Posted on 04/11/2010 1:38:48 PM PDT by valkyry1
Identified via two-million-year-old fossils, a new human ancestor dubbed Australopithecus sediba may be the "key transitional species" between the apelike australopithecines—and the first Homo, or human, species, according to a new study.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
All that evolutionary biology needs is circular logic saying that it is true, everything else is interchangeable and easily replaced.
Now all the evolutionist hyperbole aside, the latest missing link is obviously another ape. It was 4’ tall, had long arms and hands and a very small brain.
For one thing, unlike human species but like other australopithecines, A. sediba had a very small brain. The fossil species also had long ape-like arms with primitive wrists that were well suited for climbing trees.
Not at all what the poster said. Neanderthal IS closer in DNA to humans than to a chimp, that doesn’t tell you if it was in a direct line of descent that led to humans.
Creationist “science”; invent a ludicrous requirement, point out that reality doesn’t support the ludicrous requirement - conclude that the science is faulty because it doesn’t live up to your invented criteria.
All that evolutionary or ANY science needs is a model that explains the data. Common descent of species explains the data as to why humans and chimps are closer to each other than either is to a gorilla. It also explains why we and other apes form a pattern of similarity and divergence in our ERV sequences.
Creationism as a model doesn’t explain the data. Most creationists don’t know understand or even CARE to know the data.
The latest fossil find is obviously of a species of bipedal ape.
Humans are, zoologically, a bipedal ape; the only one extant upon the Earth today.
At differnt times and places apparently there were several different species of bipedal apes.
Once again evolutionary science has a model that explains every observation. Once again creationism has nothing, does nothing, explains nothing, and doesn’t lead anyone to any further knowledge.
Just the way creationists like it!
After all, the more someone learns the less likely they are to be a creationist!
For example, A. sediba's arms are too long—too apelike—and the species isn't as well adapted for upright walking as some scientists expect the direct ancestor to the first humans to be, Wood said.
Also, at 1.95 to 1.78 million years old, the A. sediba fossils simply aren't old enough to represent an ancestor to Homo, said anthropologist Brian Richmond, also of George Washington University. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)
"It's hard to argue this is the ancestor of Homo when it's occurring much later than the earliest members of the genus Homo by half a million years," Richmond said, referring to an early fossil of H. habilis that dates back to 2.3 million years ago.
Humans are, zoologically speaking, apes. The two closest related apes are humans and chimps.
It could be just another extinct BIPEDAL ape.
Evolutionary science has a model that explains where bipedal apes came from.
Creationism has nothing.
LOL !!!
It’s not a science. And well of course it has a model that makes such explanations. Evolutionism is based on atheistic philosophy (or a mixture of them) and it becomes its own religion. Thats why the model works so well for them.
The evolutionist is either unaware of this or tries to keep that knowledge hidden.
Evolutionary science is not based upon any philosophy other than the scientific method. One can accept the theory and be of any religious faith. Most Christian denominations have no problem with acceptance of any scientific theory, including evolution.
Most scientists in the USA are, like myself, people of faith in God. Creationists are either unaware of this or try to keep that knowledge hidden.
It seems that creationists are aware that they cannot win the argument on its merits, so they attempt to mischaracterize the struggle as being “science” vs “god”; instead of the reality being the science helps us to discover the reality that God created.
And?
Maybe explaining the past. That's nice.
And of what benefit is that?
FWIW, creationists have an explanation of where man came from as well, so we're even.
Oh? The scientific method is a philosophy?
And what about naturalistic materialism? You mean science isn't based on that as well?
So what is the second closest relative?
Look I would not have won an argument in Germany with Nazi Anthropologists either, but that would not mean I did not know enough about their field of knowledge to doubt or reject it. Science as you call it does not have all the answers. People who identity themselves as scientists for the vast majority are not scientists either.
Here are a few tenants of materialist beliefs. Think someone might see a resemblance in you?
MATERIALIST BELIEFS
Believe that the material universe, governed by natural laws and chance, is the ultimate and only reality and that all apparently nonmaterial substances, such as mind, are explicable as modifications of matter.
Believe that science is the means of understanding all the secrets of the universe, for all phenomena are the result of material processes which are governed by predictable, natural laws.
Believe that man, the highest and most complex of the evolutionary process prevailing throughout the universe, may continue to evolve into an even more perfect being or higher species (utopian materialism).
Believe in Darwin's theory of evolution as scientific fact, and in naturalism, holding that the known world is all that exists, and that it has no supernatural or spiritual creation, control or significance.
Also, unless you are a postmodern liberal, not all explanations are equivalent.
As I have repeatedly tried to impress upon you to obviously no discernible effect; the scientific explanation is of USE.
Creationism is of no use.
Nobody ever creates anything of value using creationism.
An accurate model that allows one to explain data and make predictions, the scientific method, creates value every day.
So “even” the two explanations are not.
One explanation leads to further knowledge and value.
The other leads nowhere, it is an intellectual dead end.
Which is perhaps one of the reasons why the more educated a person is the less likely they are to be a creationist.
Epic fail.
I never said science had “all the answers”. That is a strawman of your own construction.
Neither do I suppose that the “only” reality is that which can be explained observed and predicted using the scientific method.
Once again you seem to acknowledge that you cannot win the argument on the merits of fact data or theory; so you attempt to re-frame the debate to the only one you think you have any chance of winning ‘atheism’ vs ‘god’.
But I, and most scientists, are not atheists. Nothing in evolutionary theory is predicated upon or dependent upon atheism, and most scientist, like myself, have faith in God.
Okay so look if you want a thread attacking creationists why dont you start one.
cretins? who is that here?
Yeah, God made them from the dust of the earth as He told us He did in Genesis. So, scientists have made up explanations about where they think that extinct bipedal apes came from? Big deal.
Or a reason as to why God thought it necessary to create them? Or what function they served?
Fine. You criticize creationism for not having answers to those questions. What's science's answer to those questions? Why did they evolve? What function did they serve?
As I have repeatedly tried to impress upon you to obviously no discernible effect; the scientific explanation is of USE.
Exactly what scientific use is there in the *scientific* explanation of where bipedal apes came from? How does that affect future research? How does that affect anyone's every day life? What does it help scientists predict about the next stage in evolutionary development? What's mankind's next stage in evolution?
Not in so many words, so you can legitimately deny it, but you keep telling us that nobody else has any answers and then referring back to science to answer those questions. Hence, by your actions you ARE telling us that science has all the answers.
It’s just easier to hijack one and then come out thinking you look like the hero for exposing those ignurint creationists for what they are.
I notice that virtually any time a thread is posted that makes evolutionism look bad, it gets turned into a creationist bashing fest.
I too was made “from the dust of the Earth”, and to that “dust” I shall return. But I was also made via cellular processes involving DNA.
Was I any less made “from the dust” than Adam?
Why is it OK for “from the dust” to be metaphoric in my case, with an underlying explainable physical process; but not in the case of Adam?
Science doesn't postulate motivations for God. As to the function of a bipedal ape, usually they seem to think one of their primary functions is the production of MORE bipedal apes. And they evolved into bipedalism because there was a reproductive advantage for those traits at that time. Just as all things unfold in the fullness of time according to God's will.
As to the use of a scientific explanation of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation; it is used every day in assessing the relevance of model species, in industrial settings to produce enzymes of use, in developing new drugs and combating drug resistance in pathogenic microbes.
Science produces real world value.
Nothing of any value is ever produced using creationism.
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