If Darwin was correct

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Except they haven't identified all of those functions

Quite correct. They are trying to figure out what various areas do. There's also some built-in redundancy, as there is at least one case where one person with half a brain (a bit more than half - the hippocampus is intact) can function as well as a normal person.

[Mordoch]

Re: If Darwin was correct

Originally posted by Xin Yu
If Darwin's evolution theory was correct, then we should have already used the full potential of our brains and bodies.

However there are theories saying that we only used 10% of our brains. Examples of people releasing brain and body power under emergency were not rare.

One of the two theories must be wrong.

I think darwin was wrong and we were created, what do you think?

Quite simply your premise is nonsense. We definately don't use 10% of our brains, although this appears to be a popular misconception.

Claim: We use only ten percent of our brains.

Status: False.

Origins: Someone
has taken most of your brain away and you probably didn't even know it. Well, not taken your brain away, exactly, but decided that you don't use it. It's the old myth heard time and again about how people use only ten percent of their brains. While for the people who repeat that myth, it's probably true, the rest of us happily use all of our brains.

The Myth and the Media

That tired Ten-Percent claim pops up all the time. In 1998, national magazine ads for U.S. Satellite Broadcasting showed a drawing of a brain. Under it was the caption, "You only use 11 percent of its potential." Well, they're a little closer than the ten-percent figure, but still off by about 89 percent. In July 1998, ABC television ran promotional spots for The Secret Lives of Men, one of their offerings for the fall season's lineup. The spot featured a full-screen blurb that read, "Men only use ten percent of their brains." ...

Evidence Against the Ten-Percent Myth

The argument that psychic powers come from the unused majority of the brain is based on the logical fallacy of the argument from ignorance. In this fallacy, lack of proof for a position (or simply lack of information) is used to try to support a particular claim. Even if it were true that the vast majority of the human mind is unused (which it clearly is not), that fact in no way implies that any extra capacity could somehow give people paranormal powers. This fallacy pops up all the time in paranormal claims, and is especially prevalent among UFO proponents. For example: Two people see a strange light in the sky. The first, a UFO believer, says, "See there! Can you explain that?" The skeptic replies that no, he can't. The UFO believer is gleeful. "Ha! You don't know what it is, so it must be aliens!" he says, arguing from ignorance.

What follows are two of the reasons that the Ten-Percent story is suspect. (For a much more thorough and detailed analysis of the subject, see Barry Beyerstein's chapter in the 1999 book Mind Myths: Exploring Everyday Mysteries of the Mind.)

1) Brain imaging research techniques such as PET scans (positron emission tomography) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) clearly show that the vast majority of the brain does not lie fallow. Indeed, although certain minor functions may use only a small part of the brain at one time, any sufficiently complex set of activities or thought patterns will indeed use many parts of the brain. Just as people don't use all of their muscle groups at one time, they also don't use all of their brain at once. For any given activity, such as eating, watching television, making love, or reading, you may use a few specific parts of your brain. Over the course of a whole day, however, just about all of the brain is used at one time or another.

2) The myth presupposes an extreme localization of functions in the brain. If the "used" or "necessary" parts of the brain were scattered all around the organ, that would imply that much of the brain is in fact necessary. But the myth implies that the "used" part of the brain is a discrete area, and the "unused" part is like an appendix or tonsil, taking up space but essentially unnecessary. But if all those parts of the brain are unused, removal or damage to the "unused" part of the brain should be minor or unnoticed. Yet people who have suffered head trauma, a stroke, or other brain injury are frequently severely impaired. Have you ever heard a doctor say, ". . . But luckily when that bullet entered his skull, it only damaged the 90 percent of his brain he didn't use"? Of course not.

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm

The moral of the story is that anti-evolutionism is greatly bolster by scientific ignorance by individuals.

[Xin Yu]

People! Please be cool. I just noticed two contradictory theories and claimed that one of them must be wrong. Then i randomly picked one to be the wrong one, which happened to be your beloved Darwin . Now I officially nullify my previous pick and I'll do another randomization and pick again (could still be Darwin though ).

BTW what is the meaning of 'take a stab'? Haven't heard the phrase before.

[notyoueither]

Take a stab?

Have a go, go out on a limb, pull something out of my ass, or something like that depending on the context.

[Xin Yu]

OK, 'take a stab' means: if you take the shortest stab then you are the fish bait?

I re-read the article sited by Mordoch. Good article and pretty convincing. But I'd like to see arguments from the other side. Like to see an article with a similar title to Mordoch's, but with 'evolution' replacing '10% mind'. There must be a bunch of such articles, right?

[DaShi]

Ajli, is that you?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
OK, 'take a stab' means: if you take the shortest stab then you are the fish bait?

I'm not sure what that means, but 'take a stab' generally equates to 'I doubt I really know what I'm doing, but I'll give it a try anyway.'

[Xin Yu]

I was thinking that the phrase might originate from this: one group of people trying to decide who will go out to do some dangerous stuff. One person holds several 'stab's with one of them shorter than the others. everybody picks a stab, the one with the shortest stab goes.

[notyoueither]

Ummm, no.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
People! Please be cool. I just noticed two contradictory theories and claimed that one of them must be wrong.

Blah. You only have one theory here. The other one is bollocks.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
This is why I hate popular science...

This and the dozens of emails I get a month explaining "photon hypothesis disproven" and "a new view of gravitation" from hotmail accounts...

Oooh, I know. They really make my t!ts drag too.....

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
I was thinking that the phrase might originate from this: one group of people trying to decide who will go out to do some dangerous stuff. One person holds several 'stab's with one of them shorter than the others. everybody picks a stab, the one with the shortest stab goes.

That's a straw, not a stab. A stab is the move you make with your hand when you attack someone or something with a pointy object, like a knife. A person who has been attacked with a knife has been 'stabbed'.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia


That's a straw, not a stab.

Mmm, that famous piece of music, Pergolesi's 'Strawmat Mater' composed after his visit to Kyoto.....

[Provost Harrison]

Re: If Darwin was correct

Originally posted by Xin Yu
If Darwin's evolution theory was correct, then we should have already used the full potential of our brains and bodies.

However there are theories saying that we only used 10% of our brains. Examples of people releasing brain and body power under emergency were not rare.

One of the two theories must be wrong.

I think darwin was wrong and we were created, what do you think?

That 10% figure is complete bullsh*t - the human brain doesn't work like that - it's a network broken down into specialised areas, and you won't use all these areas at once. It's like a hard drive - you don't access everything all at the same time. Trying to assign a statistic like that may work on the proportion of a hard drive you have used up but a brain works completely different, it can form new connections, new neural pathways.

Therefore the original premise of your point is completely moot.

[MRT144]

dude, xi, please tell me you arent going to berkeley