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.
But closer to reality than depictions of Christ based on the Shroud of Turin, no?
As far as I recall, I had never visited a creationist website (except for one about dinosaurs once a year or so ago by some guy who I think said he was making a "creation" theme park or some such stuff) until you turned me on to the Answers in Genesis site the other day. My thoughts on this matter began to be formed during high school when I was clearly a believer in evolution (my teachers would never be wrong, would they?) and things started not adding up to me. I read books and magazines (The internet was not the burgeoning monster it is today, but merely a collection of .mil and .edu addresses with some BBS's spattered in there for porn freaks and hackers to play with) What I discovered was that there appeared to be a gross contradiction in what my teachers in high school and later my professors in college were teaching me. Rules of evidence and standards of proof for evolution were clearly not the same as for other areas of science.
Anyway, I suppose all the information you have about the debate is derived first hand ... traveling the world, digging up fossils and looking at layers upon layers of strata. On a ship called the Beagle II, no doubt.
You claim there is evidence all around for your case. So far, all you've done is make assertions and post deceitful quotes...
As I said before, the quote was meant to be amusing, as it is to me, not deceitful. The graphic with text was even take from a pro-evolution power point presentation which goes on to draw the same flimsy conclusions you all point to here.
I've posted my "evidence" on the matter. although again I will be sure to say that my "evidence" relies mostly on faith. I, at least, can be genuine about that matter; I have yet to meet an evolutionist who will admit that his is a religion more than a science.
You stoop to name calling and personal attacks because you have reached a point where you are out of "evidence" and all your previous evidence has been nothing of the sort. I'm still looking for a post showing the evolution of one kind to another (You won't post that, because there is none) but instead you bore me with the tired argument that because speciation is possible, a greater evolution must be possible, too, even though we cannot observe it, test it, or recreate it. Junk science at it's best.
BTW, you have not brought anything to this discussion that hasn't been picked over on this thread or on hundreds of others. Bring up your best argument against evolution, and I can guarrantee we'll be able to shoot it down in flames.
We need to work on our definitions here. "Faith" (as that term has been used by philosophers for 25 centuries) involves belief in the absense of evidence or logical proof. "Evidence" is a term usually reserved for data which is available for inspection or verification. (In the case of historical matters, there are protocols for judging the reliability of ancient sources, but this isn't an issue in biology.} "Religion" is a belief system that is grounded in matters that are not in evidence, but which are taken on faith. "Science" involves the rational attempt to describe and explain the evidence of the natural world, and a scientific theory is a model which attempts to explain the data (evidence) and which makes predictions that could, in principle, cause the theory to be falsified.
I'm not making this stuff up. Definitions may vary, but not too much. The theory of evolution is most definitely not a religion. It is science.
You stoop to name calling and personal attacks because you have reached a point where you are out of "evidence" and all your previous evidence has been nothing of the sort. I'm still looking for a post showing the evolution of one kind to another (You won't post that, because there is none) but instead you bore me with the tired argument that because speciation is possible, a greater evolution must be possible, too, even though we cannot observe it, test it, or recreate it. Junk science at it's best.
There's a load of evidence. Verifiable evidence. Stuff you can go see and touch. I don't recall if any of this has been posted in this thread before, but anyway, here's a sampling:
Observed Instances of Speciation .
Some More Observed Speciation Events .
Transitional Fossil Species And Modes of Speciation . (Scroll down a bit to find a ton of stuff.)
I'm still looking for a post showing the evolution of one kind to another
But thanks for the links anyway. At the risk of doing the broken record routine I'll write it again. You cannot show a fossil record with any amount of completeness to be able to demonstrate one kind of animal evolving to another. Let me break it down so even an evolutionist can understand... I'm quite impressed that a short, brown, horsey might evolve into a taller, tan horsey, but that does not mean the horsey was ever a fishy.
Huge gaps in the geologic record = no verifiable evidence that evolution of the type necessary to make men out of muck ever happened.
Once again, I could say the same of you. (See my post above ...) no matter how many horseys turn into bigger horseys, or how many fishies turn into bigger fishies, you cannot provide evidence that evolution from one kind to another has or can occur. I brought this up waaaay back in posts 177 and 226 and was provided links to horsey bones.
Your question indicates that you don't yet understand how evolution works. No one claims that you have fish in one generation and polar bears in the next. If that's what's bothering you, you can stop worrying. It doesn't happen, and of course no one will show you a fossil which somehow illustrates that it does. It takes a large number of tiny mutations, over thousands of generations, to accumulate into significant changes. The only fossils are of individual creatures, and each one is what it is. You need to look at the large picture, which stretches over millions of years, so see what existed before and after any particular fossil. Only then does the pattern emerge. Check out the links I gave you earlier. The evidence of such patterns is there.
And your statement assumes that evolution actually does work. :-)
Of course I understand that a trout does not suddenly give birth to a lion cub. Your statement indicates that you don't yet understand the basic statement I have been making; which is that there is no conclusive evidence to indicate these changes happen, even over the "billions and billions of years" (I always have to say that out loud in the Carl Sagan voice, BTW) that evolutionists like to use to pad the gaps in their "record."
People who don't agree with you aren't automatically "stupid."
Right. I'd appreciate it of you would follow this link, which is a question I posed to another creationist (post 208) on another thread. I would appreciate your answer to that question.
First of all I would not necessarily concede that Earth is the age commonly accepted by mainstream science. Not to say that I necessarily believe some creationist's arguments that the earth is six to seven thousand years old, either. I just don't automatically accept that Earth is 4-6 Billion years old.
Next, I believe there are some problems with the accuracy of carbon dating relating to the assumption that the amount of radiation entering the system has always been constant, but I may be wrong there. As you point to the millions of fossils found lined up nicely in the appropriate strata, I would also ask what the explanation is for the numerous instances of single fossils bridging many levels of strata.
The visually striking patterns of apparent decent and DNA similarities simply point in another direction, in my opinion: Why wouldn't these organisms all be similar if they were created by the same creator? Again, it makes as much sense to me as does the assumption that by filling in the huge blanks with "billions and billions of years" we can explain away the missing links.
Obviously I have no qualms or disagreements with your statements about weaker vs stronger traits being bred out of species or harmful mutations being bred out. (Perhaps we are seeing a reason for the decline of classical liberalism here, as well. Those people seem to stick together and breed together...)
My real problem comes with your conclusion: 10. and given that all of the foregoing suggests a natural mechanism by which all species on earth could have gradually developed
Even if the common accepted age of the Earth is correct -- and it very well could be -- and even if I am completely out of my gourd on the carbon dating thing and I'm pulling a non-memory from somewhere in the recesses of the 5% of my brain I manage to use ... I don't see that as sufficient evidence to claim evolution is absolutely the way it happened. Some bit about correlation not being proof positive indication of causation from a stats class I slept through pops into my head at this point.
As I've stated before, I'm not claiming creationism is any more provable than evolution, only that evolution requires as much blind faith as creationism does.
This is just nuts. There's an enormous preponderance of evidence for common descent. 29+ Independent Lines of Evidence. Your ignorance is only proof of ... your ignorance.
First of all I would not necessarily concede that Earth is the age commonly accepted by mainstream science. Not to say that I necessarily believe some creationist's arguments that the earth is six to seven thousand years old, either. I just don't automatically accept that Earth is 4-6 Billion years old.
Here, your disagreement is with the long-accepted conclusions of well-established sciences like geology and astronomy. You're way off when it comes to this stuff; and I think you're just putting up a token resistence here because you don't want to admit anything that might lead to a conclusion you don't like. Don't be so stubborn that you place yourself at odds with the entirety of the scientific world. It's intellectually silly, and I suspect you know this. Bear with me a little longer.
Next, I believe there are some problems with the accuracy of carbon dating relating to the assumption that the amount of radiation entering the system has always been constant, but I may be wrong there.
Yes, you're quite wrong. Don't add physics to the fields of science that you oppose. You might try looking at this: Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective.
As you point to the millions of fossils found lined up nicely in the appropriate strata, I would also ask what the explanation is for the numerous instances of single fossils bridging many levels of strata.
There are none. It's bogus stuff found only at creationist websites. You really can discover thse things for yourself, but you have to be willing to go to credible sources. Don't be afraid to read good information from scientifically reliable sources. It won't bite you.
The visually striking patterns of apparent decent and DNA similarities simply point in another direction, in my opinion: Why wouldn't these organisms all be similar if they were created by the same creator?
God could have done anything, any way He wanted. That's not much of an objection. The virtue of evolution is that for the first time in human history we have a way of actually understanding a whole bunch of previously inexplicable facts, rather than throwing up our hands and declaring it all to be a mystery.
Again, it makes as much sense to me as does the assumption that by filling in the huge blanks with "billions and billions of years" we can explain away the missing links.
Ah, but declaring that "It's a miracle!" isn't an explanation at all. Think about that. Besides, the billions of years were there. And the "missing links" are far fewer than you would imagine. A great deal of work has been done since Darwin's time, when there were mostly gaps in the fossil record. There will, of course, always be gaps, but what we have -- which is considerable -- tells a very compelling story.
I don't see that as sufficient evidence to claim evolution is absolutely the way it happened. Some bit about correlation not being proof positive indication of causation from a stats class I slept through pops into my head at this point.
Yes, but it's an explanation which fits the data. It goes beyone mere correlation. It makes preductions too (about the kinds of evidence we could find, and the kinds that we could never find, etc.) No other scientific theory can do that. (Miracles aren't scientific, because they can't be understood or tested.)
I'm not claiming creationism is any more provable than evolution, only that evolution requires as much blind faith as creationism does.
No. "Faith" is belief without evidence or logical proof. Creationism is indeed a matter of faith. Evolution, as I've stated, is supported by tons of evidence. It's not a matter of faith at all. And now I've given you more to chew on than you were looking for, so I'll end this too-long post.
You're getting me mixed up with someone else.
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.
You need to demonstrate the highlighted assertion; it's far from obvious what is meant by 'greater' to start with. There was some poor b@stard a couple of weeks ago (forgot his name) making the same claim, and blaming it on Descartes (!).
Intolerably vague. Is a hurricane "greater" than a bunch of convection cells off the coast of Africa? Is it "greater" than them plus the Earth's rotation? Is superconductivity "greater" than cryogenic refrigeration?
the universe cannot be it's own cause.
Why not?
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.
Not really. The second law states that, with overwhelming odds, a calculated (and/or measured) quantity called entropy increases. It is not a vague "order to disorder" metaphor - it's a precise, mathematically stated theorem of the kinetic theory of gases. You need to show, quantitatively (ie using numbers), precisely how the second law is allegedly broken. Otherwise, you're merely talking through your hat.
(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.)
Huh? 1) why would I bring up steady-state? the cosmological models have changed from agnosticism with respect to steady state vs. big bang, to big bang, to bang + inflation, to ?? strings and branes. This has, of course, had zero impact on biology.
2) How can steady state be "outside the realm of empirical science" and also have been falsified by radio observations?
Actually, it would seem that your zealous defense of an indefensible position makes my point.
Indefensible? but it allows us to make correct predictions about lab experiments and fossil field work?
Except that it allows us to make true predictions about the living world.
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