Did humans evolve from ape or were adam and eve the first people?

were adam and eve the first people or did humans evolve from ape?

Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

Truth seems to be what most people believe at a given time. Statistics and probability come into it; the larger the number involved the nearer we get to the truth. On balance (and with Occam) I would say that some version of evolution has it. Not Darwinism, unfortunately. But Darwin was bright enough to know there were gaps in his theory. Many of these have been filled in, but there is enough wobble left for everyone to have a jolly good argument, without bringing God in at all.

Whatever else truth is, it is not "what most people believe at a given time". That would mean that the earth was once flat, and that the sun once went around the earth, and that God once sent thunder and lightning on whim, but that about 1750 He stopped doing so and turned the job over to electrical charges in clouds. There is a real truth, even if you and I disagree about what it is, and even if every person on earth believes something else. So statistics and probability do not come into what truth is. The majority is probably right about most things, but we have no way of knowing when the majority - even a 100% majority - is 180° wrong.

By your own definition, fleapit, Darwinism is now true because a majority of scientists believe in it. For someone who knew nothing of genetics or DNA, Darwin got it amazingly right. There's still nothing the matter with natural selection acting on natural variation.

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

fleapit:
"If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat."
It wasn't discovered that the earth wasn't flat by someone trying to walk to the edge, but by someone (Eratosthenes) establishing that on the summer solstice the sun cast a vertical shadow in Syene, Egypt, while it was at a tilt in Alexandria. Are you saying it was flat till that moment (~200 BCE)? I don't think so. The proposition that it was, raises more questions, like who or what rounded it, and how, implying impossible consumptions of energy, etc. etc.

"If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck."
Yes, but only probably.

"You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not."
Exactly. And science is the endless search to find out as much as we can about it, little though that may be.

"A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will."
Whoever said anything of the sort? I don't think I agree with a word of that. It certainly doesn't follow from anything I said. The alternative (well, one) is dreary old New Age Subjectivism, "My reality is not your reality" etc etc. The point is, if there is no REAL reality, what is it that we are disagreeing about?

[Discussion of Schrödinger's cat omitted. It's a thought experiment. Real scientists don't agree about it. I don't think it has any bearing on the question at issue.]

"There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it?"
No, that's not it, because until we try, we have no way of knowing what it is we can never know, and even after we've tried, we can't be sure - there may be another way of investigating.

" In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?"
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann darüber muß man schweigen. As I'm sure you know.

(And the same reply to all the other iterations.)

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't)

There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it?

"(And the same reply to all the other iterations.)"
...past or future.

fleapit, if you click Refresh instead of Back, you'll see that your message got sent the first time. (Boy, that dog-on-the-toilet video's unfunny after the first time!)

"Evolution is the continuation of Creationism." In the beginning, before the big bang, God created everything out of nothing, or perhaps from Himself.

"Evolution is the continuation of Creationism." In the beginning, before the big bang, God created everything out of nothing, or perhaps from Himself.

"Evolution is the continuation of Creationism." In the beginning, before the big bang, God created everything out of nothing, or perhaps from Himself.

"Evolution is the continuation of Creationism." In the beginning, before the big bang, God created everything out of nothing, or perhaps from Himself.

"Evolution is the continuation of Creationism." In the beginning, before the big bang, God created everything out of nothing, or perhaps from Himself.

"Evolution is the continuation of Creationism." In the beginning, before the big bang, God created everything out of nothing, or perhaps from Himself.

"Evolution is the continuation of Creationism." In the beginning, before the big bang, God created everything out of nothing, or perhaps from Himself.