Dude, neither you nor your scientist priests seem to have the first clue about using the scientific method.
Thanks Bro for proving my point. This article is a prime example of how evolutionary science does not follow the scientific method. Case in point, there has been no proven connection between ape genomes and human genomes (that means no proven link) Yet, instead of developing a new hypothesis (as the scientific method dictates) they assume it is true and say “Comparing the human genome to the chimpanzee genome has allowed scientists to identify changes in the human genetic code that were so advantageous that they rapidly became the norm throughout humanity.”
Can you not see that they first have to prove humans evolved from apes and then look at the changes?
So boys and girls, assumption and conjecture are not proof and not scientific.
Explain the fossil record as it stands now. Using a strict biblical account, explain what australopithicus was, explain what the ramapithicine fossils are remants of. They’re not human, not homo sapiens sapiens, and they’re not apes. They were intellegent, non-human, tool using, clothes wearing (in some cases) primates that lived… when? How do 10,000 year old upright walking tool using non-human primates fit into the 6,000 year old Young Earth?
[quote]Xvim wrote:
Explain the fossil record as it stands now. [/quote]
Yeah, I think I’ll quit my job, kick the wife and kids our the door and spend the next several months anwering this question for you. You don’t ask for much do you?
Now taking into account that you actually don’t want an extremely detailed treatise, be more specific and I will anwer your question. Do be a stud and YOU explain to me the fossil record as it stands now. When I see your answer, I’ll get a better idea what you’re looking for.
In the meantime, …millions of of plants and animals, buried in water and rapidly covered in mud…
[quote]Xvim wrote:
… explain what australopithicus was…[/quote]
Papers published in the 12 July, 2001 issue of Nature including, ?Return to the Planet of the Apes,? has led several widely read magazines to write articles relevant to human origins. This has prompted many to question the significance of the find to creation. The authors claim that a group of hominids older than Lucy (the famous Australopithicus fossil) has been found giving us evidence that bipedalism evolved earlier and for different reasons than had been thought. The fossils found include 11 tooth and bone fragments (one of which was a toe bone) thought to represent five individuals. The associated fossil flora and fauna indicate that the animals lived in a forest habitat. The primary researcher claims that, based on tooth shape wear patterns, the animals were more primitive (i.e., more ape-like) than Australopithecus, but more like a hominid (ancestor of man) than like a chimp. These fossils have been tentatively classified Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba.
What are the facts? First, there was nothing really anatomically new reported this find. Paleontologists have found remains of several ape-like animals?including the Australopithecines, which evolutionists generally believe walked somewhat upright, at least part of the time. However, there are some evolutionists, such as Charles Oxnard and Lord Zuckerman, whose studies convinced them the Australopithecines did not walk upright in the human manner and thus were not human ancestors. The significance seems to be more in the supposed age of this find and the evidence of the climate in which the animal lived. We do not think that dating method is reliable (for reasons discussed in other articles), and the evidence of living in a wooded area, while interesting, is insignificant to creationists? interpretation.
An article in Time magazine (July 23, 2001) written about this find mentions comments by Donald Johanson (discoverer of Lucy) in which he questions whether the toe bone, which is the most significant bone mentioned in this find, was even associated with the other fossils listed, because it was found 10 miles away and was assigned an age of several hundreds of thousands of years younger than other bones and teeth. But it is this bone which leads to the conclusion of upright posture.
Bernard Wood, professor of human origins at George Washington University, said that maybe we should not think of bipedalism as that which separates man from apes. His example is that ?birds have wings, but not all creatures with wings are birds.? ( Time by Lemonick and Dorfman, page 61.) Though not a creationist, his idea fits well in a creationist?s interpretation. Even if Ardipithecus walked upright (an idea for which the evidence is both scanty and questionable), it still does not prove an ape ancestry for humans.
Papers published in the 12 July, 2001 issue of Nature including, ?Return to the Planet of the Apes,? has led several widely read magazines to write articles relevant to human origins. This has prompted many to question the significance of the find to creation. The authors claim that a group of hominids older than Lucy (the famous Australopithicus fossil) has been found giving us evidence that bipedalism evolved earlier and for different reasons than had been thought. The fossils found include 11 tooth and bone fragments (one of which was a toe bone) thought to represent five individuals. The associated fossil flora and fauna indicate that the animals lived in a forest habitat. The primary researcher claims that, based on tooth shape wear patterns, the animals were more primitive (i.e., more ape-like) than Australopithecus, but more like a hominid (ancestor of man) than like a chimp. These fossils have been tentatively classified Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba.
What are the facts? First, there was nothing really anatomically new reported this find. Paleontologists have found remains of several ape-like animals?including the Australopithecines, which evolutionists generally believe walked somewhat upright, at least part of the time. However, there are some evolutionists, such as Charles Oxnard and Lord Zuckerman, whose studies convinced them the Australopithecines did not walk upright in the human manner and thus were not human ancestors. The significance seems to be more in the supposed age of this find and the evidence of the climate in which the animal lived. We do not think that dating method is reliable (for reasons discussed in other articles), and the evidence of living in a wooded area, while interesting, is insignificant to creationists? interpretation.
An article in Time magazine (July 23, 2001) written about this find mentions comments by Donald Johanson (discoverer of Lucy) in which he questions whether the toe bone, which is the most significant bone mentioned in this find, was even associated with the other fossils listed, because it was found 10 miles away and was assigned an age of several hundreds of thousands of years younger than other bones and teeth. But it is this bone which leads to the conclusion of upright posture.
Bernard Wood, professor of human origins at George Washington University, said that maybe we should not think of bipedalism as that which separates man from apes. His example is that ?birds have wings, but not all creatures with wings are birds.? ( Time by Lemonick and Dorfman, page 61.) Though not a creationist, his idea fits well in a creationist?s interpretation. Even if Ardipithecus walked upright (an idea for which the evidence is both scanty and questionable), it still does not prove an ape ancestry for humans.
Bottom line: a few tooth and bone fragments, with very inconclusive results. Even evolutionists say this.
The most significant bone in this collection was a toe bone and it was found over ten miles from the rest.
Australopithecus africanus - this was at one time promoted as the missing link. It is no longer considered to be on the line from apes to humans. It is very ape-like.
[quote]Xvim wrote:
explain what the ramapithicine fossils are remants of. They’re not human, not homo sapiens sapiens, and they’re not apes. They were intellegent, non-human, tool using, clothes wearing (in some cases) primates that lived… when? How do 10,000 year old upright walking tool using non-human primates fit into the 6,000 year old Young Earth?[/quote]
Ramapithecus - once widely regarded as the ancestor of humans, it has now been realized that it is merely an extinct type of orangutan (an ape).
Xvim, you’re way off on the theoretical age of ole’ Rama. He’s supposed to be 8 - 14 million years old not 10,000. You have got to get it together, bud.
[quote]Xvim wrote:
Explain the fossil record as it stands now. Using a strict biblical account, explain what australopithicus was, explain what the ramapithicine fossils are remants of. They’re not human, not homo sapiens sapiens, and they’re not apes. They were intellegent, non-human, tool using, clothes wearing (in some cases) primates that lived… when? How do 10,000 year old upright walking tool using non-human primates fit into the 6,000 year old Young Earth?[/quote]
How do you get tool-using, clothes wearing non-humans from a few disputable bone fragments? Well, you…speculate a lot, … assume a lot… and … you have a lot of faith!
Dude, neither you nor your scientist priests seem to have the first clue about using the scientific method. [/quote]
Yeah, but you and your fundie friends DO…LOL. Is that how you came to realize that the earth is 6,000 years old and Noah rode to work on a dinosaur every morning?
What are you talking about?? Degree of relatedness testing between the genomes has confirmed exactly what evolutionary theory predicts through separate lines of inference like the fossil record. You think it’s just a fluky coincidence that the genomes are so similar? Why do similar patterns like this hold across other predicitons?? Did the Devil make it that way to deceive us and test our faith in the baby jesus??
[quote]pushharder wrote:
throttle132 wrote:
Xvim wrote:
explain what the ramapithicine fossils are remants of. They’re not human, not homo sapiens sapiens, and they’re not apes. They were intellegent, non-human, tool using, clothes wearing (in some cases) primates that lived… when? How do 10,000 year old upright walking tool using non-human primates fit into the 6,000 year old Young Earth?
Ramapithecus - once widely regarded as the ancestor of humans, it has now been realized that it is merely an extinct type of orangutan (an ape).
Xvim, you’re way off on the theoretical age of ole’ Rama. He’s supposed to be 8 - 14 million years old not 10,000. You have got to get it together, bud.
See how non-dogmatic science is unlike you biblical inerancy nuts? Did they cling to this theory when alternative theories and evidence was provided?? Did they threaten opposing views with eternal damnation? Did they feign stupdiity and ignorance in claiming…“well, God did it”? Nope, an alternative theory was posited, one with more evidence, and was accepted.
Lorsico, maybe this article will help you to understand why the genome project was so important to evolutionary theory:
…[i]But decoding chimpanzees’ DNA allowed scientists to do more than just refine their estimates of how similar humans and chimps are. It let them put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests.
If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species’ DNA and the two animals’ population sizes.
“That’s a very specific prediction,” said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project.
Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.[/i]
…[i]Lander’s experiment tested a quirky prediction of evolutionary theory: that a harmful mutation is unlikely to persist if it is serious enough to reduce an individual’s odds of leaving descendants by an amount that is greater than the number one divided by the population of that species.
The rule proved true not only for mice and chimps, Lander said. A new and still unpublished analysis of the canine genome has found that dogs, whose numbers have historically been greater than those of apes but smaller than for mice, have an intermediate number of harmful mutations – again, just as evolution predicts.[/i]
I am positive that since this does not appear in Genesis fundies will disregard its importance. But maybe, you can understand the testable predicitons generated by evolutioanry theory and the subsequent evidence supporting the hypothesis
[quote]throttle132 wrote:
Xvim, you’re way off on the theoretical age of ole’ Rama. He’s supposed to be 8 - 14 million years old not 10,000. You have got to get it together, bud.
During construction for a railroad in 1868, a rock shelter in a limestone cliff was uncovered. Near the back of the shelter, an occupation floor was recognized, and when excavated, it revealed the remains of four adult skeletons, one infant, and some fragmentary bones. The condition and placement of ornaments, including pieces of shell and animal tooth in what appears to have been pendants or necklaces, led the researchers to think that the skeletons were intentionally buried in a single grave in the shelter.
Cro-Magnon 1 preserved the skeleton of an adult male. The individual was probably middle-aged (less than 50 years old) at his death on the basis of the pattern of closure of cranial sutures. The bones in his face are noticeably pitted (see top photograph) from a fungal infection. The skull was complete except for the teeth, which are reconstructed in the cast photographed here.
While the Cro-Magnon remains are representative of the earliest anatomically modern human beings to appear in western Europe, this population was not the earliest anatomically modern humans to evolve. The skull of Cro-Magnon 1 does, however, show the traits that are unique to modern humans, including the high rounded cranial vault with a near vertical forehead. The orbits are no longer topped by a large browridge. There is no prominent prognathism of the face.
Analysis of the pathology of the skeletons found at the Les Eyzies rock shelter indicates that the humans of this time period led a physically tough life. In addition to the infection noted above, several of the individuals found at the shelter had fused vertebrae in their necks indicating traumatic injury, and the adult female found at the shelter had survived for some time with a skull fracture. The survival of the individuals with such ailments is indicative of community support of individuals, which allowed them to convalesce.
Associated tools and fragments of fossil animal bone date the site to the uppermost Pleistocene, probably between 32,000 and 30,000 years old.
By 1.9 million years ago, another lineage of the genus Homo emerged in Africa. This species was Homo ergaster. Traditionally, scientists have referred to this species as Homo erectus and linked this species name with a proliferation of populations across Africa, Europe, and Asia. Yet, since the first discoveries of Homo erectus, it had been noted that there were differences between the early populations of “Homo erectus” in Africa, and the later populations of Europe, Africa and Asia. Many researchers now separate the two into distinct species Homo ergaster for early African “Homo erectus”, and Homo erectus for later populations mainly in Asia. Since modern humans share the same differences as H. ergaster with the Asian H. erectus, scientist consider H. ergaster as the probable ancestor of later Homo populations.
H. ergaster had a rounded cranium and a prominent browridge. Its teeth were much reduced in size, especially when compared to Australopithecus. Several features that distinguish H. ergaster from H. erectus are thinner bones of the skull and the lack of an obvious sulcus, or depression, just behind the browridge.
By 1.6 million years ago, an advance in stone tool technology is identified with H. ergaster. Known as the Achulean stone tool industry, it consisted of large cutting tools, primarily hand axes and cleavers. Originally thought to be responsible for the spread of early humans beyond Africa, it is now known that the migration out of Africa predates this tool industry.
Fossils push human emergence back to 195,000 years ago.
Discovered in 2001 at Dmanisi in Georgia (in the ex-USSR). Estimated age is 1.8 million years. D2700 consisted of a mostly complete skull in exceptionally good condition, including a lower jaw (D2735) found about a meter away and thought to belong to the same individual (Vekua et al. 2002, Balter and Gibbons 2002). At around 600 cc, this is the smallest and most primitive hominid skull ever discovered outside of Africa (or, at least, was until recently. Homo floresiensis is smaller)
Two other skulls had earlier been found at the same site in 1999. D2280 was an almost complete braincase with a brainsize of 780 cc. D2282 was a cranium which included many of the facial and upper jaw bones, with a brain size of about 650 cc. A lower jaw, D211, had also been discovered in 1991, and another lower jaw, D2600, in 2000. (Gabunia et al. 2000, Balter and Gibbons 2000)
Although the brain size of D2282 (650 cc) was smaller than any H. erectus fossil then known, and close to the average H. habilis brain size, Gabunia et al. (2000) pointed out the many similarities of D2280 and D2282 to H. erectus fossils such as WT 15000 and ER 3733:
Despite their relatively small cranial capacities, both Dmanisi fossils differ from H. rudolfensis and H. habilis and display a number of essential similarities with the crania of H. erectus sensu lato and particularly with its early African forms, attributed by some to H. ergaster. (Gabunia et al. 2000)
Their final conclusion was that D2280 and D2282 were both H. ergaster or something very similar:
We thus assign the Dmanisi hominids to Homo ex gr. ergaster. (Gabunia et al. 2000)
At 600 cc, the new discovery D2700 is even smaller than D2282, and appears more primitive. Vekua et al. (2002) list many characteristics in which it resembles H. ergaster (or erectus), and also a number in which it resembles the H. habilis skull ER 1813.
However, the differences between the three Dmanisi skulls were not considered great enough to justify placing them in different species:
In overall shape, D2700 is similar to D2280 and D2282, and D2735 resembles D211. Despite certain differences among these Dmanisi individuals, we do not see sufficient grounds for assigning them to more than one hominid taxon. We view the new specimen as a member of the same population as the other fossils, and we here assign the new skull provisionally to Homo erectus (=ergaster). (Vekua et al. 2002)
In a later paper, all these specimens were assigned to the new species Homo georgicus, using the fossil D2600 as a type specimen. (Gabunia et al. 2002) The same paper also estimated the height of H. georgicus from a foot bone at about 1.5 m (4’11").
April 2005: A newly published paper gives details of a fourth skull (D3444) and jawbone (D3900) belonging to the same individual discovered at Dmanisi. This skull is unusual in that it had lost all but one tooth, and most of them had been missing for a number of years. This suggests that the individual might have required considerable support from his companions to survive. (Lordkipanidze et al. 2005; April 2005 National Geographic)
The implications for evolution
It has always been thought that the first hominid to leave Africa was Homo erectus (or ergaster), and that this had happened after erectus had attained the modern body shape and full adaptation to bipedality shown in the Turkana Boy fossil.
The discovery of the Dmanisi skulls, particularly D2700, raises the possibility, suggested by Vekua and his colleagues, that the Dmanisi hominids might have evolved from habilis-like ancestors that had already left Africa. That in turn would cause re-evaluation of theories about why hominids first left Africa.
Aye, I’m aware, but I’m glad pushharder made his feelings about fish and chimpanzees known, it sums up in one perfect sentence the creationist attitude on this thread:
(Hands over ears) NONONONONONONONO…
Aye, aye, Captain. Sorry it hurts your feelings that I don’t feeeeeeeeeel any closer to what you think is one of your relatives but… it’s true. You’re probably a lot more of a sensitive guy to begin with than I am. Give me your mailing address and I’ll send you a box of Kleenex.[/quote]
I’m sorry, but claiming that chimps and fish are equally dissimilar to humans is like claiming a sphere and a cube are equally dissimilar to a circle. Anyone without a tragic form of brain damage can see that the circle and sphere share certain characteristics that the square and circle don’t.
I would say the DNA relatedness is pretty good evidence, not proof in and of itself. We use DNA evidence to determine the relatedness of humans, why not use it to determine relatedness of species? Especially when corroborated by independent lines of evidence.
Much more telling than the overall similarity though are specific similarity identifications:
The same retrivirus DNA insertions are found in human and ape genomes. Bear in mind that these are non-functional DNA sequences that are the result of ancient viral infection http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/18/10254
Is this the work of an intelligent designer? FSM? The Debil? Either way, it looks like this rapscallion is going out of his way to at least make it look like our evolutionary path diverged from these apes some millions of years ago.
Sorry for jumping back in the middle of this one, and i’m not switching sides, but I just read the best argument for ID yet and I wanted to share it. I think this is what most ID proponents want to say but this gentleman articulates it very well. I especially like the analogy with easter island. more of my .02 after the letter.
“Intelligent Design” is not an attack on Darwinian evolution, nor is it a radical movement of Christian fundamentalists. Darwin only attempted to explain the diversity of observed life forms and proposed that this could have come about naturally by means of gradual changes where beneficial mutations became dominant through the process of natural selection (survival of the fittest).
At the time Darwin lived, the cell, the foundation upon which all evolutionary organisms are based, was thought to be no more than a lump of protoplasm and there was no understanding of the complexities of DNA and intra-cellular molecular processes. There is absolutely no way that his theory could have comprehended the development of “life” at this level.
“Intelligent Design” looks at what Darwin was not capable of looking at. It focuses on the development of the cell and the biomolecular evolution that must have occurred in order for the first cell to have come into existence. It asks the question, “Could natural selection have also played a role in the development of intra-cellular functions?” The answer that many leading scientific minds have come to is, “No, the odds against even the simplest of cellular proteins forming spontaneously are simply astronomical. Many of the molecular processes occurring within the cell are irreducibly complex, so only a tremendous leap of faith could allow one to assume spontaneous origins.” In addition, it is now recognized that DNA is the most densely coded information in the known universe. Where did this information come from? Did it form spontaneously? If so, by what process? These are reasonable avenues of scientific inquiry.
It also asks the question, “How can we recognize intelligent design?” If you find a statue poking out of the beach sand (like the ones on Easter Island), you are very unlikely to say, “Wow! Look how the wind carved that rock!” It is a very easy matter for someone of even limited intelligence to recognize that the rock shape was “designed” and “constructed” by some intelligence. By whom, we don’t know. For what purpose, we don’t know. But it is clearly not a “natural” formation. So the “Intelligent Design” school attempts to define logical rules by which “designed” structures can be detected from natural, random structures. This would seem to be a reasonable effort if we are to take an unbiased look at the universe. (The presumptions that there is or is no intelligent creator of the universe are equally biased. Why not have an open mind?)
It may be true that fundamental Christian organizations welcome this scientific support for “a God” behind the universe, but the “Intelligent Design” movement does not directly make any such claim or support a religious dogma. It is simply an attempt to observe the natural world around us using the latest possible scientific data and attempt to explain what is observed. Why should this information be suppressed? Who are the ones with the closed minds?
If you are ever serious about understanding “Intelligent Design” instead of just throwing meatballs at something about which you know nothing, I suggest reading Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box”. I think you will find it enlightening and scientific to the core.
my.02
OK now I actually do favor the idea that the first life on earth was “planted” by someone. I don’t think “god” did this at least not here on earth, allthough it is possible. More than likely another sentient being planted a seed or a few seeds of dna rich cingle celled organisms and then sat back and watched. There is also a possibility that they influenced the organisms along the way to some extent.
Take the dinosaurs for example, perhaps these beings were looking to create “high” intelligence, perhaps the thought dinosaurs could have been that and let them develop for a long time. After waiting for a real long time, they decided to scrap the program. The launch a huge asteroid at the planet and erase it like an etch-a-sketch.
After this they tweak the DNA in a few different reptiles, they change characteristics, and develop mammilian brains. Think of how easy this could be, we arent all that far off this technology ourselves. We are already cloning animals, and very close to being able to change characteristics like hair color, eye color etc. So they just swoop down in thier saucers, abduct a few small creatures and expirament on them.
Many believe they are doing this now with humans, maybe there is another evolutionary step that is going to take place soon?
Anyway, I actually think most of evolution happened on it’s own, I think major landscape changes such as the appearance of mammals might be the only areas that “something” interviened.
My question to the ID proponents. Can I teach my theory in schools as well? Specifically in a science class? it explains our origins just as well as your version and we have more “evidence” if you will that there are space ships and aliens, and that they visit our planet.
I don’t disagree with ID or think it’s impossible, or that it’s even a bad theory, it’s just a faith based theory, no proof, and very little “evidence” actually the only evidence there is is that DNA is too coplex to be a natural occurance, much like the stones at stonehedge, or easter island.