All right, here we go: - Quark2005
"No one ever claimed that this was lineal series of transitionals, but the relation and progression through time is clear." - Quark2005
DOUBLESPEAK Alert!!!
It's not a "lineal series of transitionals" but "the relation and progression through time is clear". HUH??? In other words, it's got FLUFF. When examined, there's not a single candidate for a transitional in the whole bunch!!
Evo's post that chart without any disclaimers every time someone says there are no ape to man transitionals. But as I will show this is FREUDENSCIENCE at it's best.
Let's remove the clutter, the normalization of size, and the skulls that were so badly damaged they could have been reconstructed into anything and see what's left....
And I do mean clutter.
To rely on them as a support for transitionals is more imagination than hard evidence. The fact that you have to rely on such pitiful specimens as I will show them to be, speaks volumes about how little evidence for ape to human transitionals there is.
Habilis skull E, that was found crushed totally flat under a layer of limestone and underwent extensive reconstruction, massive warping of the individual parts is acknowledged. It's probably either an Australopithecus or a Boisei like the other skull that was found in the same location. A skull that damaged is a blank slate for an Evo's imagination to run wild with.
(E) OH62 was initially assigned to Habilis because of the similarity of the palate to that of skull Stw53, However, Kuman and Clarke list several major morphological traits of Stw 53 that they believe warrant its inclusion in the genus Australopithecus, including teeth that are very large and a braincase that is frontally narrow and restricted. So if Stw53 is a Austalopithecus, then OH62 probably is too. However scans of the inner ear, seemed to indicate human. So I'll grant you that there is ambiguity about E, but the specimen is so damaged that it shouldn't be considered evidence of anything except evolutionist desperation.
D and F weren't initially recognized as Australopithicus. F is skull ER-1470, which was reconstructed out of 100 pieces. In true evo bias fashion, it was first reconstructed to have a flat human like face, making it a "transitional", every evo's heart's desire.> But once the Creationist, Christopher Hummer, was finally allowed to examine it and started pointing out similarities to Austraopithecus skulls, it was reconstructed again and determined to be nothing but a large brained Australopithecus.
The Rise and Fall of skull 1470
Inner ear scans of D (Skull 1813) and F indicate that both were knuckle walkers like Australopithicus. That puts them squarely back into the camp of Australopithicus and out of the Habilis category.
Why so many human skulls? It's called FLUFFING. Put enough human skulls in the chart, and maybe people will think you have a transition going on. You could find as much variability in Human skulls using 21th century skulls as you have demonstrated here. Nevertheless, let's take a closer look.
There are 17 defining traits for Erectus. All 17 can still be found in the human population. A group of over 200 living Australian Aborigines were found to share 14 of those 17 traits with Erectus. Except for the presumed age of Erectus skulls, there's really no reason to consider them to be different from Modern Humans. How different is the cranial-vault thickness of Homo erectus from modern man?
I especially like the inclusion of (I) the badly diseased Bunker Hill skull. Even the Smithsonian acknowledges the skull is diseased. Dr. Jack Cuozzo examined and x-rayed the skull and says the skull "cries out disease" and is thickened from severe acromegaly (excess secretion of growth hormone in adulthood).
What's more Dr. Cuozzo says the hole in the skull appears to be an 8mm gunshot wound complete with exit wound, which would make the skull a modern skull. (It was found at the bottom of a well.) Originally that skull was thought to be less than 40,000 years old, then it was promoted to 125,000 years old. And a French museum now promotes it as 400,000 years old. If Dr. Cuozzo is right, it's less than 100 years old. The British Museum hasn't conceded yet to Cuozzo's finding about the bullet hole. However, the diseased state of the skull is acknowledged by all. And Cuozzo points to evidence that the British Museum appears to have published pictures that hides the evidence of how badly diseased the skull is.
Whether or not there's a bullet hole, to include a badly diseased skull in a visual chart like this as representative of anything is FauxEvoImagery.
Dr. Cuozzo on the Broken Hill skull 1
Why are there 3 Neanderthals, when they are considered human and not ancestral to modern human? They've lost their special status as their own species, along with the Evo fauximagery of hairy stooped over men. They had larger craniums than modern humans a fact that you can't tell because of the deceptive normalization in your skull chart.
There are 3 due to Fluffing. There are 3 Neanderthals, for the same reason that there are 8 human skulls. Because without Fluffing, your chart reduces to nothing, except the crushed remains of evolutionist dreams.
Is this really the best you can do? Two skulls (E&F) crushed beyond recognition painstakingly reconstructed and one skull (I) so diseased, it's inclusion in a visual chart like this is ludicrous.
A review of other characteristics show that all fossils are either clearly in the ape category or clearly in the human category. Brain size is the only category that appears to approach intermediate between the Australopithecus ape and modern humans. Link for the article from which the following table is pulled follows:
Table 1: Summary of the results of analyses of characteristics of fossil Homo species [After Table 7 in Wood and Collard, Ref. 3]. 1) body size, 2) body shape, 3) locomotion, 4) jaws and teeth, 5) development and 6) brain size. H = like modern humans, A = australopith-like, I = intermediate ? = data unavailable.
Species name |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
H. rudolfensis |
? |
? |
? |
A |
A |
A |
H. habilis |
A |
A |
A |
A |
A |
A |
H. ergaster |
H |
H |
H |
H |
H |
A |
H. erectus |
H |
? |
H |
H |
? |
I |
H. heidelbergensis |
H |
? |
H |
H |
? |
A |
H neanderthalensis |
H |
H |
H |
H |
H |
H |
In order to fend off the usual bogus anti-creationist accusations of quoting out of context, Table 1 (above) has been reproduced from Table 7 in Wood and Collard exactly as it appears in their work. As can be seen, only one major constellation of traits in the specimens in question is in fact characterized as I (intermediate) between australopiths and Homo sapiens. All of the others are either unknown, clear-cut australopith in morphology, or clear-cut Homo sapiens in morphology. Now, had the hominins actually been a series of transitional forms gradually progressing from australopith to modern Homo sapiens (as commonly portrayed in textbooks), many if not most of the entries in Table 1 would instead be I (intermediate).
But it gets even worse for the evolutionist. Note that the individual hominins do not even qualify as a mosaic of australopith and Homo sapiens attributes. There is no increase in the number of human traits in the ‘series’. Most or all of the six constellations of traits dichotomize sharply along the lines of all-australopith or all Homo sapiens in terms of morphology.
The non-transitions in human evolution - on evolutionist' terms
That chart reduces to australopithicus ape fossils and human fossils with no evidence of intermediaries. Somewhere there is a quote of evolutionists admitting that australopithicus is more distinct from both humans and chimps than humans and chimps are from each other.
Without tricks like normalizing the skulls and fluffing, you would never dare post a chart like this. That you have, should embarrass you to no end.
This isn't representative of "transitionals". It is however, representative of the sloppy work of Dr. Theobold, who published this farce as part of his alleged 29 evidences, which are every bit as flimsy.
Glad you drew the line in the sand based on your own opinions. Interesting to see where you fall on the spectrum of other creationist opinions on the identity of transitional hominid skulls:
Interesting that you are so adamant about which skulls are human and which are apes (particularly those in the F-H range), when 'renowned creationist experts' don't come to the same conclusions. It's almost as if - are you ready for this - it's not entirely clear as to where the apes end and the humans begin - like there's some sort of transitional fossils around!
DOUBLESPEAK Alert!!!
Come on now, no one's doublespeaking here. All I said was No one ever claimed that this was lineal series of transitionals, but the relation and progression through time is clear. Ever heard of cousins? Neanderthals, for example, were a 'cousin' species (and a clearly distinct species) of humans that happened to more closely resemble our apelike ancestors than we do - this ain't rocket science here, and no one's trying to 'doublespeak'. I'm trying to clarify.
BTW, Austalopithecus and Homo habilis are not the same species.
Also, it's not as if this photograph represents the entire depth of evidence of of the evolutionary link between apes and humans. There is a wealth of evidence coming from many fields of research. The paleontological evidence (the depth of which cannot be represented by a single photograph) is by itself damning evidence - but it goes far beyond that (but I think you already know that). I hate to say it, but O.J. is guilty, and we're related to apes.
Still waiting for a specific prediction, showing some idea of how and/or where a particular item, organism, or phenomenon will be found, according to 'creation science'. Here's another one relating to this topic (albeit older and more general than the other predictions I've listed, but still more specific than any creationist 'prediction'):
"Darwin predicted, based on homologies with African apes, that human ancestors arose in Africa. That prediction has been supported by fossil and genetic evidence (Ingman et al. 2000)."
Excerpts from the wonderfully informative website talkorigins.org, putting creationism in its rightful place as pseudoscience since 1996
Placemarker to read later
Thanks Danny ... that oft repeated 'chart' is now relegated to being ignored in future threads. Well done.