Posted on 03/07/2005 3:19:42 PM PST by Truth666
A joint Ethiopian-US team of palaeontologists announced on Saturday they had discovered the world's oldest biped skeleton to be unearthed so far, dating it to between 3.8 and four million years old.
"This is the world's oldest biped," Bruce Latimer, director of the natural history museum in Cleveland, Ohio, told a news conference in the Ethiopian capital, adding that "it will revolutionise the way we see human evolution".
The bones were found three weeks ago in Ethiopia's Afar region, at a site some 60 kilometres from Hadar where Lucy, one of the first hominids, was discovered in 1974. Researchers at the site in northeast Ethiopia have in all unearthed 12 hominid fossils, of which parts of one skeleton were discovered.
Ken Ham, Henry Morris
I am familiar with these two and hold them trustworthy in their studies of creation/science. I don't know who you espouse as "experts" for your theories but I doubt if they hold a candle to Ken Ham and Henry Morris.
In regards to this:It is much simpler to follow someone who is an "authority" than it is to compare reality to misinterpretation of Scripture.
I have this to say about this sentence, Huh?
I don't know if they know precisely what differences in DNA sequence and alleles there might have been, because there is no DNA available, to my knowledge.
I don't know why you think the number of mutations between one and the other is that important. It is obvious there are major differences in skeletal structure, especially cranial development.
I've explained the importance of this question repeatedly. To get an approximate average for the amount of time between each mutation so I can find out whether the lack of new phenotypes/mutations/species since the modern human appeared (100,000-200,000 years or so) poses a problem for conventional evolutionary theory. Maybe it doesn't. Probably it doesn't. As I said before, averages are just that: averages...
There is a gap in fossils from 8 mya to 4.4 mya. So we don't have common ancestor information for the gorilla, chimp, human split.
In other words, the answer is #3: We don't really know. Now was that so hard? SHEEEESH!
But using the molecular clock and DNA-DNA hybridization some conclusions can be drawn. The difference in amino acid sequences in albumin of chimps, gorillas and humans is only about 1.2%. With this and a simple formula that indicates the relationship between time and distance, a divergence date of about 5MYA can be estimated. Much of the difference between apes and humans are attributable to just a few regulator genes. We are not as genetically different as we look.
Ah, but what a difference that 1.2% makes! If you drink a glass of water that is 1.2% plutonium... The terrorists on the 9/11 planes probably made up less than 1.2% of the total number of persons on the 4 planes. If you attend a big party with 1,000 people, 988 of them say hello or give you some sort of compliment, you'll stay awake wondering about the other 12.
1.2% difference gives us the difference between a creature that can have conversations like this, can expound on moral philosophy, theology, quantum physics, write and be moved by poems, novels, movies, songs -- and a creature that has marginally more capacity for these things than a rock.
(Then there is the question left hanging in the air, implied by the 1.2% number. What to do we have to compare it to? In other words, what percent difference in DNA is there between a man and a rabbit? Or a lizard? I bet those percentages are pretty low too.)
Now please don't be insulted but the thing that disturbs me is that we've gone back and forth about half a dozen times and it took this long to get a semi-straight answer -- and I still had to translate it into "we're missing some DNA from part of that period so we don't really know how many phenotypes there were between this ancestor and us".
I would think that a scientist should be able to organize his thoughts and present them in a fairly clear, concise manner at the drop of a hat instead of this taffy pull. After the short summary you can qualify your answer with more specific details to illuminate the complexities behind the it. We learned this in English class -- paragraphs go from the general to the specific.
Which is...?
Isn't it just a tad odd that over a span of 3 million years the significant finds are mostly within a tiny geographical area? I realize folks didn't travel much back then, but still --odd.
Animals freeze to death all the time. Not all of them find shelter in time, and not all of them hibernate.
Your point is incorrect. The NT observation about the birds is correct.
I suppose you mean Matthew 6:26. But that does not mean that birds don't fly into thunderstorms and suffer and die. I guess your point is that animals do not have the capacity to reflect and obsess and worry themselves sick the way we do, lucky for them.
But that doesn't mean they don't experience misery, however quickly they might forget it later -- assuming they survive intact. Even so, they develop Pavlovian responses to things, including unpleasant things.
In paradise you don't experience misery.
I learned in teaching biology not to waste my time with students that Bravo Sierra their way through papers.
I guess you have never been to Hawaii. It is a paradise, but you can suffer a lot there.
They are trustworthy in studying nonsense? How nice.
Guess. Again.
They are trustworthy in studying nonsense? How nice.
So creation science to you is nonsense and utilizing your vastly superior intelligence is called ?
I guess there will be no middle road in this conversation. You wish to use your interpretation of Scripture and I look to those who are deeply educated in the field of Biblical theology. I do have the ability to study their interpretations and may agree or disagree based on their use of the whole Bible as a source and not on the interpretation of a lone verse, which is happening much too often today.
"So creation science to you is nonsense "
Creation science is nonsense to anyone with an IQ over 100 and absence of psychosis.
Creation science is nonsense to anyone with an IQ over 100 and absence of psychosis.
That is what atheists say about the belief in Jesus Christ as Saviour.
Many people are atheists because they tar Christians with the brush of stupidity for believing nonsense like creation science.
Guess. Again.
No, I'm done. We'll just have to agree for each of us to continue to have no idea what the other is talking about.
If only your answers to scientific questions were 1/10th that succinct. It proves that you do have it in you.
I haven't, and I would prefer Bora Bora anyway. By all accounts of folks who have been to both places, Bora Bora blows Hawaii away.
Islamics are closer to Creationists than they are to Evolutionists!
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