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Old 11-21-2018, 05:44 PM
 
Location: planet earth
8,620 posts, read 5,620,113 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
Perhaps it was. It's not an absolute that a young mother cannot care for her young. If she has an adequate food supply and protection from predators and the elements, why couldn't she? The children of those who did not have the ability or resources didn't survive, and many such mothers probably didn't either. The fittest survived.

A 12-year-old is completely capable of taking care of an infant. When I was 12, I made a lot of money doing just that. Of course, the kids weren't MINE.
I don't know. I guess it depends on the child, her awareness and maturity, and her support system.

I would say, as a parent, I was really dumb - even in my twenties - as a 12 year-old, I would have probably left a baby in the sun and gone to the movies, who knows? (Exaggerating to make a point for those who are about to call the police).
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Old 11-21-2018, 06:01 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness View Post
I don't know. I guess it depends on the child, her awareness and maturity, and her support system.

I would say, as a parent, I was really dumb - even in my twenties - as a 12 year-old, I would have probably left a baby in the sun and gone to the movies, who knows? (Exaggerating to make a point for those who are about to call the police).
you are judging from appearing in the 21st century.

think of a cell phone that was made in the 80's as compared to today. was it a design flaw?
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Old 11-21-2018, 06:14 PM
 
Location: Kent, Ohio
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Originally Posted by TroutDude View Post
And you are a fundie. Too bad. So sad.
I didn't interpret this as the OP of a fundi because I don't think any fundi would even remotely consider the possibility of a divine "design flaw". Obviously the quick and correct answer has already been given. There is no "design" involved and no "flaw". All that really mattered in the grand scheme was good reproductive fitness. Period. With a population of 7 billion and rising, it is hardly a flaw from that point of view. Evolution doesn't care about discomfort or pain or emotional devastation except to whatever extent it impacts reproductive success. I thought this was really the point of the OP. A lot of biological riggings are hard to see as "good planning" from a standpoint of human happiness, mechanical efficiency, morality...and this is one of them. In my mind, this is one of many, many biological facts that count against the ID model. But, of course, the believers can always insist that we simply don't understand the master plan of the infinite divine mind and there's not much to say in response except "yeah, good luck with that."

The key moral lesson is simply to recognize that, indeed, evolution does not care about our emotional and moral comfort. (Even if there is a God who somehow cares, the system in which we actually live does not care.) As civilized social beings we collectively decide what is an appropriate age of social/emotional development, etc., and we live in an environment that is lightyears removed from the paleolithic environment that carved out our biology. Biologically speaking, we can't fault anyone for feeling sexual arousal for adolescents. Feelings, in themselves, are not moral or immoral. It is behavior is moral or immoral. How you deal with your feelings determines your home in the moral landscape.

Someone who lives their entire life successfully resisting urges to kill or abuse people is not a moral monster. They are, if anything, a sort of hero. Monsters arise when people have destructive urges that they fail to manage. If there really is a God, and there really is a grand plan, then my guess would be that those who successfully survive that greatest destructive temptations without causing harm to others are probably the greatest "heroes" in God's mind. (I think some recognition of this basic perspective is reflected in the story of the temptations of Christ on the cross. Psychologically, we want heroes to overcome great challenges - not people who simply do good things by accident, or just because it was easy and convenient for them to do.)

But I don't think I can really believe in a good and all-powerful God who designs a system wherein so many children suffer from devastating violence done by those who fail the hero test. And, of course, these abused children, in turn, often grow up to be the failed heroes of the next generation, thus perpetuating the cycles of trauma. I just don't see this as a good "design" if God is anything remotely close to loving and "all powerful"

Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 11-21-2018 at 06:44 PM..
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Old 11-21-2018, 06:44 PM
 
Location: planet earth
8,620 posts, read 5,620,113 times
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In looking at other species, I do not see the same design flaws.

Birds kick their young out of the nest. Some survive, some do not. Mom is not devastated in either case (as far as I know). That is a pure survival model.

Human beings are different. It is much harder for a human infant to survive without a "good" mother (meaning a mother who provides food, care, and a secure, safe environment). Given that human beings are much more fragile than other species, it would indicate a great design flaw to have young girls who can procreate.

A much more efficient design model would have been to prolong menstruation to age 20 or more to effect a better rate of survival for the infant. That, or speed up human development so that a 12 year-old would be emotionally and physically, and financially able to mother a child.
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Old 11-21-2018, 07:00 PM
 
28,432 posts, read 11,521,721 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness View Post
In looking at other species, I do not see the same design flaws.

Birds kick their young out of the nest. Some survive, some do not. Mom is not devastated in either case (as far as I know). That is a pure survival model.

Human beings are different. It is much harder for a human infant to survive without a "good" mother (meaning a mother who provides food, care, and a secure, safe environment). Given that human beings are much more fragile than other species, it would indicate a great design flaw to have young girls who can procreate.

A much more efficient design model would have been to prolong menstruation to age 20 or more to effect a better rate of survival for the infant. That, or speed up human development so that a 12 year-old would be emotionally and physically, and financially able to mother a child.
what if you were dead by 20, like I am sure many were 100,000 to 20,000 years ago?

then what would you do?
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Old 11-21-2018, 07:05 PM
 
Location: Ontario, Canada
31,374 posts, read 20,091,717 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arach Angle View Post
what if you were dead by 20, like I am sure many were 100,000 to 20,000 years ago?

then what would you do?
Exactly.

Maybe Neanderthals died out because they could not reproduce until 15 or 16? There are still more questions than answers out there.

Our job is to keep evolving until we're smart enough to ask and answer them all.
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Old 11-21-2018, 07:27 PM
 
Location: planet earth
8,620 posts, read 5,620,113 times
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Well, it worked in tribal societies, probably due to the fact that if mom was a baby, grandma would step in to assure survival.

It's just not a smart design, or if it was, it did not evolve to be functional in today's society.
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Old 11-21-2018, 07:55 PM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,923,411 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness View Post
Well, it worked in tribal societies, probably due to the fact that if mom was a baby, grandma would step in to assure survival.

It's just not a smart design, or if it was, it did not evolve to be functional in today's society.
Is this more of a science than religion question? We should probably take one tack or the other to answer it...otherwise it will just keep going back and forth.

If science, there are pages and pages of explanations that do indeed make sense, but as I said, it is fairly involved and includes the evolution not only of the physical body but of societies, and how this has entwined to produce some seriously amped up technologically vocal results that would otherwise be unlikely at best, impossible at worst.

It's a tradeoff. By now adolescent brain growth has slowed to the point that decision making and impulse control really aren't what they were in pre-agricultural society...but it's a lot more complex than just that. Should this thread move to a more science based subforum?

Last edited by JerZ; 11-21-2018 at 08:04 PM..
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Old 11-21-2018, 08:18 PM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,923,411 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness View Post
Well, it worked in tribal societies, probably due to the fact that if mom was a baby, grandma would step in to assure survival.

It's just not a smart design, or if it was, it did not evolve to be functional in today's society.
Nothing does. Evolution doesn't "plan" in that way.

Any given society could be gone tomorrow. How could we "evolve" to fit just one snapshot in time and locale, and expect to survive change? Indeed, humans adapting to change may be key to our enormous numeric success (thus far) across the planet.

The ovaries don't plan on Grandma stepping in to deliver bananas. The ovaries produce produce produce because in case of plague, natural disaster, whatever might threaten any given species, to hell with longer childhoods and better education and cooler technology and youngsters who still like playing with Monster High dolls not enjoying getting raped, MAKE MORE BABIES STAT and the more pregnancies, the more ultimate humans even given how many will almost certainly die...just make more more more more. Then the strongest will survive. Lather, rinse, repeat and the species' numbers begin to build back up; crisis averted.

That works for immediate survival and reproduction. It works for nearly every species, actually. As you said, many of those baby birds kicked out of the nest will die. Full stop. If this seems like the preferable way to exist long term, though, then I'd say a degree of humanity is missing. Biologically, not poetically.
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Old 11-21-2018, 08:18 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,292 posts, read 84,292,537 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness View Post
In looking at other species, I do not see the same design flaws.

Birds kick their young out of the nest. Some survive, some do not. Mom is not devastated in either case (as far as I know). That is a pure survival model.

Human beings are different. It is much harder for a human infant to survive without a "good" mother (meaning a mother who provides food, care, and a secure, safe environment). Given that human beings are much more fragile than other species, it would indicate a great design flaw to have young girls who can procreate.

A much more efficient design model would have been to prolong menstruation to age 20 or more to effect a better rate of survival for the infant. That, or speed up human development so that a 12 year-old would be emotionally and physically, and financially able to mother a child.
At one time many adult humans didn't survive to 20 or much past it. You're thinking of an optimum age that takes into account much more than survival.

Not all birds kick their young out of the nest, by the way. I know a family of crows who is carting around one offspring from last year and then produced another one this year. The older one helps look after the younger one.
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