"Joseph H" <joseph@humanisation.org> said:

Jim07D6 wrote:

"Joseph H" <joseph@humanisation.org> said:

How so?

A capricious creature, prone to error and evil, subject to despotism
and disaster and sudden death, eking an existence from precarious
nature.....how could any sicence encompass such randomness?

Just like all of science, by the application of probability and
statistics to predict large-scale change based on the interactions of
numerous smaller elements.

We agree - though perhaps we differ in our appreciation of the
rhetorical question.

Perhaps -- I don't like rhetorical questions as a form, and sometimes
respond as though they are not rhetorical, just to throw a curve back.

Cheers,

-- Jim07D6

Joseph H wrote:

Immortalist wrote:

Joseph H wrote:

How so?

A capricious creature, prone to error and evil, subject to despotism
and disaster and sudden death, eking an existence from precarious
nature.....how could any sicence encompass such randomness?

Why not? There are many analogues, climate, business, epidemics et=

Alll are subject to arbitrary forces - but all permit an informed
prognosis. Actuaries do it everyday.

So why not the human colonisation of the planet? Go on, guys, yield=

little. We can rise to a Coefficient of Caprice and a Disaster
Determinent, can we not? If we can forcast the movement of clouds
surely we can forecast the movement of human beings? That ought to =

our prime subject.

Do you imply that humans have not yet colonised this planet?

Colonised in a manner commensurate with human abilities. Knowledge, for
example, is part of the sum of human attributes. The human capacity for
knowledge extends, I would suggest, to the origin, development and
nature of the universe and its component elements. Until very recently
our knowledge of these matters has been sketchy in the extreme. Also,
our estimation (or agreement) as to what rights we should possess has
been sketchy. Also, our knowledge of the energies available to us on
the planet has been limited. Recent (in historical terms) developments
in these areas now allow us to further our colonisation.

This seems true since humans and animals further themselves by
accumulating memories of how-to. Humans by far are using this external
information -groupthinking-computations- to extend their place in the
universe, further than most animals. If the end of a beaver's foot is
the edge of the entire lake it creates from building dams, it seems
they are not far behind us in amplifiable powers of movement.

Also I thought of this text about what is important enough to debate
and what is not worthy of conflict;

...If the sceptic and the dogmatist are going to behave in the same
way, do the same things in the same situations, then what does it
matter who is right? Is not the whole dispute merely academic and
unimportant?

This is a serious objection. It can be answered on two levels. First,
one might quarrel with the implicit assumption that 'merely academic'
questions are unimportant and not worth bothering about. People are
less likely to take this view about disciplines other than philosophy.
For example, cosmologists are interested in the question of whether the
universe originated in a so-called 'Big-Bang' long ago or whether it
has always existed in a 'Steady State'. (I gather that at the moment
the evidence favours the former view.) Now this is a purely academic
question, in the sense that which answer is correct makes no difference
to the way we behave in the ordinary affairs of life. But one seldom
hears it objected that the cosmologists should stop worrying their
heads about the question. It is the same, one might say, with the
question of dogmatism and scepticism. It would be nice to know whether
we can know anything for sure, even if the answer is going to make no
difference to the way we behave in the ordinary affairs of life.

But is our problem a 'merely academic' problem which makes no practical
difference?...

Common Sense, Science & Scepticism:
A Historical Introduction to the
Theory of Knowledge by Alan Musgrave
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521436257/

Homo Erectus colonised the entire planet and may have even changed and
bred those changed genes back into Africa. Homo Sapiens has surely
colonised the entire planet. Many species nearly colonized the entire
planet, its not that hard to do if you have the right evolutionary
cards in your hand.

Adaptive radiation describes the rapid speciation of a single or a few
species to fill many ecological niches. This is an evolutionary proce=

driven by mutation (heritable/genetic variation) and natural selectio=

The dynamics of adaptive radiation are such that, within a relatively
short time, many species derive from a single or a few ancestor
species. The rise and fall of new species then continues very slowly,
compared to the initial outburst of species.

Adaptive radiation often occurs when a new species is introduced to a
new system, or when a species can survive in an environment that was
unreachable before. For example, 13 species of Darwin's finches on the
Gal=E1pagos Islands developed from a single species of finch that
reached the islands. Other examples include anoles of the Caribbean
islands, Hawaiian silverswords and picture-winged pomace flies, the
development of the first birds (which suddenly were able to expand
their territory into the air), and the development of lung fish and
placoderms during the Devonian period about 300 million years ago.
Another example of adaptive radiation is the diversity within Phylum
Mollusca.

Fantastic writing - and knowledge!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_radiation

In ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational position of a
species or population in an ecosystem. More formally, the niche
includes how a population responds to the abundance of its resources
and enemies (e. g., by growing when resources are abundant, and
predators, parasites and pathogens are scarce) and how it affects tho=

same factors (e. g., by reducing the abundance of resources through
consumption and contributing to the population growth of enemies by
falling prey to them). The abiotic or physical environment is also pa=

of the niche because it influences how populations affect, and are
affected by, resources and enemies.

The description of a niche may include descriptions of the organism's
life history, habitat, and place in the food chain. According to the
competitive exclusion principle, no two species can occupy the same
niche in the same environment for a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_niche

And anyway, a creature we call human walks across a clearing 43,847
years ago. How long before the descendants of that creature can lay
claim to have created a global society commensurate with the capaci=

of that creature? Let's see: we know the size of the planet; we know
the stride length of that creature; we know the period of gestation=

the female of the species; we know the breeding-life; we know the f=

and water-needs; we know the emotional needs; we know the range of
intelligence; we know the range of abilties; we know how the landma=

of the planet are connected; we know the variations in climate...h=

we are awash with knowledge! If so much knowledge is available to =

why can we not rise to an intelligent surmise as to how long that
Commensurate Society will take in coming?

Commensurate with what? With the abilties we possess. Forget the
ignorance, error, caprice, evil and studipity, these are unavoidabl=

Our abilties will have expression. We will - eventually - INSIST th=

our abilities have expression. Throughout much of the globe that is
already happening. The fact that we dissipate so much of our abilit=

in dross is due to the lack of an enduring human vision. Dross
dominates in the absence of an intelligent alternative.

But how long, you ask, before that society arrives? Oh, I'd say abo=

43, 867 years after that first human scratched her nose. Just after=

lands were flooded and the millions started to move West...

On second thoughts that event might set us back another 345 years. =

much for science.

A chance missed!
=20
Joseph H
=20
www.humanisation.org