We get hiccups because it is a holdover from the ancient semi-terrestrial fish. Those fish had lungs and gills. When submerged, they automatically closed off their breathing tubes to protect their lungs. When emerging to the air, their breathing tubes automatically opened back up so they could breathe with their lungs . We still retain this reflex although it is just a vestigial holdover now. When this reflex is triggered, we involuntarily experience it as hiccups.

DWill wrote:. . . The need to believe that is diminishing, I think. Better science education can make people excited about the wonders of evolution and blah about the magical claims of Genesis.

One of the sticky points of fundamentalist belief, I think, has to do with a fallacious appeal to antiquity—also referred to as appeal to tradition. The universe is so ordered, just as our forbears saw it. These traditions must be valid and true by virtue of their antiquity and by the fact that they have been passed down the generations. A bit of circular logic there, but there is much appeal to this idea, especially if you are of a conservative temperament.

The Catholic Church is a great example of institutionalized resistance to change, which is women still can't be ordained as priests. There is a long history of the Church being men only and it would take tsunami of cultural upheaval to change it. As recently as 1994, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed that "only a Catholic male validly receives ordination, and "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women." (Wikipedia). Obviously the same goes for transgenders.

That said, some traditions are valid and can be shown to be useful over long periods of time. It goes to show that if you are of a liberal temperament, you are probably more inclined to freely toss the old traditions away, sometimes to our detriment.

Opponents of science often think of it as a big wall of nihilism and negation of everything that makes life meaningful via reductionism. In truth, branches of science hold differing conclusions on the efficacy of reductionism. The basic reductionist idea is that everything from one-celled animals reproducing at the bottom of a pond to lovers cuddling in a gondola floating down a canal in Venice to supernovas bursting into brilliant colors and fantastic shapes to pastel sunsets behind the distant mountain range are all the same thing at their root--particles in motion. This reduction comes in stages. Two lovers coupled in passion reduce to interactions of humans to interactions of organisms then to organs then to cells then to biochemistry to organic chemistry to chemistry to physics to particle physics to matter warping space which puts the particles in motion from which all else arises. Ultimately, we are particles in motion. Consciousness, knowledge, love, values and economy are little more than illusions--byproducts that arise when particles in motion interact.

This is essentially a Newtonian way of thinking and many scientists have a hard time shedding the Newtonian clockwork universe. Quantum Theory has poked holes in this Newtonian reductionist idea. The role of consciousness appears far more fundamental that reductionism can account. Still, some as Dennett, maintain that consciousness is merely an illusion. Dennett states that there is no center that receives sensory input that puts a full, continuous, complete, edited model of reality together but rather many incomplete drafts are formed in the brain and submitted to nothing. There is a certain elegance to this line of thought but I ultimately reject it. If there are many incomplete drafts of reality floating around in my brain, why does it seem to me that I have a single, coherent model? Why would it be necessary? Further, what is the "me" I refer to? Ultimately, consciousness, whatever it is, is real. But it is not reducible to physics, to particles in motion.

Evolution is the same way. It cannot be reduced to physics. Why can't it be, you may ask? Because particles in motion don't predict evolution. You cannot foresee the wide variety of organisms arising and changing from looking at particles in motion. We refer to this as "emergence." That which is emergent is not reducible to physics because the physics has no predictive power to foresee that emergence.



Life is itself emergent. Living things in all their bewildering diversity cannot be reduced to physics.



So what? You might be thinking. But consider the implication:

If we can't reduce the biosphere to physics upon which natural law is based, then it is beyond natural law and there can be no descriptions that could describe the diversity of organisms before it happened. Galileo's belief that the universe follows natural law is untrue. Think of it! There are no laws governing the unfolding of our biosphere! It happens on its own at that moment! In other words, the biosphere is self-constructing, self-directing, at every moment.

Likewise, we don't need any kind of god. No god was needed to create the universe and no god is required to keep it going. Creativity is inherent in the universe. It self-creates, it self-governs, and requires no laws. The universe is an anarchist--not in the sense of lawless chaos but in the sense and it requires no laws in order to function. It is non-authoritarian. In this universe, there is no room for god because there is no need of one.

Your post reminds me of the work of Stuart Kauffman, the complexity theorist who in books such as Reinventing the Sacred, elaborates the theory of self-organization. If what people want from religion is partly a sense of the mystery of the universe, they can find it in evolution. Kaufmann says that evolution operates patly on natural law, but its unfolding ultimately is beyond any natural law we've been able to discover. While he doesn't say Darwin was wrong about anything, he does suggest that natural selection isn't sufficient to explain evolution, and that we have to look at self-organization to conceive of the real nature of the process, although we may never be able to explain it.

Yes, I am presenting the ideas of Kauffman and Hazen--although they will not be only ones. I presented some of the ideas of Neil Shubin already also. I want to expose readers of the thread to all the thoughts and ideas of the modern evolutionist. These aren't MY ideas in case anyone wants to argue with me. I'm afraid I don't have anywhere close tot he qualifications. These are the latest and most salient ideas currently being floated in the sphere of evolutionist thought.

I did bring up Dennett on my own because I've read him and I think he's important. While I reject his conclusions on consciousness, I don't disparage him. We need people like him to throw these ideas into the ring of public debate. His ideas are well thought out and I appreciate his efforts--and I DO agree with a lot of what he says. But I just don't agree that consciousness is an illusion. But I like that he presents a well-researched and structured argument for it. He's a valuable devil's advocate.

DB Roy wrote:Evolution is the same way. It cannot be reduced to physics. Why can't it be, you may ask? Because particles in motion don't predict evolution. You cannot foresee the wide variety of organisms arising and changing from looking at particles in motion. We refer to this as "emergence." That which is emergent is not reducible to physics because the physics has no predictive power to foresee that emergence.

Hmm. I believe one of the chapters in Dennett's DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA is entitled "Biology Is Engineering" and another entitled "Who's Afraid of Reductionism?" I suspect one of the major stumbling blocks to understanding biology (and consciousness) in terms of pure physics and engineering is the steep learning curve. Maybe humans simply don't have the chops to figure it all out or maybe we just need worlds enough and time. So far every layer of the onion pulled back reveals many more layers underneath. (As such "reductionism" may rather a misnomer.) So I don't think we're in danger of figuring it all out any time soon.

But certainly at least some emergent properties are predictable. I believe it was Dawkins who pointed out that eyes will tend to appear in worlds where vision is an advantage, as they have on earth several times. Wings too. Fins will appear in aquatic environments. Life itself is an emergent property, but only in environments conducive to it.

Difficult to test empirically, I know. But it seems rather intuitive to understand that where flight may serve to be advantageous to a creature's survival, wings will likely emerge at some point.

DB Roy wrote:Ultimately, we are particles in motion. Consciousness, knowledge, love, values and economy are little more than illusions--byproducts that arise when particles in motion interact.

The problem here is the meaning of this metaphysical term "ultimately". The reality of what we are can be viewed scientifically as meaning how we explain the causal mechanisms of existence. Alternatively, existence can be explored in a systems way, asking how you as an individual connect to the rest of reality.

Causal explanation breaks down the meso-level reality of personal existence into its physical factors, cascading from biology to physics. While of course that scientific explanation is powerful and true, its problem is that it lacks capacity to discuss how human experience is primarily spiritual, formed by relationships of language and care where the constructed entities of the world acquire an evolutionary memetic force of their own, separate from their genetic identity.

The physical explanation of evolution underpins the identity of the soul as an emergent property, but the meaning of being in the world as care requires acceptance of the spiritual autonomy of our constructed world. "Ultimately", it makes just as much sense to set the ideal value framework of being in the world as the axiomatic foundation of systematic logic as it does to accept the materialist picture developed in the scientific worldview.

DB Roy wrote:For those deny evolution and don't think we evolved from fish, explain why we get hiccups.

Eating too much or too quickly
Feeling nervous or excited
Drinking carbonated beverages or too much alcohol
Stress
A sudden change in temperature
Swallowing air while sucking on candy or chewing gum
webmd.com/digestive-disorders/why-do-i- ... i-hiccup#1

Litwitlou wrote:

Eating too much or too quickly
Feeling nervous or excited
Drinking carbonated beverages or too much alcohol
Stress
A sudden change in temperature
Swallowing air while sucking on candy or chewing gum
webmd.com/digestive-disorders/why-do-i- ... i-hiccup#1

[/quote]

Those are the triggers of the reflex but not the reflex itself. I've often gotten hiccups for no reason at all. There is no particular reason why we should get hiccups. It doesn't serve any purpose. If you get hiccups while playing one of the members of the violin family, that can ruin a recital. Where does this reflex come from? We didn't evolve to have it, it's something carried forward in the course of our evolution that we don't need but we can't get rid of in one fell swoop and I've explained what that is.

DB Roy wrote: Those are the triggers of the reflex but not the reflex itself. I've often gotten hiccups for no reason at all. There is no particular reason why we should get hiccups. It doesn't serve any purpose. If you get hiccups while playing one of the members of the violin family, that can ruin a recital. Where does this reflex come from? We didn't evolve to have it, it's something carried forward in the course of our evolution that we don't need but we can't get rid of in one fell swoop and I've explained what that is.

From what I understand all life evolved from single cell organisms. To pick fish, from the vast array of life forms in the millions of years before the existence of hominids as the reason for hiccups, is far-fetched. Yes, hiccups can ruin a recital but so can a psychopath with an AR15. From what life form did we inherit sociopathy? There is no particular reason we should have sociopaths. They serve no purpose.

Hiccups are an overwhelmingly innocuous side effect of the evolution of our digestive and respiratory systems. Fish need not enter the equation as per Occam's Razor. I read your explanation of the fish/hiccups theory and remain spectacularly unconvinced.

I am very curious to know where you found the information on which you based that theory.