Posted on 12/15/2005 9:10:41 AM PST by flevit
Simon Schama appears to have little understanding of biology (Opinion, September 4). With an ostrich mindset that tries to ignore reality, pseudo-scientists continue in the vain hope that if they shout loud and long enough they can perpetuate the fairy story and bad science that is evolution.
You don't have to be a religious fundamentalist to question evolution theory - you just have to have an open and enquiring mind and not be afraid of challenging dogma. But you must be able to discern and dodge the effusion of evolutionary landmines that are bluster and non sequiturs.
No one denies the reality of variation and natural selection. For example, chihuahuas and Great Danes can be derived from a wolf by selective breeding. Therefore, a chihuahua is a wolf, in the same way that people of short stature and small brain capacity are fully human beings.
However, there is no evidence (fossil, anatomical, biochemical or genetic) that any creature did give rise, or could have given rise, to a different creature. In addition, by their absence in the fossil record for (supposed) millions of years along with the fact of their existence during the same time period, many animals such as the coelacanth demonstrate the principle that all creatures could have lived contemporaneously in the past.
No evidence supports the notion that birds evolved from dinosaurs, nor that whales evolved from terrestrial quadrupeds, nor that the human knee joint evolved from a fish pelvic fin. And the critically-positioned amino acids at the active sites within enzymes and structural proteins show that the origination of complex proteins by step-wise modifications of supposed ancestral peptides is impossible. In other words, birds have always been birds, whales have always been whales, apes did not evolve into humans, and humans have always been humans.
But you might protest that it has been proved that we evolved from apes. In fact, the answer is a categorical No. Australopithecines, for example, were simply extinct apes that in a few anatomical areas differed from living apes. If some of them walked bipedally to a greater degree than living apes, this does not constitute evidence that apes evolved into humans - it just means that some ancient apes were different from living apes.
correction, proprosed the first know maps of a super continent;(I am aware at the idea of joined based continents predates even this)
let try this one more time
(I am aware that the idea of joined continents predate antonio's map/paper)
Even Wegener's importance is reduced because he couldn't plausibly explain how a continent could drift. He thought continenets were somehow plowing the rest of the crust like an icebreaker crunching through the sea floes. That was clearly wrong, as many pointed out at the time.
placemarker
"The site you linked to, as best I can tell, does NOT give numbers, numbers of artifacts, numbers measured of jaw widths, curvatures etc. Almost no numbers at all. Where is Lord Kelvin when you need him? Wasn't it Lord Kelvin who said "no science without numbers!"? That site you linked to, iirc, makes a claim of a novel human species or subspecies based on only one artifact -- one teeny toe bone! Wow! Such wonderful *science*!"
Ardipithecus ramidus (Fossils)Note that this entry is typical of the twenty "species" listed. While I was wroking from memory when I made my last post I have in this post gone to the exact page Virginia-American presented in evidence, atlaw, and as the exact quote shows my last post, even though from memory when made, is a fair enough rendering of the statements presented on that page.This species was named in September 1994 (White et al. 1994; Wood 1994). It was originally dated at 4.4 million years, but has since been discovered to far back as 5.8 million years. Most remains are skull fragments. Indirect evidence suggests that it was possibly bipedal, and that some individuals were about 122 cm (4'0") tall. The teeth are intermediate between those of earlier apes and A. afarensis, but one baby tooth is very primitive, resembling a chimpanzee tooth more than any other known hominid tooth. Other fossils found with ramidus indicate that it may have been a forest dweller. This may cause revision of current theories about why hominids became bipedal, which often link bipedalism with a move to a savannah environment. (White and his colleagues have since discovered a ramidus skeleton which is about 45% complete, but have not yet published on it.)
More recently, a number of fragmentary fossils discovered between 1997 and 2001, and dating from 5.2 to 5.8 million years old, have been assigned first to a new subspecies, Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba (Haile-Selassie 2001), and then later as a new species, Ardipithecus kadabba (Haile-Selassie et al. 2004). One of these fossils is a toe bone belonging to a bipedal creature, but is a few hundred thousand years younger than the rest of the fossils and so its identification with kadabba is not as firm as the other fossils.
Did YOU ignore that? What are you: ignorant of politeness or ignorant of process of law, despite the suggestuion your FR-handle gives? Not that this is law, it is not, yet it is a discussion and a less rude or less ignorant person can make a NEW point with new facts presented, without insults that would have me be a all-knowing individual to accept as fair criticism. I am not, like you, like anyone, my knowledge is limited to what I already have gone and learned, what now comes before my ken. I cannot accept your criticism, your comnplaint against me is ridiculuous. And what is your point? Beyond rudeness and ignorance, that is?
Summarize what you demand I "go and learn", yet perhaps your intellectual energy is not up to that level to digest information and summarize. Perhaps that is why you shortcut to rudeness. Which is it?
Yeah, yeah. I know. You're not about to go look for anything yourself. If it isn't summarized and laid at the foot of your La-Z-Boy, it doesn't exist. Point taken.
I have in this post gone to the exact page Virginia-American presented in evidence, atlaw, and as the exact quote shows my last post, even though from memory when made, is a fair enough rendering of the statements presented on that page. . . .
What a strange thing to say. Contrary to your your snarky statement in post 517 ("That site you linked to, iirc, makes a claim of a novel human species or subspecies based on only one artifact -- one teeny toe bone! Wow! Such wonderful *science*!"), you did not, in fact, recall the site correctly, and you did not provide a "fair enough rendering of the statements presented on that page." As the "exact quote" you provided shows, you didn't even come close to a "fair enough rendering."
And by the way, your snide and snickering misrepresentation in post 517 also renders rather toothless your claim that you are now a victim of just-awful-rudeness.
IOW, you do not have the intellect to distill and summarize. You can only throw spagetti at the wall. Yes, perhaps some of us are descendants of caged chimps.
This is "anecdotal" (but, in the end, every datum is an anecdote of somebody's): My wife sees a thousand or so jaws a year working as a dental hygienist. She says jaws vary quite a bit, some are more rounded, some more square.
"IOW, you do not have the intellect to distill and summarize. You can only throw spagetti at the wall. Yes, perhaps some of us are descendants of caged chimps."
Meant to ping you to post 531 (since you are mentioned). Sorry.
Well, since a Federal Judge has ruled "intelligent design" as verbotten, I am silent. Do not want to risk the camps, you know. You win.
LOL. Truce, and Merry Christmas!
In any case at the time I was amazed at the findings of "new breakthrus" in proto-human species with little in artifact to back it up. Especially compared to the published studies of current geology -- I had a reading interest in studies of geomagnetism and micro-gravity at the time. In one field thousands and thousands of data points, in the other -- often a tiny handful. Fame and funding in a field encourages agressive ideation, especially when paucities of available data can't knock a theory down. That basic observation combined with a definite phobia towards hard numbers among the cultural anthropologists I knew and was taking classes under at the time has made me perhaps too cynical towards proto-human anthropology and archeology.
Thanks.
This "rebuttal" rebuts nothing. Just a collection of statements, in fancier wording, that no evidence is any good because God could've made everything in its present form with the appearance have having evolved.
For example, in Part 17. Functional Evidence Protein Redundancy: The claim is that, since God could make cytochrome c with countless arrangements of amino acids, he would not have used an identical or similar series of amino acids in the cytochrome c of separately created species.
Apparently, God chose to make similar species with similar series of amino acids. Basically, the author says that God chose to create all species with physical characteristics that just happen to match all the predictions made by evolution. Every page of this link is more of the same sort of 'reasoning', applied over and over. None of the author's 'rebuttals' have testable implications (at least none that are correct).
In the end, even if the author is correct that God intervened and created everything with such an "evolved" appearance, (macro)evolution still stands strong in its ability to make and fulfill empirical predictions, and creationism completely falls flat in its ability to predict anything.
Any rebuttals that actually contain a testable implication of creationism that actually falsifies evolution in any way?
As a scientist (virologist) I have to say that your statement (or quote?) is just so flawed and simplistic, it also seems to be taken a little out of context. No disrespect but you are mentioning something that is irrelevant and unrelated to species diversity and the germane genetic mechanisms. I tend to avoid these kind of debates now as usually the response I make are not understood or someone responds with cut and paste material that either does not address the topic of misses and specific references I made in my own post. Good luck with your studies though :-)
In post 479 I asked why the same mutation is responsible for the inability of great apes, including people, to make ascorbic acid. How can this be explained without the common ancestor stuff.
IN #495 ES said that no mammals make ascorbic acid. Astonished, I provided a reference listing which organs make it in which mammals, and asking where he learned this "fact"
He replied in #515 from his vet treating a sick cat. "She [the vet] laughed, and said that the miniscule amounts that a small percentage of animals may make is negligible".
So, we go from a sick cat doesn't make enough to no mammal makes any! In fact, Pet Place (ask a vet) says it's only needed by cats and dogs with liver disease!
Reality is funny stuff, you'll get over it.
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