Evolution for evolution's sake; Stone tools use helped shape modern human hands

reply to post by punkinworks10


sweet! it's an awesome feeing to make your own tool in time of need and have it all work.. stone tools do not need to be pretty, just effective.
i used to lead a therapeutic class doing knapping and primitive skills, foraging, friction fires etc with troubled teens, including autistic kids who would hardly speak or show interest in anything and highly ADHD kids who could not focus for more than 30 seconds - the effect of making things from pure scratch, that allowed us to make other things and build up our resources and potential was quite profound.
we hunted for hammerstones, spalled out blanks from our flint store and fashioned blades, then used them to cut saplings for shafts. gathered pine resin and rigged up a slate and trench hot plate to melt it and mix it into glue, powered by a bow drill fire. we collected bark to process and make into cordage and processed raw hide for bindings and finally combined it all into some bloody good spears and darts, we even did some atlatl work and cooked bacon on hot stones for 11sies... we collected the fat to use in sandstone lamps too.
i'm rambling now, but it was tremendous fun and i learnt more about the life of prehistoric man through practicing ancient crafts and working in nature than i ever did at university

reply to post by skalla


Nice,
That's really cool you did that with kids in trouble.
I was taught many of the same things as a kid, at the time I didn't know pops and my uncles were putting me in touch with how my ancestors lived, I had to learn how to start a fire with a hand fire drill before my dad let me do it with a bow drill. It's so much easier with a bow drill. I have just learned, from reading native Californians myth, that you gather California buckeye in the summer from the foothills, for the drill. The buckeye fire dormant in the summer and its wood is straight hard and already dry, then you use shredded bark from the incense ceadar for tinder and you'll always have fire.

reply to post by punkinworks10


thats awesome, i'm a dab hand with bow drill and have used them with burins for drilling holes in wood and stone too but have never attempted hand drill yet, i guess i love my bow and hate blisters - my hand always have cuts all over them and i think they probs dont want much more punishment! i've read loads about woods and plants for hand drill from the states but never in the uk - it's on the to-do list but thats obvs pretty long... i tend to use crack willow, uk sycamore (known as plane to you guys iirc), hazel and chestnut for spindles, and lime is easily the king of hearth boards in britain - just wonderful stuff.
if i'm out walking/foraging i'll collect nest/tinder material such as honeysuckle, bull rush, birch and cedar bark and punky wood and just pocket it for later... obvs its often fairly wet over here so it dries in the pocket from body heat and is also broken up a bit when fire time comes

Originally posted by resoe26
-Guess the only difference is, with evolution there is no "afterlife".
with the so called "sky fairy", there possibly is.

You actually just inadvertently explained the exact reason why people prefer to believe in sky daddy. Human beings have a self-preservation instinct, as do all animals for that matter. We however, are probably the only species that has a concept of our inevitable death. This results in what is known as cognitive dissonance. We have a self-preservation instinct that conflicts with the reality that we will eventually die, so naturally the majority of people like to think that sky daddy will yank the 'soul' out of our bodies the very moment we die so we can go to an eternal wonderland and continue life there. It's just wishful thinking because the idea of absolutely no existence at all is too much for the human ego to handle. Ironically that self-preservation instinct and the resulting cognitive dissonance was actually a result of evolution. Those who had the drive to live longer, did live longer. Thus it became permanently wired into our psyche, albeit with some side effects like I mentioned above.

So tell me, how is science doing in proving god's existence?

reply to post by Xaphan


I don´t want to get in the middle of this discussion. But I would like to ask you both a question.

Why is it either a belief in god without the science, or a "belief" or rather understanding of science without a god?

Why couldn´t god have created the universe including the known science? Why can´t somebody know that evolution is real and still believe in some form of afterlife for example.

I have never understood that, why we have to "fight" between those two camps. Just merge them!

Originally posted by Nightaudit
Why couldn´t god have created the universe including the known science? Why can´t somebody know that evolution is real and still believe in some form of afterlife for example.

I've thought about this numerous times, and always came to the conclusion that nature is too imperfect to have been created by any kind of intelligent entity. Why would a creator choose such a messy and time consuming method of propagating life on a physical plane of existence such as evolution? When you think of the amount of people and animals that have suffered because of this it just doesn't seem probable. There have been so many genetic defects and diseases, many of which we still haven't evolved past, and probably have no chance of evolving past now because modern medicine has more or less hindered evolution.

I just can't bring myself to believe that something was powerful enough to create this vast magnificent universe, but at the last minute shrugged its shoulders and said "Oh, sorry about all those diseases and stuff. I couldn't figure all that out."

Originally posted by Xaphan

Originally posted by resoe26
-Guess the only difference is, with evolution there is no "afterlife".
with the so called "sky fairy", there possibly is.

So tell me, how is science doing in proving god's existence?

Good question.
I assume this is why the bible and religious figures preach on "faith" so much.
And yes, I know that the vast majority of folks prefer to believe there is an afterlife because of fear of dying or never existing after. Strange to think of and certainly humbles the populace. But then again, how many folks sit and think upon thier lives and how they will eventually meet thier demise some day?
--I'm gonna guess not many.
I don't feel the majority actually looks in the mirror at thier reflection, and actually tries to "SEE" themselves for who they are.
-and hell, dwelling on death is one of my dreaded past times. To think that one day I will have to bury my mother or father is sickening to me. Even worse, that they may have to bury thier son.
Life is strange. Salud