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Is the early history of the human race such a mess that it shouldn’t be taught in school?

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Bernard Wood asks “Did early homo migrate into or out of Africa?” (Science June 17, 2011):

The origin of our own genus remains frustratingly unclear. Although many of my colleagues are agreed regarding the “what”with respect to Homo, there is no consensus as to the “how” and “when” questions. Until relatively recently, most paleoanthropologists (including the writer) assumed Africa was the answer to the “where” question, but in a little more than a decade discoveries at two sites beyond Africa, one at Dmanisi in Georgia and the other at Liang Bua on the island of Flores, have called this assumption into question.

Meanwhile, Anne Gibbons asks, Who was homo habilis? And was it really homo? (Science June 17, 2011):

As new H. habilis fossils emerged over the decades, the researchers and others came to consider the species the first member of our own genus, a crucial ancestor that gave rise to H. erectus in an unbroken lineage that led to us. But in the past decade, the handyman’s status has been undermined. Newer analytical methods suggested that H. habilis matured and moved less like a human and more like an australopithecine, such as the famous partial skeleton of Lucy. Now, a report in press in the Journal of Human Evolution finds that H. habilis’s dietary range was also more like Lucy’s than that of H. erectus, which many consider the first fully human species to walk the earth.

Strange how Darwinian evolutionists need to find the “first fully human species to walk the earth.”

It would seem a reasonable obsession for some. But in their view, is there any such thing? Isn’t it all just a total continuum with the amoeba?

This is all great fun. But isn’t school meant for stuff we’re pretty sure of? Sine. Cosine. Tangent. When experts disagree … ?

No wonder Creation-Evolution Headlines advises “Avoid Confusion: Disbelieve Paleoanthropologists (June 28, 2011).

Comments
Elizabeth, I feel flooded beyond my capacity to digest. A single example would suffice. Post the link. Post your description of why it is relevant. Do you agree that it is in fact the case that: If the evolutionist sets a date for the divergence from a common ancestor, we can calculate via theory how many mutations can reasonably take place and become fixed in the population in the time allotted. And your example of this is? Do you agree that it is in fact the case that: We can also calculate, via theory, what sort of reproduction rate would be required for the species to support the scenario. And your example of this is?Mung
July 1, 2011
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Mung, "evolutionists" (aka evolutionary biologists) can and do all those things. Try searching google scholar. You'll find more calculations than you can shake a stick it. That's probably why they don't get much exposure in the popular science press - the papers tend to be full of math. http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=mutation+rates+molecular+clock&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wsElizabeth Liddle
July 1, 2011
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We can however test the known "facts" against theory. For example: If the evolutionist sets a date for the divergence from a common ancestor, we can calculate via theory how many mutations can reasonably take place and become fixed in the population in the time allotted. But how often do we actually see those calculations from evolutionists? We can also calculate, via theory, what sort of reproduction rate would be required for the species to support the scenario. But again, how often do we actually see those calculations from evolutionists? So in some respects the theory is testable, but isn't in fact tested. Why? Well, it's all assumed to be fact. Who needs a test!?Mung
July 1, 2011
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goodusername I can't say I disagree with any issues you mentioned. My skepticism comes not from the idea of common ancestry, but from the lack of sufficient observable field data concerning mutation/selection when applied to the current fossil record. The fossil record gives us a window of time for something to happen, and neo-darwinism proposes a mechanism to do so. However, when the mechanism is observed in the field (via Bacteria generations), it is arguably lacking. I guess we will wait and see what they dig up next.junkdnaforlife
July 1, 2011
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junkdnaforlife, "If ardi brings us back 4.5 million years and is already fully bi-pedal, that then grants 1.5 million years for a chimp/ape to strut his stuff. Is this enough time for neo-darwinism?" --I don't know what genetics are involved in such a transition, but looking at the anatomy that's involved, I would say the changes are numerous but each is small. The foramen magnum moves up a little, the curvature of the spine changes slightly, the femur bends inward a bit at the knee, etc. There's no one single large leap that needs to be made - and although the changes needed are numerous, they can all be changing simultaneously. Also, Ardi wasn't quite "fully bi-pedal". That's why Ardi tells us so much more than Lucy in how we became bi-pedal: Lucy was already there while Ardi was transitioning (apparently she was bi-pedal on the ground but a quadraped in trees. One of the things she tells us is that we didn't go through a knuckle-walking stage). I did find this comment though from the researchers: "These changes suggest to him that Ar. ramidus "has been bipedal for a very long time."" That makes things a bit interesting. But remember that the transition we're talking about here wouldn't be quite as dramatic as a chimp to human. Chimps have been diverging as well since the time of the common ancestor.goodusername
June 30, 2011
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Hmmm Ardi, 'Fit Damn You FIT!!!" Icon Of Evolution - Ape To Man - The Ultimate Deception - Jonathan Wells - video http://vimeo.com/19080087 Ardi: The Human Ancestor Who Wasn't? - May 2010 Excerpt: "[White] showed no evidence that Ardi is on the human lineage," Sarmiento says. "Those characters that he posited as relating exclusively to humans also exist in apes and ape fossils that we consider not to be in the human lineage." http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1992115,00.html Artificially Reconstructed “Ardi” Overturns Prevailing Evolutionary Hypotheses of Human Evolution - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: The missing link presently being touted in the media, Ardipithecus ramidus, has had more reconstructive surgery than Michael Jackson.,,,One problem is that some portions of Ardi's skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction. "Tim [White] showed me pictures of the pelvis in the ground, and it looked like an Irish stew," says Walker. Indeed, looking at the evidence, different paleoanthropologists may have different interpretations of how Ardi moved,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/10/artificially_reconstructed_ard.html The propaganda machine goes into overdrive: Excerpt: But Ardi's foot is fairly well preserved... and it is very obviously a flat-footed ape's foot - complete with curved toe bones, best suited for grasping branches:,,, Even some evolutionists, like Jungers, point this out: "Divergent big toes are associated with grasping, and this has one of the most divergent big toes you can imagine." "Why would an animal fully adapted to support its weight on its forelimbs in the trees elect to walk bipedally on the ground?" Ian Juby - Newsletter Ardi Party Is Over - Nov. 2009 Excerpt: In an article by Katherine Harmon in the pro-evolutionary magazine Scientific American, "So many doubts are evident that laymen should seriously question whether this fossil suggests anything about human origins." http://creationsafaris.com/crev200911.htm#20091125a Sensation of the Month: "Ardi" - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNqtp-SymEMbornagain77
June 30, 2011
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"In other words, Lucy and other australopithecines don’t really tell us much about how we became biped, because the australopithecines are already fully there. We needed something much older." Understood. But it seems, the further bipedalism is pushed back to the common ancestor, 6 million years ago give or take, the less "gradual" and the more spiked the beneficial mutation/selection rate becomes. If ardi brings us back 4.5 million years and is already fully bi-pedal, that then grants 1.5 million years for a chimp/ape to strut his stuff. Is this enough time for neo-darwinism? Based on the e coli bacteria studies, where the generations observed scale close to 1.5 million years of hominid generations, the mutation/selection horsepower observed in the number of bacterial generations seems insufficient to power a chimps bi-pedal gait in the span of time that ardi suggests.junkdnaforlife
June 30, 2011
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But alas goodusername, it is your choice to believe in lies or not, Myself I find the whole materialistic delusion to be the very definition of insanity personifiedbornagain77
June 30, 2011
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Let's not forget goodusername, you have no mechanism for change; Waiting Longer for Two Mutations - Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that ‘‘for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years’’ (Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’’ using their model (which nonetheless "using their model" gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. http://www.discovery.org/a/9461bornagain77
June 30, 2011
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notes as to the soul; That the mind of a individual observer would play such an integral, yet not complete 'closed loop' role, in instantaneous quantum wave collapse to uncertain 3-D particles, gives us clear evidence that our mind is a unique entity. A unique entity with a superior quality of existence when compared to the uncertain 3D particles of the material universe. This is clear evidence for the existence of the 'higher dimensional soul' of man that supersedes any material basis that the soul/mind has been purported to emerge from by materialists. I would also like to point out that the 'effect', of universal quantum wave collapse to each 'central 3D observer', gives us clear evidence of the extremely special importance that the 'cause' of the 'Infinite Mind of God' places on each of our own individual souls/minds. Psalm 139:17-18 How precious concerning me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. These following studies and videos confirm this 'superior quality' of existence for our souls/minds: Alvin Plantinga and the Modal Argument (for the existence of the soul) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTn_wRwDE0 Miracle Of Mind-Brain Recovery Following Hemispherectomies - Dr. Ben Carson - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994585/ Removing Half of Brain Improves Young Epileptics' Lives: Excerpt: "We are awed by the apparent retention of memory and by the retention of the child's personality and sense of humor,'' Dr. Eileen P. G. Vining; In further comment from the neuro-surgeons in the John Hopkins study: "Despite removal of one hemisphere, the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved. Intellect was only affected in the one child who had remained in a coma, vigil-like state, attributable to peri-operative complications." http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/19/science/removing-half-of-brain-improves-young-epileptics-lives.html The Day I Died - Part 4 of 6 - The Extremely 'Monitored' Near Death Experience of Pam Reynolds - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4045560 The Scientific Evidence for Near Death Experiences - Dr Jeffery Long - Melvin Morse M.D. - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4454627 Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience (NDE) - Pim von Lommel - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994599/ Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their Near Death Experiences (NDEs). 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. (of note: This 'anomaly' is also found for deaf people who can hear sound during their Near Death Experiences(NDEs).) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_64/ai_65076875/ Quantum Consciousness - Time Flies Backwards? - Stuart Hameroff MD Excerpt: Dean Radin and Dick Bierman have performed a number of experiments of emotional response in human subjects. The subjects view a computer screen on which appear (at randomly varying intervals) a series of images, some of which are emotionally neutral, and some of which are highly emotional (violent, sexual....). In Radin and Bierman's early studies, skin conductance of a finger was used to measure physiological response They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared! Recently Professor Bierman (University of Amsterdam) repeated these experiments with subjects in an fMRI brain imager and found emotional responses in brain activity up to 4 seconds before the stimuli. Moreover he looked at raw data from other laboratories and found similar emotional responses before stimuli appeared. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/TimeFlies.html Quantum Coherence and Consciousness – Scientific Proof of ‘Mind’ – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6266865/ Particular quote of note from preceding video; “Wolf Singer Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research (Frankfurt) has found evidence of simultaneous oscillations in separate areas of the cortex, accurately synchronized in phase as well as frequency. He suggests that the oscillations are synchronized from some common source, but the actual source has never been located.” James J. Hurtak, Ph.D. – Ph.D. on non-local consciousness I hold this evidence, from Wolf Singer, to be concrete proof for the ‘transcendent mind’ of man, since the ‘simultaneous actions’ in the brain are ‘instantaneous’ and are thus impossible to be explained by, or reduced to, any of the physical ‘space-time energy/matter’ chemical processes of the brain. Study suggests precognition may be possible - November 2010 Excerpt: A Cornell University scientist has demonstrated that psi anomalies, more commonly known as precognition, premonitions or extra-sensory perception (ESP), really do exist at a statistically significant level.bornagain77
June 30, 2011
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more notes on the 'fit damn you fit' method of science: “Dr. Leakey produced a biased reconstruction (of 1470/ Homo Rudolfensis) based on erroneous preconceived expectations of early human appearance that violated principles of craniofacial development,” Dr. Timothy Bromage http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/Mans_Earliest_Direct_Ancestors_Looked_More_Apelike_Than_Previously_Believed.asp Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens - 05/27/2009 - Creation Safaris: Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period....”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: "Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be." By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” http://creationsafaris.com/crev200905.htm#20090527abornagain77
June 30, 2011
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"goodusername, so you are just a hairless ape with no soul???" --I take offense to that... I can assure you that I am not hairless.goodusername
June 30, 2011
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goodusername, so you are just a hairless ape with no soul???bornagain77
June 30, 2011
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Clive Hayden, I think StephenB nailed it on the head for the way Darwinists constantly, at least when they can get away with it, practice science. He called it the 'Fit!, Damn You!, FIT!!!, method of science. :) ================= Myself, I find perusing the truth to much more rewarding; Promise Of A Lifetime - Kutless - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wgA93WQWKEbornagain77
June 30, 2011
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"“these australopith specimens (Lucy) can be accommodated with the range of intraspecific variation of African apes” Nature 443 (9/2006), p.296" --As soon as I saw this quote I knew it had to be only addressing certain features of the skull (other than the foramen magnum), because no one in their right mind would say such a thing about the rest of the skeleton. As it turns out it was just a discussion about the face: “It is not clear if this represents different patterns of facial maturation, as all the variation subsumed by these australopith specimens can be accommodated within the range of intraspecific variation of African apes” The Oxnard quote was from nearly 40 years ago, and he was pretty much alone in that assessment. “New study suggests big bang theory of human evolution – U of M Press Release Excerpt: “The earliest H. sapiens remains differ significantly from australopithecines in both size and anatomical details. Insofar as we can tell, these changes were sudden and not gradual.” University of Michigan anthropologist Milford Wolpoff” --I liked this quote. There was a population of australopithecines from 2 million years ago – when all of a sudden – BAM – they turn into H. sapiens - from 200k years ago. ? I’ve looked at casts comparing the anatomy of Lucy, humans, and chimps myself. There are countless reasons for believing that australopithecines walked upright. I'll start at the head and work down: The location of the foramen magnum; the curvature of the spine; the low center of gravity; the iliac blades are curved toward the front of the body; the places where leg muscles attach to the pelvis show they were relatively strong; the broadness of the pelvis; the wideness of the sacrum; humanlike shock absorbers (spongy cushions) where joints take a pounding during walking; a human-like femur (extra bone for strength at the top with extra padding); a human-like knee (built for femurs that come inward, and tibias that then go straight down, as in humans and unlike in apes); a relatively frail tibia as in humans. Ok, I did get a chuckle out of the sawbone video, but here are a couple of good sites comparing the pelvis of humans, chimps, and A. Afarensis (actually, I didn’t look closely at the articles, I just wanted good pics): http://www.anthro4n6.net/lucy/ http://anthro.palomar.edu/hominid/australo_2.htm And if you doubt the accuracy of the comparison, there are plenty of pics of Lucy’s pelvis and other australopithecines out there. Interesting how there was nothing in your response disputing the location of the foramen magnum in australopithecines, when just a moment ago that was such a crucial difference between humans and apes. Here is Lovejoy explaining why finding Ardi was important: “Even as its fossil record proliferated, however, Australopithecus continued to provide only an incomplete understanding of hominid origins. Paradoxically, in light of Ardipithecus, we can now see that Australopithecus was too derived—its locomotion too sophisticated, and its invasion of new habitats too advanced—not to almost entirely obscure earlier hominid evolutionary dynamics.” -- In other words, Lucy and other australopithecines don’t really tell us much about how we became biped, because the australopithecines are already fully there. We needed something much older. From the neck down, the australopithecines are essentially human. Yes, the skulls are essentially those of an ape – but that’s the point. If not for the skull they would just be claimed to be a funny looking people. From the neck down (90% of the skeleton) it’s clearly almost a human, and yet, from the skull, clearly not a human. That’s why the australopithecines are so important.goodusername
June 30, 2011
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Born: Lucy had been demoted years ago. "The presence of the morphology in both the latter and Au. afarensis and its absence in modern humans cast doubt on the role of Au. afarensis as a modern human ancestor. The ramal anatomy of the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus is virtually that of a chimpanzee, corroborating the proposed phylogenetic scenario." So Ardi is the new Lucy. By arguing that the non-chimp like Ardi is more chimp like than the chimp-like Lucy. Or something. "The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091001-oldest-human-skeleton-ardi-missing-link-chimps-ardipithecus-ramidus.htmljunkdnaforlife
June 30, 2011
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bornagain77,
Lucy – The Powersaw Incident – a humorous video showing how biased evolutionists can be with the evidence http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4032597
That this "scientist" took a powersaw to Lucy's bone to change it to how he thought it should look is absolutely unbelievable.Clive Hayden
June 30, 2011
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But goodusername, you of course knew all this that lucy was pure junk science, but please tell me,, just why are you so eager to trade your birthright of being made in the image God,,, a child of God with an unimaginably great future, for a lie??? Do you really want to be separated from God that bad??? Hell,,,, We Can't Afford to Get This Wrong - Francis Chan - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnrJVTSYLr8bornagain77
June 30, 2011
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goodusername, you mean the australopithecine that thay took a powersaw to the hip bone in order to make it walk upright??? Lucy - The Powersaw Incident - a humorous video showing how biased evolutionists can be with the evidence http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4032597 ,,,But then again goodusername poor old Lucy has a fairly shady history: Lucy - She's No Lady - lecture video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7639929005726140350 "these australopith specimens (Lucy) can be accommodated with the range of intraspecific variation of African apes" Nature 443 (9/2006), p.296 "The australopithecines (Lucy) known over the last several decades from Olduvai and Sterkfontein, Kromdraai and Makapansgat, are now irrevocably removed from a place in a group any closer to humans than to African apes and certainly from any place in a direct human lineage." Charles Oxnard, former professor of anatomy at the University of Southern California Medical School, who subjected australopithecine fossils to extensive computer analysis; http://creationwiki.org/Australopithecines Israeli Researchers: 'Lucy' is not direct ancestor of humans"; Apr 16, 2007 The Mandibular ramus morphology (lower jaw bone) on a recently discovered specimen of Australopithecus afarensis closely matches that of gorillas. This finding was unexpected given that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans.,,,its absence in modern humans cast doubt on the role of Au. afarensis as a modern human ancestor. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2007/04/24/lucy_demoted_from_the_human_ancestral_li "The australopithecine (Lucy) skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian (ape-like) as opposed to human that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white." Lord Solly Zuckerman - Chief scientific advisor to British government and leading zoologist My Pilgrimage to Lucy’s Holy Relics Fails to Inspire Faith in Darwinism Excerpt: ---"We were sent a cast of the Lucy skeleton, and I was asked to assemble it for display,” remembers Peter Schmid, a paleontologist at the Anthropological Institute in Zurich.,,, "When I started to put [Lucy’s] skeleton together, I expected it to look human,” Schmid continues “Everyone had talked about Lucy as being very modern, very human, so I was surprised by what I saw.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/my_pilgrimage_to_lucys_holy_re.html#more New study suggests big bang theory of human evolution - U of M Press Release Excerpt: "The earliest H. sapiens remains differ significantly from australopithecines in both size and anatomical details. Insofar as we can tell, these changes were sudden and not gradual." University of Michigan anthropologist Milford Wolpoff http://www.ns.umich.edu/Releases/2000/Jan00/r011000b.html "If pressed about man's ancestry, I would have to unequivocally say that all we have is a huge question mark. To date, there has been nothing found to truthfully purport as a transitional species to man, including Lucy, since 1470 was as old and probably older. If further pressed, I would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt arrival of man rather than a gradual process of evolving". Richard Leakey, paleo-anthropologist, in a PBS documentary, 1990. http://www.wasdarwinright.com/earlyman.htmbornagain77
June 30, 2011
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""The underside of the skulls for the apes, they're very similar," said DeWitt. "And the human skull is different, the odd one out. And you can tell because of the position of the foramen magnum -- in the apes is up and in humans coming from the bottom."" --Well, yeah, humans walk upright while apes don't. So our skulls are balanced on our bodies slightly different. BTW, guess where the foramen magnum is on australopithecines?goodusername
June 30, 2011
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This article, with a video clip, is interesting. Please note in the video clip how when the skull of proposed ape ancestors to man are viewed from the bottom, and compared with man's skull, the differences readily pop out: From Monkey to Man? Darwin Being Challenged http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2009/November/From-Monkey-to-Man-Darwin-Being-Challenged/bornagain77
June 29, 2011
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The ardi fossil debunked the chimp-like common ancestor. The hobbit fossil(s) threw a monkey wrench into the out of Africa theory. Basically the most persuasive arguments I was taught in school are bunk now, or a wobbling standing 8 count. The picture of the chimp turning into a chimp-man, then a hairy man, then a man, fail. The images of the continent of Africa with streamline arrows illustrating the pathways of the first hairy men to what is now Asia, Europe, the hobbit severely challenges this. “Throw out all those posters and books that depict a living ape evolving into a human being,“ Lovejoy said. “People often think we evolved from ancestors that look like apes, but no, apes in some ways evolved from ancestors that look like us,” he says. http://www.kent.edu/research/owen_lovejoy.cfmjunkdnaforlife
June 29, 2011
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Quotes of note: “Something extraordinary, if totally fortuitous, happened with the birth of our species….Homo sapiens is as distinctive an entity as exists on the face of the Earth, and should be dignified as such instead of being adulterated with every reasonably large-brained hominid fossil that happened to come along.” Anthropologist Ian Tattersall (curator at the American Museum of Natural History) Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr http://www.y-origins.com/index.php?p=home_more4 The Truth About Human Origins: Excerpt: "It is practically impossible to determine which "family tree" (for human evolution) one should accept. Richard Leakey (of the famed fossil hunting family from Africa) has proposed one. His late mother, Mary Leakey, proposed another. Donald Johanson, former president of the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley, California, has proposed yet another. And as late as 2001, Meave Leakey (Richard's wife) has proposed still another.,," http://books.google.com/books?id=J9pON9yB8HkC&pg=PT28&lpg=PT28bornagain77
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Contrary to the claims of neo-Darwinists for the human fossil record in 'proving' human evolution: The actual evidence in the fossil record is a lot more ambiguous than they would prefer to let on; notes: New study suggests big bang theory of human evolution – U of M Press Release Excerpt: “The earliest H. sapiens remains differ significantly from australopithecines in both size and anatomical details. Insofar as we can tell, these changes were sudden and not gradual.” University of Michigan anthropologist Milford Wolpoff http://ns.umich.edu/Releases/2000/Jan00/r011000b.html The changing face of genus Homo – Wood; Collard Excerpt: the current criteria for identifying species of Homo are difficult, if not impossible, to operate using paleoanthropological evidence. We discuss alternative, verifiable, criteria, and show that when these new criteria are applied to Homo, two species, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, fail to meet them. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6505%281999%298:6%3C195::AID-EVAN1%3E3.0.CO;2-2/abstract “Dr. Leakey produced a biased reconstruction (of 1470/ Homo Rudolfensis) based on erroneous preconceived expectations of early human appearance that violated principles of craniofacial development,” Dr. Timothy Bromage http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/Mans_Earliest_Direct_Ancestors_Looked_More_Apelike_Than_Previously_Believed.asp Evolution of the Genus Homo – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: “Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis.” http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens – 05/27/2009 – Creation Safaris: Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period….”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: “Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be.” By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” http://creationsafaris.com/crev200905.htm#20090527a “But what is the basis for the human evolution thesis put forward by evolutionists? It is the existence of plenty of fossils on which evolutionists are able to build imaginary interpretations. Throughout history, more than 6,000 species of ape have lived, and most of them have become extinct. Today, only 120 species live on the earth. These 6,000 or so species of ape, most of which are extinct, constitute a rich resource for the evolutionists to build imaginary interpretations with.” http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man.html Icon Of Evolution – Ape To Man – The Ultimate Deception – video http://www.vimeo.com/19080087bornagain77
June 29, 2011
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OT: Casey Luskin is weighing on something near and dear to PZ Myer's heart: Demystifying the Debate with PZ Myers' Over Evolution and Embryology http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/demystifying_the_debate_with_p048011.htmlbornagain77
June 29, 2011
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There are grounds for excluding habilus from the Homo genus – a smaller brain than other Homo, it created simpler tools, and had an anatomy more like that of the australopithecines. But then again there are good arguments for including it with Homo: A larger brain than the australopithecines, it created more advanced tools, an anatomy more like that of the Homo genus. The “problems” we’re having is precisely the sort of problems we SHOULD have when examining an intermediate. The Georgia fossils are interesting, but the erectus fossils are within the range of the oldest erectus fossils in Africa.goodusername
June 29, 2011
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Strange how Darwinian evolutionists need to find the “first fully human species to walk the earth.”
Let's not jump to conclusions by lumping everybody together as if they all had the same interests. No doubt some people are very interested in human origins. But I would guess that most have other things that interest them a lot more.Neil Rickert
June 28, 2011
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