"When an artifact as simple as an arrowhead is found, we understand that someone with intelligence made it–indeed we understand that to be the case for all “complex” or “non-natural” artifacts. We have here in DNA an artifact that we cannot duplicate, a technology that we cannot imagine and yet; we can believe that it came about by a totally random process over billions of years?
The truth is, once the nature of DNA became known, all naturalistic explanations for the universe and for life on earth were dead–except for those whose “thinking had become futile and whose foolish hearts were darkened”–(Romans 1 paraphrase). --Those who would rather be “intellectually fulfilled as Atheists”.
Again, H.P. Yockey notes in the Journal of Theoretical Biology: “It is important to understand that we are not reasoning by analogy. The sequence hypothesis [that the exact order of symbols records the information] applies directly to the protein and the genetic text as well as to written language and therefore the treatment is mathematically identical.”(DNA IS A LANGUAGE)
[quote]borrek wrote:
I have an earnest question for the creationists here. God created man in dominion of the animals, and we are set apart from all animals and are made in God’s image. Do you guys believe that neanderthals existed? They were not man (homo sapiens) were they animals instead?[/quote]
God, IMHO, created a magnificent blueprint. Our task is to fulfill the bluepring of the ‘Master Architect’.
Just like your immune system reacts when you have an injury, God reacts when you are in serious pain. Sometimes it is better to let someone suffer or even die and God does that. Other times, God may intervene or speak to you. His wisdom is immense so one can only trust in him.
I have experienced tremendous deaths and pain in life. Re-living same would be immensely painful for me, so I’ll simply say: Trust in God. Our lives are merely a birthing process for the true reality which awaits.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
"When an artifact as simple as an arrowhead is found, we understand that someone with intelligence made it–indeed we understand that to be the case for all “complex” or “non-natural” artifacts. We have here in DNA an artifact that we cannot duplicate, a technology that we cannot imagine and yet; we can believe that it came about by a totally random process over billions of years?
The truth is, once the nature of DNA became known, all naturalistic explanations for the universe and for life on earth were dead–except for those whose “thinking had become futile and whose foolish hearts were darkened”–(Romans 1 paraphrase). --Those who would rather be “intellectually fulfilled as Atheists”.
Again, H.P. Yockey notes in the Journal of Theoretical Biology: “It is important to understand that we are not reasoning by analogy. The sequence hypothesis [that the exact order of symbols records the information] applies directly to the protein and the genetic text as well as to written language and therefore the treatment is mathematically identical.”(DNA IS A LANGUAGE)
In an infinite universe, the possibilities of something happening over such a long period of time are actually quite good. Not quite 1 for EVERYTHING, but evolution is certainly hovering somewhere near 1.
Look, just because we can’t prove the process happened, doesn’t mean “God did it.”
“God did it,” is not science, because you cannot prove it wrong. It is philosophy. Reasonable philosophy given all the evidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Push, I have one more book recommendation for you. It’s not a substitute for the Leakey book (although the title is practically identical), nor do I insist that you read it, but I think it might be interesting to you.
The author is a professor of philosophy, which should appeal to you in light of your preceding statement that [quote]it ALL becomes philosophy when you’re dealing with the distant, unobservable past[/quote]. He is an adherent the “third way” school of thought that I spoke of earlier: that “conventional human evolutionary theory is entirely compatible with sound Scriptural interpretation and traditional theology” (from the book jacket).
The book is called The Origin of the Human Species, by Dr. Dennis Bonnette.
Here’s an article he wrote on the God and Science web site. It might help you decide whether you want to read further.
His point was that it was an experiment designed by intelligent beings. This will get pointed out any time an experiment is done showing the possibility of spontaneous evolution.
Oh. Gotcha. Didn’t quite catch that. That really wasn’t the point of the experiment, however…
So… yeah… :P[/quote]
But don’t you see - this experiment was entirely created by an intelligent designer - after reading the article, they created the very enzymatic molecules that then worked in the manner in which they were intended to . . . that’s the real irony.
His point was that it was an experiment designed by intelligent beings. This will get pointed out any time an experiment is done showing the possibility of spontaneous evolution.
Oh. Gotcha. Didn’t quite catch that. That really wasn’t the point of the experiment, however…
So… yeah…
But don’t you see - this experiment was entirely created by an intelligent designer - after reading the article, they created the very enzymatic molecules that then worked in the manner in which they were intended to . . . that’s the real irony.
Sorry if you guys missed the humor in that . . .[/quote]
Here’s my argument favouring intelligent design… :>
[quote]borrek wrote:
I have an earnest question for the creationists here. God created man in dominion of the animals, and we are set apart from all animals and are made in God’s image. Do you guys believe that neanderthals existed? They were not man (homo sapiens) were they animals instead?[/quote]
well now, there’s an interesting question.
I am no expert by any means - but you asked for opinions
From my understanding, not even a remotely complete skeleton has ever been found - so there’s a lot of speculation about the neanderthals and their actual anatomy, but very little hard facts - I’ve tried my best to understand the support for the being this hominid species, but to be honest, I simply see a short version of a human - you’d find as much anatomical diversity in the human species today as you find between the prototypical human and the proposed neanderthal . . .
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Push, I have one more book recommendation for you. It’s not a substitute for the Leakey book (although the title is practically identical), nor do I insist that you read it, but I think it might be interesting to you.
The author is a professor of philosophy, which should appeal to you in light of your preceding statement that it ALL becomes philosophy when you’re dealing with the distant, unobservable past. He is an adherent the “third way” school of thought that I spoke of earlier: that “conventional human evolutionary theory is entirely compatible with sound Scriptural interpretation and traditional theology” (from the book jacket).
The book is called The Origin of the Human Species, by Dr. Dennis Bonnette.
Here’s an article he wrote on the God and Science web site. It might help you decide whether you want to read further.
Pardon my intrusion. Read the link and I think that animals are capable of abstract cognition, simply not at the same level as humans.
I once had the habit of feeding a very friendly squirrel in my back yard. One day, as winter was coming on, he or she came toward me carrying a lot of nesting material. The squirrel put the material about 2 feet away from my feet, and scampered off. It was helping me and thanking me for the food.
So IMHO humans are simply ‘animals +’. Nothing wrong with that, but the argument about our consciousness just doesn’t wash with me.
The first nearly complete Neandertal skeleton, found in France in 1908
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
From my understanding, not even a remotely complete skeleton has ever been found - so there’s a lot of speculation about the neanderthals and their actual anatomy, but very little hard facts - I’ve tried my best to understand the support for the being this hominid species, but to be honest, I simply see a short version of a human - you’d find as much anatomical diversity in the human species today as you find between the prototypical human and the proposed neanderthal . . .[/quote]
Sorry, Irish, but that’s just not so.
In 1908, the first nearly complete Neandertal skeleton was found in Chapelle-aux-Saints in France, and in 1953 another nine complete skeletons were found in Shanidar caves, in Iraq.
The Neandertal genome has been thoroughly researched at the Max Planck institute in Germany, and the study has unequivocally established that the mitochondrial DNA of Neandertal Man falls outside the variation of modern human DNA.
Neandertal Man is our closest cousin, but he’s not quite us. Whether our species and his ever interbred is still a matter of controversy, of course, but whether his species and ours are the same is not.
…quite a nice and comprehensive index of recent developments and discoveries on the subject of human prehistory. Just a couple of headlines from that page:
(Newser) - Scientists have pieced together the skull of an ancient human who appears to have been deformed, but survived to at least age 5?suggesting he or she was cared for in spite of the handicap. That?s evidence for the existence of compassion in early humans, a trait other primates don?t show, Wired reports. The discovery points to a branching-off in human evolution up to half a million years ago.
(Newser) - Scientists have unearthed ancient footprints that reveal humanity’s ancestors walked with a modern stride as long as 1.5 million years ago, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer . Researchers believe the tracks?left beside a muddy river bank in Kenya and preserved when the river changed course?belong to human ancestor Homo erectus , and provide vital clues to how humanity began.
(Newser) - Scientists using ancient fossils have pieced together a rough draft of Neanderthals’ genetic code, the Times of London reports. The development could eventually shed light on how they thought, spoke, and functioned, and why they disappeared. Because Neanderthals are humans’ closest relatives, scientists may be able to get a better sense of just what enabled homo sapiens to dominate the world. No family reunions, though: There’s nowhere near enough DNA to consider cloning.
(Newser) - Analysis of DNA from a thigh bone is helping solve the longstanding question of what happened to Neanderthals. Did they simply die off, were they killed by more modern humans?or did the two groups interbreed? DNA from the Neanderthal bone is so different from that of modern humans that interbreeding now appears highly unlikely, the Independent reports, making it likely that our ancestors were to blame.
(Newser) - The real-life inspiration for the biblical flood may have been responsible for the widespread adoption of agriculture in Europe, according to a new study. About 8,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, ice sheets melted, causing massive flooding in the Black Sea basin. That forced farmers to disperse, and they migrated to new areas where people still relied on hunting and gathering.
(Newser) - A new study of three wrist bones from an 18,000-year-old fossil shows that the so-called hobbits of Indonesia were, indeed, a separate human species. When the bones were discovered in 2003, scientists trumpeted the find as evidence of a smaller species, Homo floresiensis. But skeptics argued that the hobbit, at 3 feet tall with a brain the size of a grapefruit, was in fact a human afflicted by microcephaly, a brain-shrinking disorder.
Old Arabic saying: “a beautiful woman is proof of the existence of God.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. With no gunfire or arm-wrestling involved. I’m actually feeling Rodney King-ish and a little bit giddy too.
I dare someone to look me into the eye and tell me this woman ^^^^ evolved and that God had been nowhere near the pottery wheel before she strutted out of the kiln. Go ahead. I dare you.
;-)[/quote]
…that’s a perfect example… of evolution, right there. Wide hips, firm buttocks, perfect breast size [i assume], healthy; the perfect specimen to reproduce with. That is why we find her attractive, it’s a genetic imperative, lol…
You might fit Turkana Boy (Homo erectus) here into a suitcase, but not the entire hominid fossil record.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I do not have a link handy so maybe I should not respond but I have heard quite the opposite - that there has been viable scientific opposition to the finding you mentioned.
I should hunt around and see if I can locate one.
On another note, I recently read that all the so-called prehistoric human fossils ever discovered…would fit in a suitcase. That’s how little evidence there is to work with, regardless of which side of the evolutionary debate fence one sits on. Correct me if I’m wrong.[/quote]
If so, then it would have to be a really big suitcase, or else all of the fossils would have to be pulverized and compressed into a solid block, in which case the suitcase would weigh a ton.
Thousands of prehistoric human and hominid fossils have been found. Most are admittedly fragments, but hundreds of skulls and several complete or nearly complete skeletons have been unearthed, along with tools and other artifacts.
Heres a link to a page over at TalkOrigins (which you may rightly object to as being closed-mindedly biased against creationism), but which nevertheless provides a handy reference of the fossil evidence so far unearthed.
I’ve tried without success to find any objections in the scientific community to the findings of the Max Planck Neandertal genome sequencing study. I hope you’ll give me a link if you can. I’d be interested in reading them.
