both.

@ToolGuy I never said an inborn trait...just a human one...we acquire many due to different factors during our lifetimes including environmental and circumstantial. In any case your article is inconclusive about the genetic bit ..so why are you even nitpicking my every word? And by the way I hate the way you capitalise certain words as if I’d be too dim to get your meaning otherwise.

@ToolGuy. It’s not a pet theory..but it is my opinion, of which I’m entitled, so your reference to being an iconoclast is misplaced. What you were attacking was not a cherished theory, but merely my opinion, and what you were doing was being patronising not iconoclastic. What you think of my opinions is quite immaterial to me, you have your opinions on this matter which differ from mine and I believe yours are quite inconsistent and contradictory. However that is in my opinion and I’m sure you disagree. Your opinion is valid to you, mine is valid to me, so touché my dear. You can give yourself any label you wish but please don’t ever put one on me and believe that you know anything about me or what I think, because you don’t.

@ToolGuy. Get a life!!

It reaches a point of complete and total contradiction in logic: a prime example being the ‘pro-life’ extremists. The ones who stalk clinic workers, and bomb clinics, and who truly don’t see a problem saying: ‘abortion is murder; if you don’t stop, we’ll kill you all’.

Only religion breeds crazy that strong.

@Allamanda I think they assume a zero-sum, one subtracted from one group is automatically added to the other. It's got to be a more dynamic process than that.
The overlooked variable, I think, is the magnitude of present-day problems and the utter uselessness of thousand-year-old solutions.
I'm optimistic people are waking up to that reality, and will face it before it's too late.
If true, the numbers will eventually reflect it. Besides, I think the numbers are skewed anyway.

@Allamanda Religious nuts breed like rabbits.

What a sad state of affairs.

Can we even speak of Jewish nationalism (Zionism) as it drives the wars for oil?

@ExculpatoryLover There are more atheists in Israel than almost anywhere else.

@ExculpatoryLover Zionism causes many problems but surely it is our profligate lifestyles that cause the wars over oil.
In the UK any benefits from running electric cars has been counteracted by the greater sale of gas guzzling SUVs

@Moravian ~ Our lifestyles do not drive wars, come on. Our lifestyles are choices made from the options available. Iraq was invaded because they broke the demand made by the United States, Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to pay for all oil in Federal Reserve Notes only, the so called petro-dollar. Iraq began selling their oil for Euros, so we invaded them, shut off their oil supply for a few years, and reaped the profits. Shame on Bush, Clinton, all of the Warmongers and dual citizen Israelis in the US Congress, 89 of them all Democrats. SMH

@Moravian ~ Electric cars are a sham, they use electric generated by what? Burning of coal? Nuclear fission and all that toxic waste? Did you know it takes more energy to manufacture one of those giant windmills than all the energy it will capture while running for years until it breaks down? We need the free energy developed by Nikola Tesla, zero point energy which is limitless and clean.

@ExculpatoryLover
[theguardian.com]

You been watching Fox news again ?
I have never heard of this amazing free Tesla energy. Could you give me a link to some data on it.

@Moravian ~ I never watch FoxNews, it is as bullshit as the rest of the Wall Street Media of lies and propaganda. I do not even watch any television programming, no time for it. Funny how people never heard of Tesla or how he devised the modern world basically through his ideas. Electricity is everywhere throughout the Universe, in every living thing, all one needs to do is understand it. Electrical engineering is the key to the Cosmos.

@ExculpatoryLover I was making an oblique reference to your erroneous comment about wind turbines,
I think everyone knows about Nikola Tesla, hence the current joke. If you steal a Tesla car does it become an Edison.

@Moravian ~ Well, earth scientist David Hughes stated those mega windmills are quite problematic, but I am sure some idiot of FauxNews used his words out of context. Total costs include maintenance of the machines as well, the fact they need to be stopped and secured during high winds, etc. Stupid idea, unless we used small efficient windmills directly at the point the power is needed. These wind farms are a waste, pumping the electric through miles of wires reduces half the power or more through resistance and impedance. They want wind farms to retain the style of business the power industry has become. SMH.

@Moravian ~ Best, most efficient windmills in the world = www.windside.com

the point is not that religion poisons society, which we all know. it's that supposedly most of the world thinks so. i don't think most of the world is that self-aware.

g

I partially concur. Yet as Lloyd Blankfein CEO Goldman Sachs once stated: "I'm doing 'God's Work."

It is that many of company leaders, lawyers, politicians, etc are sociopaths, narcissists or psychopaths.

@gsiamne I don't think they believe in god as much as they're using it to manipulate and control others.

@JimG Totally concur and that is the psychology of it.

Amen!

I often say "The leading cause of death is life"

@Allamanda You’re right. I should have asked who has limited the spectrum.

@Storm1752 Ho, ho, ho.

@Storm1752 No name calling necessary. He is just having some fun.

And I thought the problem was time.

@PondartIncbendog Yeah, with enough time, life can do a lot.

I sort of like extreme individualism.

@BryanLV It is not healthy for societies. Go live on your own island, if you can afford one. Most Libertarians seem to desire that, except for their desire to benefit from police, fire depts, roads, and other benefits from living in societies they don't want to pay taxes for.......

@TomMcGiverin

But who will build the roads?

Classic.

Not so sure it is that simple. Take the religion away and you still are left with the same humans, aren't you ? I believe the root of the problem is to be looked for in the human heart. I believe also that the greatest man or woman this world has ever known were carried by a deep belief in what religion is supposed to stand for at its very core. Behind religion is something much greater and universal: spirituality.

Religion make me crazier than hell!

Not really. They kill you if you abandon Allah. So very few do!

@Allamanda Makes me want to dig in that data (which is not availible), because of this

"Survey participants were given a random subset of countries and country attributes to consider. The combinations were presented in a grid form where participants were prompted to check off the characteristics they associated with each country."

So IF your grid was the mideast would not most Americans, Brits and Europeans list religion as a MAIN cause?
I would prefer to have those details broken down, are you asking circular culture or square culture? Are you using the same question, which might not carry the same meaning?

Polling is all about how you frame your question.
If I want to make a poll on abortion I can easily skew the result by framing the question.
Are you pro abortion?--Will net a high percentage of NO
Are you Pro Fetus?--Will get a high yes percentage
And so on, HOW the questions were written is rarely shared, only the results. So I take all polls with a very large grain of salt, it is far too easy to twist the numbers via language.