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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
It was probably the skull of a child!

Good grief! Have evolutionists lost ALL common sense?

Don't tell me. I'm really not that interested in spinning more evolutionary tales.
11 posted on 07/02/2004 9:23:25 AM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: nmh

>>It was probably the skull of a child!

Good grief! Have evolutionists lost ALL common sense?<<

This is the problem: Non-"evolutionists" think scientists are simply stupid. To answer your question: there are far more indicators of age than mere size: Structure of teeth, presence of milk teeth, molar development, molar wearing, ossification of the skull, coarsening of short bones, enlargement of cartiliganeous tissue, dendrification. And these are all the things which are simply determined by a cursory glance at the skull.

But, no, you can only imagine scientists smacking their forehaeds saying, "Doh! it's a *child*'s skull? Who'd've ever thought of that?"

By the way, I'm sure these same scientists are investigating (or have investigated) other possibilities such as stunted growth due to poor diet, etc.


22 posted on 07/02/2004 11:25:39 AM PDT by dangus
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To: nmh
It was probably the skull of a child! Good grief! Have evolutionists lost ALL common sense?

Behold the creationist -- he denounces evolutionary biologists because he presumes that they're just as ignorant as he is (or more so, since he presumes that they're too stupid to consider that a small skull might be that of a child).

On the contrary, there are many ways to determine whether a skull is that of a child or an adult. Note that the fact that Mr. Creationist doesn't know about any of them doesn't stop him from ridiculing biological research as lacking "ALL common sense".

From the website of the National Institute of Forensic Science, we find:

Skulls have a number of important features which help to determine the age and sex of a skeleton. The appearance of the sutures or scams on top of the skull can give its approximate age. The vault of the cranium is made up of a number of flat bones which interlock at the edges by means of striations or sutures. In infants there are large gaps between these bones, which gradually close up after the age of 30. This fusing process occurs in a particular sequence beginning from the inside of the skull and working outwards. It is the state of these closures which allows age to be approximated; complete absence of closure indicates that the skeleton is less than 30 years old.

Age-determinations based on the state of the skull sutures are not exact, but in the absence of other information may be the only method of ageing human remains. This method was used by Professors John Glaister and J. C. Brash in 1935 to estimate the ages of two dismembered corpses which turned up in a ravine under the Carlisle to Edinburgh road. The experts estimated the age of each body to within a year of its actual age, which became known when they were identified as Dr Buck Ruxton's murder victims.

The Ruxton case provided a number of challenges for the team of experts assembled from Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, and the victims' skulls featured prominently in their scientific investigation. Sex differences are notable in the skull, the main distinguishing feature being that the female skull is smaller than the male. The mastoid processes and orbital ridges are less prominent in the female, and the eye sockets and forehead are more rounded. Sex differences are also distinguishable in the pelvis, but the skull, being one of the human frame's more durable parts, is especially significant in this respect. In the case of one of Ruxton's victims Professor Brash was able to report, 'Secondary sex characters are so well marked that I can express without hesitation the definite opinion that it is the skull of a female.'

A powerful piece of identification evidence in this case was achieved by the development of a new technique. A photographic negative enlarged to life size was made of a portrait of Ruxton's wife, and this was superimposed on an X-ray of the skull. The result was a startling match, which Professor Glaister modestly described as 'a close comparison'. The medical investigation of the Ruxton case won wide acclaim, and Glaister and Brash received an international award for their account of it.

Don't tell me.

A closed mind gathers no thought. A clear demonstration of the action of the creationists' Morton's Demon.

I'm really not that interested in spinning more evolutionary tales.

Translation: Don't confuse me with the facts.

The fact is, anthropologists have many ways to accurately determine whether a skull is that of a child or not, or even a young adult versus an older adult. Your continual habit of not knowing anything about the topics and scientists you ridicule shows just how unfounded and prejudice-driven your anti-evolutionary bias is, but it is unfortunately typical of hardcore creationists, who attack what they do not even understand, without even realizing how little they understand it.

28 posted on 07/02/2004 12:03:39 PM PDT by Ichneumon ("...she might as well have been a space alien." - Bill Clinton, on Hillary, "My Life", p. 182)
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To: nmh
It was probably the skull of a child!

It is incredibly easy to tell a child’s skull from an adult’s.
79 posted on 07/03/2004 6:45:54 AM PDT by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.)
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