Posted on 01/27/2004 8:08:04 AM PST by blam
'Your forefathers were not Neanderthals'
January 26 2004 at 02:30PM
By Maggie Fox
Washington - You may think your grandparents act like Neanderthals, but United States researchers said on Monday they had strong evidence that modern humans are not descended from them.
A computer analysis of the skulls of modern humans, Neanderthals, monkeys and apes shows that we are substantially different, physically, from those early humans.
New York University paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati said Neanderthals should be considered a separate species from Homo sapiens, and not just a sub-species.
"We interpret the evidence presented here as supporting the view that Neanderthals represent an extinct human species and therefore refute the regional continuity model for Europe," she and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Some anthropologists believe that Neanderthals, who went extinct 30 000 years ago, may have at least contributed to the ancestry of modern Europeans.
There is strong evidence that Homo sapiens neanderthalis, as they are known scientifically, interacted with the more modern Cro-Magnons, who eventually displaced them. Cro-Magnons are the ancestors of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens.
Some research has suggested they may have interbred to a limited degree, although this is hotly disputed in anthropological circles.
At least one study that looked at fragments of Neanderthal DNA suggested any Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon offspring did not add to the modern gene pool.
Harvati and colleagues combined modern computer technology and the tried-and-true method of determining species that uses physical comparisons.
They examined the skulls of modern humans and Neanderthals and 11 existing species of non-human primates including chimpanzees, gorillas and baboons.
They measured 15 standard skull and face landmarks and used 3-D analysis to superimpose each one on the other.
"From these data, we were able to determine how much variation living primate species generally accommodate, as well as measure how different two primate species that are closely related can be," Harvati said in a statement.
Their computer analyses showed that the differences measured between modern humans and Neanderthals were significantly greater than those found between subspecies of living monkeys and apes.
Not entirely bogus. It is, after all, genuine creation "science" research at its best.
LOL, I have to see this!
Let me try: ID predicts that gases are made of molecules which obey Newton's laws. It does?!
Evolution is contrary to both laws.
This requires demonstration. EG, calculate the entropy of a bunch of ancient people and and wolves, vs the entropy of a bunch of modern people, wolves, and domestic dogs. (Assume a constant flux of sunlight and that the rest of the environment is static). Or some concrete example.
You might as well be a rabbi arguing with an me as an imam about whether YHWH or Allah is true God.
Does the rabbi or the imam either one have any record of making correct predictions about what will be found in fossils and lab experiments? Biologists, using evolution theory, can and have, thousands of times.
So no, it's not the same thing at all - the rabbi's and the imam's jobs - theological speculation, trying to convince people their own scriptures really are the word of god, and so forth, have no counterparts in science.
Wait a minute... you don't already know what I am going to write? I thought these were the "same old tired arguments" you've heard over and over.
In spite of the words of Matthew 7:6 ringing in my head, I'll give this a shot:
The first law of thermodynamics indicates that nothing is currently being created or destroyed; the amounts of energy and matter in the universe are constant. The universe could not have possibly created itself; every effect must have a cause, and the effect cannot be greater than the cause. An omnipotent creator would be an adequate first cause; the universe cannot be it's own cause.
The second law ... a system left to itself will move from order to disorder. Evolutionists would have us ignore this and believe that a system left to itself rose from some primordial goop to the magnificent order we see around us in every bit of creation we study.
(This is the part where you bring up steady state theory...and I refute by reminding you that steady state is outside the realm of empirical science, just as creation or evolution is.)
the rabbi's and the imam's jobs - theological speculation, trying to convince people their own scriptures really are the word of god, and so forth, have no counterparts in science.
Actually, it would seem that your zealous defense of an indefensible position makes my point. Your religion is evolution.
Yes, I ran across that passage while reading Origin as a high school junior.
It is fun to watch you guys begin to unravel at the seams and resort to name calling when you aren't in control of the debate, as you are in our lousy public school system.
You might have absorbed a little about how to argue the subject. Darwin's work wonderfully illustrates how to discuss a proposal from all sides: to describe the evidence which at first suggested an idea, to anticipate as many possible objections up front as one can, and (in later editions) to answer completely and forthrightly all objections raised by others in the interval.
Darwin cuts no corners, refrains from "Twist and Shout," eschews strawmanning, and disdains every other manner of transparent deception or intentional fallacy like the plague. His example of integrity is totally lost on the mud-slinging and utterly corrupt zealots who make a devil of him. But then far and away most of them have never so much as cracked his book and are only recycling, parroting, and passing around quote-mined snippets from the kind of pamphlet garbage one used to find tacked up in laundromats.
The second law of thermodynamics states that a system "left to itself" in the sense that no new energy is being added will move from order to disorder. But the sun is constantly pumping energy onto the earth, which is why every day, all around us, we see order rise from disorder.
One example: Which is more ordered: a cloud of water vapor, or millions of snowflakes, each perfectly hexagonal, yet no two alike?
Yes, something did. And I believe it was God. That belief in no way blinds me to the mountain of evidence supporting the theory that Darwinian Evolution was the mechanism God used to create us.
Now that is irony if I've ever seen it. "Hello? Pot? This is the kettle calling..."
pamphlet garbage
While I might agree that the usefulness of Bible tracks is somewhat questionable, the motives with which they were used were unquestionably pure. Something I cannot say for the position you are hell bent on defending.
Once in a while, I predict creationist misbehavior before it happens. Being on these threads for almost five years has given me a gift of prophecy.
Mostly, however, I confine myself to pointing out what is there for anyone to see. I have done no more than that here. Darwin is routinely victimized by quote-miners who lift his rhetorical statements of objection to his own theory and display them as his own true admissions when in context they are only the prelude to his vigorous and entirely sound defense. In other words, the people who do that are dishonest. It is no injustice to point out that this is so. Darwin himself, a Victorian gentleman to his toes, never does that.
While I might agree that the usefulness of Bible tracks is somewhat questionable, the motives with which they were used were unquestionably pure.
You mean "tracts," and you mean that a lie for the Lord is OK because it is somehow "pure." Literal, militant, anti-science creationism is an embarrassment to the far larger body of Christianity (and of conservatism) for exactly such reasons as this.
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