Middle-school teachers should grasp the possibility that humans evolved from little apes

AJC ^ | 12/8/04 | Tom Baxter & Jim Galloway

[VadeRetro]

Dr. W. R. Thompson ... gives as examples the case of the Piltdown skull, in which an ape's jawbone was substituted for the original human one, and the case of the Java Man, in which a battered skullcap of a gibbon was represented as belonging to a creature half-man, half-ape, in order to provide an argument for Darwin's theory that man was descended from an ape.

Dr. Thompson seems to have integrity problems of his own. Here is Java Man's skullcap overlain with the skull of the "Lake Turkana Boy" specimen from Africa.

From here.

Also, we have:

Based on his own theories about how brains had evolved and wishful thinking, Dubois did claim that Java Man was "a gigantic genus allied to the gibbons", but this was not, as creationists imply, a retraction of his earlier claims that it was an intermediate between apes and humans. Dubois also pointed out that it was bipedal and that its brain size was "very much too large for an anthropoid ape", and he never stopped believing that he had found an ancestor of modern man (Theunissen 1989; Gould 1993; Lubenow 1992). (The creationist organization Answers in Genesis has now abandoned the claim that Dubois dismissed Java Man as a gibbon, and now lists it in their Arguments we think creationists should NOT use web page.)

From here.

What a gibbon looks like:

From here.

So, all in all, yet another false claim by a creationist. Just one of the zillion bad pennies that keeps turning back up.

[VadeRetro]

Harun Yahya

The American Fundies's Taliban connection.

[bondserv]

But did He say how He made them?

Yes, from the dust of the earth, and ready to name all the other creatures God made. In fact God made one of each kind of creature as Adam was naming them, so that there wasn't any confusion who the creator was. Some like to claim there are contradictions regarding when animals were made. God made another group for Adam to name, seeming to contradict earlier descriptions of God making animals.

There's more than one way to make a watch, after all.

You are aware that Jesus used Adam and Eve as the epitome of monogamous marriage and the antithesis of divorce. I am unaware of an Amoeba wedding or divorce for that matter. Maybe Jesus was mistaken? No.

When we change the meaning of the words, we change the meaning of salvation. According to the Bible Adam and Eve were both spiritually and physically immortal until they disobeyed. Paul makes a host of doctrinal statements regarding the need for Jesus Christ to die as a ransom in order to atone for the death brought on by Adams sin. If death was a reality before Adam sinned then the death of Jesus Christ was in vain. Jesus Christ is resurrected physically for this very reason. We will be too, into glorified physical bodies, like our Saviour's.

The only thing man made in heaven right now are the wounds of Jesus. Thomas will explain.

The prophetic from the Old Testament first:

Isa 53:5 But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Zec 13:6 And [one] shall say unto him, What [are] these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, [Those] with which I was wounded [in] the house of my friends.

Jhn 20:20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them [his] hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.

Jhn 20:25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

Jhn 20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust [it] into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

Luk 24:39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

Resurrected!

[PatrickHenry]

No retraction for your incorrect statement in post 226: " Darwin was directly influenced by Carl Marx ..."?

Just going to ride it out? Gonna hang tough? Even though you should know by now that your claim is wrong? Not worried by the contradictory information about Stalin's persecution of Darwinian evolutionists? Not impressed by the fact that ICR -- even ICR!! -- credits Darwin with an influence on capitalism? Nothing's going to have any effect on you, is it?

Creationism is never having to say you're sorry.

[Constantine XIII]

*Falls out of chair laughing*

[JFK_Lib]

"Science uses procedural materialism. It can only deal with matter and energy, not spirit. This is inherent in the nature of science. There's no way to measure spirits. Science can only do what it can do. It's a stretch to say (as the philosophical materialists do) that "if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist." I know some believe that, but it's absurd. So don't make the error of assuming that all of science is that way. Some individuals are. "

JFK_Lib - Yes, I know that science must presume procedural materialism; it can only test repeatable and measurable phenomena. I am quite happy to see you distinguish between this and the materialistic narrowness of philosophical Positivism.

Thank you for clearing that up.

[normy]

That wasn't what I was implying in my post. The response to me, I believe was, "So you think you know the nature of God?" I was saying when the power of God worked throughout the Bible it was instant unless God said it would be otherwise. I was simply replying to that question, not that things do not change because obviously they do. I however do not believe people change in their behavior as the centuries go by.

If God used evolution to create the creatures on the earth, I believe it would be recorded that way. God is not out to impress us, why not just be consistant as he is throughout record. My point is this, if God really did use evolution for creation, then the Bible is probably false and the God that did the creation is not the God of the Bible.

[Radioactive]

Not worried by the contradictory information about Stalin's persecution of Darwinian evolutionists? Not impressed by the fact that ICR -- even ICR!! -- credits Darwin with an influence on capitalism? Nothing's going to have any effect on you, is it?

The reason why Stalin went after Darwinian dimwits is because they were of the supposed Intelligencia...the ones who feel they and only they should rule.

Stalin felt that he and only he should rule. But Stalin was also a Darwininian dimwit.So he went after them with a vengeance and killed most of the educated but misguided elite of academia in the Soviet Union.

And as far as Capitolists and Capitolism.....they too use the Darwinian theory as an excuse for them dominating the rest of the world.

You see.....both end have the same problem...they follow Darwin's ideas and feel they and only they should rule because they are the fittest.

And you quote the ICR.......how could you do that knowing that they support creationism....I thought you stated that creationists have no credability.

Here's more on Communism and Darwin..........and are not of my writing for all you sticklers out there......

Mao Tse Tung: Darwin and Marx's Ambassador to China

While Stalin was running his totalitarian regime, another Communist regime which saw Darwinism as its scientific support was founded in China. The Communists under the leadership of Mao Tse Tung came to power in 1949 after a long civil war. Mao set up an oppressive and bloody regime, just like his ally Stalin, who gave him great support. China became the scene of numberless political executions. In the years ahead, Mao's young militants, known as "Red Guards," would drag the country into an atmosphere of utter terror. Mao openly announced the philosophical foundation of the system he established by saying, "Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution."94 Being a Marxist and an atheist and a firm believer in evolutionism himself, Mao mandated that the reading material used in this early day "Great Leap Forward" in literacy would be the writings of Charles Darwin and other materials supportive of the evolution paradigm.95 When the Chinese Communists came to power in 1950 they took the theory of evolution as the basis of their ideology. Actually, Chinese intellectuals had accepted the theory of evolution long before: During the 19th century, the West regarded China as a sleeping giant, isolated and mired in ancient traditions. Few Europeans realized how avidly Chinese intellectuals seized on Darwinian evolutionary ideas and saw in them a hopeful impetus for progress and change. According to the Chinese writer Hu Shih (Living Philosophies, 1931), when Thomas Huxley's book Evolution and Ethics was published in 1898, it was immediately acclaimed and accepted by Chinese intellectuals. Rich men sponsored cheap Chinese editions so they could be widely distributed to the masses.96 So, the people who turned to Communism and lead the Communist revolution were these intellectuals who had been "eagerly influenced" by Darwinist ideas. It was not hard for China, even with its many deep pantheistic beliefs and history, to enter the pincers of Darwinism and Communism. In an article in the New Scientist magazine the Canadian Darwinist philosopher Michael Ruse says, concerning early-twentieth-century China: These ideas took root at once, for China did not have the innate intellectual and religious barriers to evolution that often existed in the West. Indeed, in some respects, Darwin seemed almost Chinese! … Taoist and Neo-Confucian thought had always stressed the "thingness" of humans. Our being at one with the animals was no great shock… Today, the official philosophy is Marxist-Leninism (of a kind). But without the secular materialist approach of Darwinism (meaning now the broad social philosophy), the ground would not have been tilled for Mao and his revolutionaries to sow their seed and reap their crop.97 As Michael Ruse stated above, with the firm settling of Darwinist ideas, China easily took up Communism. The Chinese people, deluded by Darwinist ideas, stood by and watched all the massacres of Mao Tse Tung, one of the most unrestrained killers in history.

[Radioactive]

I know that Darwin was a Christian till the day he died and thought the attacks of other Christians on his ideas were unfair and I think he took them personally. I dont know that for a fact because I havent read much of this since high school back in the early 70s.

Darwin was not a christian till the day he died...he was an athiest after the age of 16...his father was a devout christian and so was Darwin's wife...but he did not want them to know that he was an Athiest so he basically lied to them so they would not get mad at him.

[PatrickHenry]

Yes, I know that science must presume procedural materialism

Not "presume." That makes it sound like an intentional bias, which doesn't really exist. The fact is that science has no choice in the matter. If some individual scientist actually has such a bias (because he's a philosophical materialist) it doesn't affect his scientific work, because even if that bias didn't exist, he couldn't do his work any differently. There is no verifiable, testable data (about the spirit world) that he could refuse to consider, even if he were so inclined. His bias doesn't rule out anything which is applicable to his scientific work.

Until someone develops a reliable God-o-meter, which can operate like a voltmeter, or a compass, and indicate the existence (and perhaps the intensity, etc.) of a spiritual presence, science is stuck with the tools at hand. Procedural materialism is therefore a necessity, and not a "presumption." Theology is not bound by these limitations, but of course, theology isn't equipped to do the things that science does.

[WildTurkey]

>> defense.

[Condorman]

Next he'll have us believe it's Jodie Foster's fault that Reagan got shot.

[longshadow]

evil materialistic placemarker

[Oztrich Boy]

Still making stuff up?

Darwin was not a christian till the day he died...he was an athiest after the age of 16...his father was a devout christian and so was Darwin's wife...but he did not want them to know that he was an Athiest so he basically lied to them so they would not get mad at him.

If Robert Darwin was a devout christian, it was not noticed by anyone in the 19th century.

Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true ; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.

Extract from Nora Barlow ed. The autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: with original omissions restored. New York, W.W. Norton, 1969. pp. 85-96.

Although most of that passage was supressed in the early editions by Emma Darwin, the follwing note to the publisher indicates that she did not fundamentally disagree which Chas. on the doctrine of Eternal Dammination, but merely thought he put it a bit bluntly.

:—" I should dislike the passage in brackets to be published. It seems to me raw. Nothing can be said too severe upon the doctrine of everlasting punishment for disbelief—but very few now wd. call that ' Christianity,' ...E.D.

[PatrickHenry]

Dead thread placemarker.