Recent fossil find a “Cambrian explosion” for humans?

Summativity- The sum of all entities at one level of organization is equal to the sum of all entities at some other level- Knox “The use of hierarchies as organizational models of systematics” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (1998), 63:1-49, page 8 Summativity is a must-have for nested hierarchies. Cladistics do not exhibit summativity. Se, I told you Piotr was ignorant of the concept. Joe

Piotr:

I know you can’t and won’t get it, so just for the record (and the benefit of any interested lurkers): there are no “levels”, “ranks”, armies, regiments, companies or frickin’ platoons in modern biological taxonomy.

There are in nested hierarchies.

All taxa (clades) have the same theoretical status

Cladistics is different from nested hierarchies, Piotr.

Nevertheless, they form a nested hierarchy since every clade includes (literally consists of) all the clades descended from it.

They do so because that is how cladistics is designed, Piotr. Cladistics is a manmade endeavor. The way cladistics works is they borrow from Linnean taxonomy with the selection of shared characteristics. But as I said evolution doesn't work like that. Denton went over that in "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis".

Linnaean ranks are only of historical interest today (though for the sake of convenience we keep their names when possible).

It is the only observed nested hierarchy, Piotr. Even Talk Origins says that.

The fact that a common innovation inherited from the ancestor of a clade becomes strongly modified or reduced in some of its members cannot invalidate a clade.

Yes it can. If clades are defined by shared characteristics and some ancestor doesn't share all of them, they are out of the clade OR the objectiveness is gone. Again, Denton went over that over two decades ago. But anyway thank you for proving that you do not understand nested hierarchies. Joe

Joey, I know you can't and won't get it, so just for the record (and the benefit of any interested lurkers): there are no "levels", "ranks", armies, regiments, companies or frickin' platoons in modern biological taxonomy. All taxa (clades) have the same theoretical status. Nevertheless, they form a nested hierarchy since every clade includes (literally consists of) all the clades descended from it. Full stop. Linnaean ranks are only of historical interest today (though for the sake of convenience we keep their names when possible). The fact that a common innovation inherited from the ancestor of a clade becomes strongly modified or reduced in some of its members cannot invalidate a clade. For example, snakes and slowworms belong to Tetrapoda even though they have no legs. The reduction of a trait once present in ancestors is a change of a character state, not original absence of a character (by the way, some snakes still show vestigial legs). Piotr

The information on nested hierarchies was very helpful - thanks for posting that. We don't see a nested hierarchy (summative) in nature. Silver Asiatic

Yes, schooled. If you think what I posted is nonsense then you are a bigger loser than I thought. What you have said proves that you don't know jack about nested hierarchies. Your case is lost, as usual. OK so Piotr gets schooled, runs away and then comes back long enough to cry "did not, did not" Joe

Joe, "Schooled"? Do I have to comment on all that nonsense ad infinitum? Frankly, I'm sick of it. I have already said all I wanted to say, and can rest my case. Piotr

Piotr gets schooled and runs away. Sweet Joe

and that studies showing bipedalism in australopiths were fraudulent

No one can show the studies are valid. Joe

bornagain77: translation Box: translation Bornagain77 claimed that there were no non-sapiens hominins, and that studies showing bipedalism in australopiths were fraudulent. When pressed, bornagain77 changed the subject. Zachriel

Summativity- The sum of all entities at one level of organization is equal to the sum of all entities at some other level- Knox "The use of hierarchies as organizational models of systematics" Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (1998), 63:1-49, page 8 Summativity is a must-have for nested hierarchies. For example in Linnean taxonomy*, ie a nested hierarchy, the Animal Kingdom consists of and contains all of the levels and entities below it. It is the sum of its parts. Linnean Classification:

The standard system of classification in which every organism is assigned a kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. This system groups organisms into ever smaller and smaller groups (like a series of boxes within boxes, called a nested hierarchy).

Looking closer at the nested hierarchy of living organisms we have the animal kingdom. To be placed in the animal kingdom an organism must have all of the criteria of an animal:

All members of the Animalia are multicellular (eukaryotes), and all are heterotrophs (that is, they rely directly or indirectly on other organisms for their nourishment). Most ingest food and digest it in an internal cavity. Animal cells lack the rigid cell walls that characterize plant cells. The bodies of most animals (all except sponges) are made up of cells organized into tissues, each tissue specialized to some degree to perform specific functions.

The next level (after kingdom) contain the phyla. Phyla have all the characteristics of the kingdom PLUS other criteria. For example one phylum under the Kingdom Animalia, is Chordata. Chordates have all the characteristics of the Kingdom PLUS the following:

Chordates are defined as organisms that possess a structure called a notochord, at least during some part of their development. The notochord is a rod that extends most of the length of the body when it is fully developed. Lying dorsal to the gut but ventral to the central nervous system, it stiffens the body and acts as support during locomotion. Other characteristics shared by chordates include the following (from Hickman and Roberts, 1994): bilateral symmetry segmented body, including segmented muscles three germ layers and a well-developed coelom. single, dorsal, hollow nerve cord, usually with an enlarged anterior end (brain) tail projecting beyond (posterior to) the anus at some stage of development pharyngeal pouches present at some stage of development ventral heart, with dorsal and ventral blood vessels and a closed blood system complete digestive system bony or cartilaginous endoskeleton usually present.

The next level is the class. All classes have the criteria of the kingdom, plus all the criteria of its phylum PLUS the criteria of its class. This is important because it shows there is a direction- one of additive characteristics. That is how containment is kept and summativity is met. (NOTE: evolution does NOT have a direction. Characteristics can be lost as well as gained. And characteristics can remain stable.) An Army can also be put into a nested hierarchy- with the Army example we would be classifying the US Army which is broken up into Field Armies, which contain and consist of Corps, which contain and consist of Divisions, which contain and consist of Brigades, which contain and consist of Battalions, which contain and consist of Companies, which contain and consist of Platoons, which contain and consist of Squads & Sections. Squads and sections contain and consist of soldiers. Each level, down to the soldier, has a well defined role and place in the scheme. The Army consists of and contains, soldiers- it exhibits summativity. Piotr doesn't even know what summativity is. See also the summary of the principles of hierarchy theory:

The Hierarchy theory is a dialect of general systems theory. It has emerged as part of a movement toward a general science of complexity. Rooted in the work of economist, Herbert Simon, chemist, Ilya Prigogine, and psychologist, Jean Piaget, hierarchy theory focuses upon levels of organization and issues of scale. There is significant emphasis upon the observer in the system.

Hierarchies occur in social systems, biological structures, and in the biological taxonomies. Since scholars and laypersons use hierarchy and hierarchical concepts commonly, it would seem reasonable to have a theory of hierarchies. Hierarchy theory uses a relatively small set of principles to keep track of the complex structure and a behavior of systems with multiple levels. A set of definitions and principles follows immediately:

Hierarchy: in mathematical terms, it is a partially ordered set. In less austere terms, a hierarchy is a collection of parts with ordered asymmetric relationships inside a whole. That is to say, upper levels are above lower levels, and the relationship upwards is asymmetric with the relationships downwards. Hierarchical levels: levels are populated by entities whose properties characterize the level in question. A given entity may belong to any number of levels, depending on the criteria used to link levels above and below. For example, an individual human being may be a member of the level i) human, ii) primate, iii) organism or iv) host of a parasite, depending on the relationship of the level in question to those above and below. Level of organization: this type of level fits into its hierarchy by virtue of set of definitions that lock the level in question to those above and below. For example, a biological population level is an aggregate of entities from the organism level of organization, but it is only so by definition. There is no particular scale involved in the population level of organization, in that some organisms are larger than some populations, as in the case of skin parasites. Level of observation: this type of level fits into its hierarchy by virtue of relative scaling considerations. For example, the host of a skin parasite represents the context for the population of parasites; it is a landscape, even though the host may be seen as belonging to a level of organization, organism, that is lower than the collection of parasites, a population. The criterion for observation: when a system is observed, there are two separate considerations. One is the spatiotemporal scale at which the observations are made. The other is the criterion for observation, which defines the system in the foreground away from all the rest in the background. The criterion for observation uses the types of parts and their relationships to each other to characterize the system in the foreground. If criteria for observation are linked together in an asymmetric fashion, then the criteria lead to levels of organization. Otherwise, criteria for observation merely generate isolated classes. The ordering of levels: there are several criteria whereby other levels reside above lower levels. These criteria often run in parallel, but sometimes only one or a few of them apply. Upper levels are above lower levels by virtue of: 1) being the context of, 2) offering constraint to, 3) behaving more slowly at a lower frequency than, 4) being populated by entities with greater integrity and higher bond strength than, and 5), containing and being made of - lower levels. Nested and non-nested hierarchies: nested hierarchies involve levels which consist of, and contain, lower levels. Non-nested hierarchies are more general in that the requirement of containment of lower levels is relaxed. For example, an army consists of a collection of soldiers and is made up of them. Thus an army is a nested hierarchy. On the other hand, the general at the top of a military command does not consist of his soldiers and so the military command is a non-nested hierarchy with regard to the soldiers in the army. Pecking orders and a food chains are also non-nested hierarchies.

To achieve summativity the criteria "consist of and contain" must be met. NOTE- A parent population does NOT consist of nor contain it's daughter populations. That is why any tree of life is not a nested hierarchy. Joe

Piotr- Your exceptional ignorance is duly noted. Piotr:

Clades are nested within clades

That is the way the (clades) are designed. However with evolution defining characteristics can be lost and that would ruin a clade. Denton goes over that in "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". And you are ignoring Darwin, Mayr and Wagner. Why do you think your ignorance means something?

Every clade is uniquely defined by a set of synapomorphies (traits inherited by the member taxa from the most recent common ancestor, and preserved with or without further modifications). No taxon can belong to two different clades unless one of them contains the other. That’s what nested hierarchies are all about.

That does NOT support your contention that family trees are nested hierarchies. Read the following and buy a vowel: A SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF HIERARCHY THEORY- note:

Nested and non-nested hierarchies: nested hierarchies involve levels which consist of, and contain, lower levels. Non-nested hierarchies are more general in that the requirement of containment of lower levels is relaxed. For example, an army consists of a collection of soldiers and is made up of them. Thus an army is a nested hierarchy. On the other hand, the general at the top of a military command does not consist of his soldiers and so the military command is a non-nested hierarchy with regard to the soldiers in the army. Pecking orders and a food chains are also non-nested hierarchies.

Joe

#102, #103 Joe, Exceptional ignorance matched only by your phenomenal cheek. I wonder what use you are to UD. Does Barry keep you as le chef de claque who can't contribute much to any topic but who is good at diversionary tricks? Clades are nested within clades. Every clade is uniquely defined by a set of synapomorphies (traits inherited by the member taxa from the most recent common ancestor, and preserved with or without further modifications). No taxon can belong to two different clades unless one of them contains the other. That's what nested hierarchies are all about. Piotr

Why isn't a family tree a nested hierarchy? For one members of one family tree are also members of other family trees. With a nested hierarchy a member belongs to one and only one family. Next all family members have the same defining characteristics so you wouldn't be able to sort them into different sets and levels using defining characteristics. Joe

Piotr:

Of course every family tree (like any other tree graph) is a nested hierarchy.

No, Piotr, family trees are not nested hierarchies. Even Zachriel understands that and Zachriel even knows why. You don't have any idea what a nested hierarchy is nor what it entails. Joe

“Changing the subject is not a persuasive argument” translation:

Well, I'm here debating with you but you cannot take anything I say serious because "my reason" is produced by blind irrational processes, which obviously don't give a hoot about truth or anything. Moreover "I" hold that "I" don't exist, the only things that do exist are particles in motion, which trick "me" into believing that "I" exist'.

Box

"Changing the subject is not a persuasive argument" translation: "I have no real time empirical evidence that unguided material processes can actually produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined'. Man someone really needs to invent a Darwin-speak translator: The Manslater: (Woman Language Translator) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVib_giTFo bornagain77

bornagain77: When I ask for real time empirical evidence, I am not asking for a skull ... The question first concerned the existence of non-sapiens Hominins, and then bipedalism in Australopithecus. Changing the subject is not a persuasive argument Zachriel

Zach "lay that real time empirical evidence" AHHH finally to the point of your confusion. You have no idea what real time empirical evidence actually is! When I ask for real time empirical evidence, I am not asking for a skull that was dug up from the ground and 'reconstructed' to fit into a preconceived Darwinian conclusion. NO! When I ask for real time empirical evidence that unguided material processes can produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined, I am asking you to actually DEMONSTRATE, for all the world to see, that unguided material processes can actually produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined.i.e. I just don't want you to claim that it can be done. I want you to SHOW ME it can be done. I have been waiting. I'm still waiting, and I will be waiting for such a real time demonstration for a long, long, time: "The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the entire world in the past 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety (just 2 binding sites being generated by accident) in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." Michael J. Behe PhD. (from page 146 of his book "Edge of Evolution") When Theory and Experiment Collide — April 16th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied. http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/18022460402/when-theory-and-experiment-collide "Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" - Ann Gauger - January 1, 2015 Excerpt: The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That's longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/happy_new_year092291.html THE ROLLING STONES - Time is on my side (1964) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHzcHK3uV-Y bornagain77

bornagain77: lay that real time empirical evidence We already did. See Kimbel & Rak, The cranial base of Australopithecus afarensis: new insights from the female skull, Philosophical Transactions B 2010. Your previous cut-and-paste on Kimbel & Rak is just handwaving with no independent data or analysis. From A.L. 822-1 they estimated the position of the foramen within a couple of millimeters. Zachriel

Zach,,, "Good." Okie dokie, lay that real time empirical evidence out for me baby??? I'm waiting, and have been waiting a very long time: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Cfv3-gD2P4k/TSrFGa0n8OI/AAAAAAAAClc/BwUS82UdRtU/s1600/waiting.gif bornagain77

Yet another afareneis skull fossil of potential value in this discussion, A.L. 822-1, was found more recently. Kimbel and Rak, the authors of the book about A.L. 444-2, published a review of A.L. 822-1’s reconstruction in 2010. That specimen was rebuilt from over 200 fragments. It contains only one small portion of the foramen’s margin on a fragment from the right side and another tiny piece (14 mm long) from somewhere near the foramen’s margin but without a direct connection. They did include a photo of the cranial base (see photo) in their paper. Calculating the foramen’s position using the same jaw-ignoring alternate method they used with A.L. 444-2, they obtained similar results. Overall the authors thought A.L. 822-1 was more similar to apes than other skulls, and they speculated this more “primitive morphology” was a result of the fact it was probably female.19 Marked skeletal differences between males and females is typical of gorillas. Thus it may well be that the paleontologists’ bias, reflected in their judgment of where to place the foramen magnum in their reconstruction, has actually introduced inconsistencies with the remainder of the their reconstruction. The angle of the opening remains clearly in the “ape” category. The possibility of error in their bipedally-favorable anterior position for the foramen magnum must be considered. We would submit that the “anterior migration” of the afarensis foramen magnum occurred not deep in the evolutionary history of humanity but quite possibly sometime after 1992 in the laboratory. bornagain77

bornagain77: I think we are finally getting somewhere Good. Then perhaps you will stop quoting scientists out of context, so that when we check the actual research it says something entirely different from what the quote-mine suggests. Zachriel

as to: "bunch of quote-mines from scientists mixed with creationist rhetoric." by golly I think we are finally getting somewhere Zach. I hate rhetoric too!!!! Now can you please show me some REAL SCIENCE instead of atheistic rhetoric? You know, something like a real time demonstration of unguided material processes producing brains that greatly exceed the complexity of the entire internet combined? Too tough? How about a single neuron? Still too tough? OK how about a single molecular machine? Still no go? Well if your god of Darwinism can't even do that, just what can the god of unguided material processes do?,,, except decay your temporal body into dust once the your soul leaves it and it dies? (the god of unguided material processes does that very well!,,, I can even demonstrate it in real time for you) Rabbit decomposition time-lapse (higher resolution) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6sFP_7Vezg "What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?" picture http://cdn-4.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/harvardd-2.jpg The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Stephen L. Talbott Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings Oingo Boingo - Weird Science - music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm-upHSP9KU bornagain77

bornagain77: and yet your ‘confirming evidence’ is, once again, found to be nothing but imagination and fraud "new specimens confirm that in small-brained, bipedal Australopithecus the foramen magnum and occipital condyles were anteriorly sited, as in humans, but without the foramen's forward inclination." See Kimbel & Rak, The cranial base of Australopithecus afarensis: new insights from the female skull, Philosophical Transactions B 2010. Zachriel

Zach as to:

"The position of the foramen magnum is sufficient evidence on its own of bipedalism, however, hip and knee provide confirming evidence"

and yet your 'confirming evidence' is, once again, found to be nothing but imagination and fraud

Lucy, the Knuckle-walking “abomination”? by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on October 24, 2012 Excerpt: The foramen magnum is the big hole at the base of the skull through which the brain is connected to the spinal cord. Bipedality works best when the skull sits on top of the spinal column, so the optimal bipedal position for the foramen magnum is at the front of the skull’s base. Modern apes typically have the opening positioned farther back on the skull and at an angle suitable for walking on all fours. The blogger maintains that Au. afarensis’s foramen magnum is positioned closer to “the human location” than to an ape’s. He admits it is not truly at the bottom like a human’s and is actually angled like an ape’s. He thus concludes, “It’s almost like Au. afarensis is some half ape/half man form. Like she’s some kind of . . . intermediate, transitional stage.” Comparative anatomy involves comparison of the anatomy of various animals and humans. It requires observations, measurements, and so forth to collect data. In the case of afarensis skulls, of course, it also involves a fair amount of creativity, as even the most “complete” afarensis skull, A.L. 444-2, was reconstructed from over 50 severely deformed fragments of the crushed, skewed specimen. (Lucy happens not to have a foramen magnum at all, as he says, that part of her skull being completely missing. A.L. 444-2, thought to be male, was found in 1992.) A.L. 444-2 is exhaustively described in the book The Skull of Australopithecus afarensis.12 William Kimbel, Yoel Rak, and Donald Johanson spend about 250 pages describing the details of their reconstruction. Though they claim that the foramen magnum has migrated—in the evolutionary sense—to a more anterior position, the actual specimen is extremely fragmentary and incomplete. A.L 444-2’s foramen magnum consists of only small portions of the occipital bones, which border the foramen magnum posteriorly. However, the opisthion (which is the most posterior point of the foramen magnum), the entire front portion of the foramen, and the remaining cranial base in which the foramen magnum is situated are all missing. The authors reconstructed the central cranial base by extrapolating from the reassembled fragments far distant from it.13 The drawings of the A.L. 444-2 (shown here) indicate that the cranial base of the reconstruction, including most of the foramen magnum and the landmarks to which it is compared, are simulated using wax because they are missing. The authors explain that the difference between the foramen magnum’s position in apes and A.L. 444-2 (which they consider to be a hominin) is “due to the posterior position of the apes’ foramen magnum (i.e., opisthion).”15 Yet in AL 444-2 the position of the missing opisthion can only be guessed, and the placement of the foramen margins that do exist are vulnerable to bias.16 Furthermore, the authors note that the usual way of indexing to describe the foramen magnum’s position is affected by how much the jaw juts forward. Therefore, they used an alternate approach ignoring the ape-like jut of the jaw for reporting their numbers.17 And they further note that the anteriorly “migrated” foramen magnum “crowds” other structures on the base of the skull in the reconstruction.18 Yet another afareneis skull fossil of potential value in this discussion, A.L. 822-1, was found more recently. Kimbel and Rak, the authors of the book about A.L. 444-2, published a review of A.L. 822-1’s reconstruction in 2010. That specimen was rebuilt from over 200 fragments. It contains only one small portion of the foramen’s margin on a fragment from the right side and another tiny piece (14 mm long) from somewhere near the foramen’s margin but without a direct connection. They did include a photo of the cranial base (see photo) in their paper. Calculating the foramen’s position using the same jaw-ignoring alternate method they used with A.L. 444-2, they obtained similar results. Overall the authors thought A.L. 822-1 was more similar to apes than other skulls, and they speculated this more “primitive morphology” was a result of the fact it was probably female.19 Marked skeletal differences between males and females is typical of gorillas. Thus it may well be that the paleontologists’ bias, reflected in their judgment of where to place the foramen magnum in their reconstruction, has actually introduced inconsistencies with the remainder of the their reconstruction. The angle of the opening remains clearly in the “ape” category. The possibility of error in their bipedally-favorable anterior position for the foramen magnum must be considered. We would submit that the “anterior migration” of the afarensis foramen magnum occurred not deep in the evolutionary history of humanity but quite possibly sometime after 1992 in the laboratory. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-the-knuckle-walking-abomination/

as to the hip:

There has been a good deal of creative analysis by many in an effort to accurately reconstruct the afarensis pelvis. Evolutionists—Stern and Susman in 198335 as well as Russell Tuttle36—have noted that Lucy’s iliac bones were oriented as a chimpanzee’s. We discuss Owen Lovejoy’s and Christine Berge’s reconstructions of the afarensis pelvis in our article “A Look at Lucy’s Legacy.”37 Technology required to arrive at various conclusions has ranged from Dremel tools to sophisticated imaging techniques. Ultimately, Berge distinguishes a sort of “australopithecine bipedalism” distinct from the truly efficient bipedal gait of humans. Berge’s reconstruction also demands Lucy’s gluteal muscles be arranged like an ape’s. This arrangement, while enabling an australopithecine to move its legs in unique ways, would still be too unstable for sustained bipedal locomotion. The orientation of the iliac blades on the pelvis is a key skeletal requirement for bipedality. Notice this in the photograph of our holographic representation of Lucy and compare to those of a chimpanzee, a gorilla, and a human. The orientation of the iliac wings on the human pelvis allows the human to use gluteal muscles to counterbalance the lifting of the opposite leg during bipedal walking. This stabilizes our hips and keeps us from falling over sideways with each step. The differing orientation of ape iliac bones prevents this use of the gluteal muscles and forces apes to shift and sway from side to side when they occasionally walk upright, rendering an efficient bipedal gait skeletally impossible. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-the-knuckle-walking-abomination/

as to the knee:

A Look at Lucy’s Legacy by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on June 6, 2012 Excerpt: Lucy was discovered in the Hadar area of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression, the northernmost part of the Great Rift Valley, in 1974. A year earlier, at a site 1 ½ miles (2 ½ kilometers) away and 230 feet (70 meters) deeper in the geologic strata, Donald Johanson had found pieces of a tibia (shinbone) and femur (thighbone) and judged them to meet at an angle consistent with the knee of a bipedal creature. Although Lucy’s 47 discovered bones do not include a knee joint, Johanson believes they are from the same species as the 1973 “knee.” And despite criticism from other evolutionary paleontologists asserting “that it was nothing more than a monkey knee,” as Johanson writes in Lucy’s Legacy, “I never veered from my original assertion that the knee belonged to a biped.”7,,,, The first bit of evidence that convinced Johanson he had found a Hadar hominid back in 1973, the valgus (slightly knock-kneed) angle of the knee, is actually present in some apes, notably the orangutan and the spider monkey. Therefore, the angle of the knee is not diagnostic of bipedality, despite Johanson’s confidence that he had found a new hominid. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/a-look-at-lucys-legacy/

bornagain77

Box: IOW these specimens were also in need of powersaw reconstruction? The position of the foramen magnum is sufficient evidence on its own of bipedalism, however, hip and knee provide confirming evidence. There are several different known species of Australopithecus. bornagain77: As to habilis We checked out your first link, and it starts out with a bunch of quote-mines from scientists mixed with creationist rhetoric. Here's the first:

In the words of Ian Tattersall, an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, the species is "a wastebasket taxon, little more than a convenient recipient for a motley assortment of hominin fossils."

Does Tattersall calling into question whether these fossil represent non-sapiens hominins? No. Absolutely not. Rather, consistent with most other vertebrate evolution, he contends that there was multiple branchings and extinctions. When the very first quote in the very first link is a quote-mine, it calls into question the entire thrust of your unending string of references. Zachriel

BA77 do you ever have anything of your own to contribute? I mean you could've at least made a video about Lucy and uploaded it ;) CHartsil

Lucy - a correct 'reconstruction' - picture https://cdn-assets.answersingenesis.org/img/articles/campaigns/lucy-exhibit.jpg A Look at Lucy’s Legacy by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on June 6, 2012 Excerpt: Owen Lovejoy, who worked with Johanson analyzing the Lucy fossils and the casts made from them, believed the first reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis to be in error and, in a much-publicized video shown on public television,23 demonstrated how casts of the bone fragments could be rearranged to produce a more human-like pelvis suitable for bipedal locomotion. Lovejoy believes his pelvic reconstruction demonstrates the pelvic muscles stabilized Lucy’s pelvis as they do in humans, giving her a gait like a human, “fully bipedal and adapted to life on the forest floor.”24 Other analyses taking advantage of modern technology, such as those by Christine Berge published in 199425 and 201026 in the Journal of Human Evolution, offer a different reconstruction allowing for a unique sort of locomotion. Berge writes, “The results clearly indicate that australopithecine bipedalism differs from that of humans. (1) The extended lower limb of australopithecines would have lacked stabilization during walking; and (2) the lower limb would have shown greater freedom for motion, which can be interpreted as the retention of a partly arboreal behavior.”27 What Berge calls “australopithecine bipedalism” is not at all the bipedalism associated with humans. Her reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis demands the gluteal muscles be arranged like an ape’s. This arrangement, while enabling an australopithecine to move its legs in unique ways, would still be too unstable for truly bipedal locomotion. Furthermore, Berge maintains the pelvic anatomy was still adapted for arboreal life. Berge believes evolving australopithecines retained ape-like anatomy while acquiring bipedality. Does this support the evolutionists’ original contention? Did a series of missing links make gradually more upright alterations in their gait until they were able to free their hands to use tools and concentrate on evolving bigger brains? Handy anatomy The bipedal question, of course, is not whether proposed hominid ancestors were able to walk upright—any chimp today can do that after a fashion for brief periods—but whether bipedal locomotion was the normal and efficient way of getting around. From the evolutionary point of view, evolving hominids needed to free their hands for other uses. A hominid that spent a good deal of time knuckle-walking would therefore fail as a convincing candidate for human ancestor. Oddly enough, though, some of the most convincing evidence against Lucy’s proposed bipedalism comes not from her lower extremities but from her wrists. Evolutionists Brian Richmond and David Strait compared the skeletal morphology of living knuckle-walking primates to the bones of Australopithecus afarensis. Lucy’s bones show the features used to lock the wrist for secure knuckle-walking seen in modern knuckle-walkers. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/a-look-at-lucys-legacy/ bornagain77

"Several different specimens have been found confirming the reconstruction and bipedalism." Really??? You really need to stop reading those 'bedtime stories': As to habilis: A Big Bang Theory of Homo - Casey Luskin - August 2012 Excerpt: To the contrary, she explains, habilis "displays much stronger similarities to African ape limb proportions" than even Lucy. She called these results "unexpected in view of previous accounts of Homo habilis as a link between australopithecines and humans." Without habilis as an intermediate, it is difficult to find fossil hominins to serve as direct transitional forms between the australopithecines and Homo. Rather, the fossil record shows dramatic and abrupt changes that correspond to the appearance of Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/a_big_bang_theo063141.html Homo Habilis Excerpt: This species was initially considered to be a direct ancestor of modern humans but fossil discoveries in the mid-1980s showed that Homo habilis had rather ape-like limb proportions. This evidence led to a reassessment of Homo habilis and its relationship to modern humans. Many scientists no-longer regard this species as one of our direct ancestors and instead have moved it onto a side branch of our family tree. http://australianmuseum.net.au/Homo-habilis/ 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://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/68503570/abstract Human evolution? Excerpt: Some scientists have proposed moving this species (habilis) out of Homo and into Australopithecus (ape) due to the morphology of its skeleton being more adapted to living on trees rather than to moving on two legs like H. sapiens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Genus_Homo Who Was Homo habilis—And Was It Really Homo? - Ann Gibbons - June 2011 Abstract: In the past decade, Homo habilis's status as the first member of our genus 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. That suggests the handyman had yet to make the key adaptations associated with our genus, such as the ability to exploit a variety of foods in many environments, the authors say. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6036/1370.summar as to bipedalism in general, Darwinists have been proven false in their proposed mechanism: Energy Efficiency Doesn’t Explain Human Walking? Sept. 17, 2012 Excerpt: Why hominids evolved upright walking is one of the biggest questions in human evolution. One school of thought suggests that bipedalism was the most energetically efficient way for our ancestors to travel as grasslands expanded and forests shrank across Africa some five million to seven million years ago. A new study in the Journal of Human Evolution challenges that claim, concluding that the efficiency of human walking and running is not so different from other mammals. Physiologists Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton in England and Craig White of the University of Queensland in Australia compared the efficiency of human locomotion to that of 80 species of mammals, including monkeys, rodents, horses, bears and elephants.,,, To evaluate whether energy efficiency played a role in the evolution of upright walking, Halsey and White note that hominids should be compared to their closest relatives. For example, if human walking is more efficient than chimpanzee walking than you would expect based on chance alone, then it lends support to the energy-efficiency explanation. But that’s not what the researchers found. In fact, the energetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are smaller than the differences between very closely related species that share the same type of locomotion, such as red deer versus reindeer or African dogs versus Arctic foxes. In some cases, even different species within the same genus, such as different types of chipmunks, have greater variation in their walking efficiencies than humans and chimps do. http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/09/energy-efficiency-doesnt-explain-human-walking/ Another Difficulty with Darwinian Accounts of How Human Bipedalism Developed - David Klinghoffer - February 21, 2013 Excerpt: A Darwinian evolutionary bedtime story tells of how proto-man achieved his upright walking status when the forests of his native East Africa turned to savannas. That was 4 to 6 million years ago, and the theory was that our ancestors stood up in order to be able to look around themselves over the sea of grasslands, which would have been irrelevant in the forests of old. A team of researchers led by USC's Sarah J. Feakins, writing in the journal Geology, detonate that tidy explanation with their finding that the savannas, going back 12 million years, had already been there more than 6 million years when the wonderful transition to bipedalism took place ("Northeast African vegetation change over 12 m.y."). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/02/another_difficu069411.html So, Zach do you have any real time empirical evidence that human brains, which far exceed the entire internet combined, can come about by unguided Darwinian processes or is imagination and fraud all you got to work with? bornagain77

Zachriel: Several different specimens have been found confirming the reconstruction and bipedalism.

IOW these specimens were also in need of powersaw reconstruction? Box

bornagain77: Let’s just say that I, and every other skeptic of evolution, is more than justified to question the way in which Darwinists handle and ‘interpret’ fossils shall we! In other words, you can't say what about the reconstruction to be in error fraudulent. bornagain77: Lucy – The Powersaw Incident Several different specimens have been found confirming the reconstruction and bipedalism. Zachriel

Let's just say that I, and every other skeptic of evolution, is more than justified to question the way in which Darwinists handle and 'interpret' fossils shall we! Lucy – The Powersaw Incident – a humorous video showing how biased evolutionists can be with the evidence – 32:08 mark of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI4ADhPVpA0&feature=player_detailpage#t=1928 Yes Zach, that is plaster and imagination being used to dictate what the fossil bone must of looked like! Is such fraud okie dokie in your book? Not mine! bornagain77

bornagain77: does not contradict my claim that the evidence for ‘early homo’ is flimsy and indeed even fraudulent in nature. Why do you think the reconstructions are in error fraudulent. Zachriel

Zacherial, the actual study, which I cited verbatim previous to what you copy cat cited back to me, does not contradict my claim that the evidence for 'early homo' is flimsy and indeed even fraudulent in nature. i.e. removing their imagination from the reconstruction we find the fossil fragment is an ape not a human. So what? You are the one claiming that apes can change into humans. I need far more empirical evidence than a Darwinian 'reconstructed virtual fossil fragment' and imagination to prove your unsubstantiated claim! Moreover. Refusing to honestly address the unfathomed complexity being dealt in humans, and still claiming undirected material processes produced that unfathomed complexity in humans, is denialism in the extreme. (i.e maybe if I ignore the elephant it won't sit on me! :) ) ,,, but other than being in denial of your insanity, I'm sure you are a nice guy! bornagain77

bornagain77: why did you cite my link that I gave you back to me? The evidence for early homo is clearly fraudulent and imaginary in its character! 1. Because you didn't cite the actual study. 2. Because the study contradicts your claims about the study. bornagain77: you may have no problem believing all that unfathomed complexity in humans came about by purely undirected material processes Changing the subject is not a persuasive argument. You made a false claim about the scientific findings of a specific paper. The original paper discusses the difficulty of resolving the diversity of early Homo, but there is no ambiguity as to whether the fossils represent modern humans. They do not. Zachriel

LoL! A family tree is not a nested hierarchy...

Of course every family tree (like any other tree graph) is a nested hierarchy. Any heritable features whose history can be represented by such a tree are therefore also arranged into a hierarchy of inclusion. The traditional Linnaean classification is also a nested hierarchy, but since it isn't consistently based on common descent, heritable traits (apomorphies) do not reflect its structure.

...you ignorant puke.

More peanuts for Joe! Piotr

Zachriel, why did you cite my link that I gave you back to me?

It’s always best to examine the source. This time the announcement stems from a paper in Nature, “Reconstructed Homo habilis type OH 7 suggests deep-rooted species diversity in early Homo” from Fred Spoor’s group working in Ethiopia. In the figures, we find one fragmentary jaw, with the caption saying, “As preserved, marking individual parts that were adjusted in the reconstruction.” The researchers also “reconstructed” in a computer model the fragmentary pieces of the type specimen of Homo habilis, found in the 1960s by Louis and Mary Leakey.,,, ,,,the distorted preservation of the diagnostically important OH 7 mandible has hindered attempts to compare this specimen with other fossils. Here we present a virtual reconstruction.,,,

The evidence for early homo, i.e. 'powersaw lucy' and 'reconstructed habilis', is clearly fraudulent and imaginary in its character! as to: "Not knowing everything doesn’t mean not knowing anything" Actually realizing just how ignorant we are, in terms of explaining the origination of the unfathomed complexity being dealt with, is a very good place to start in coming up with a realistic explanations as to how that complexity (i.e. we) came about:

Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html "Complexity Brake" Defies Evolution - August 8, 2012 Excerpt: Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/complexity_brak062961.html HOW BIOLOGISTS LOST SIGHT OF THE MEANING OF LIFE — AND ARE NOW STARING IT IN THE FACE - Stephen L. Talbott - May 2012 Excerpt: “If you think air traffic controllers have a tough job guiding planes into major airports or across a crowded continental airspace, consider the challenge facing a human cell trying to position its proteins”. A given cell, he notes, may make more than 10,000 different proteins, and typically contains more than a billion protein molecules at any one time. “Somehow a cell must get all its proteins to their correct destinations — and equally important, keep these molecules out of the wrong places”. And further: “It’s almost as if every mRNA [an intermediate between a gene and a corresponding protein] coming out of the nucleus knows where it’s going” (Travis 2011),,, Further, the billion protein molecules in a cell are virtually all capable of interacting with each other to one degree or another; they are subject to getting misfolded or “all balled up with one another”; they are critically modified through the attachment or detachment of molecular subunits, often in rapid order and with immediate implications for changing function; they can wind up inside large-capacity “transport vehicles” headed in any number of directions; they can be sidetracked by diverse processes of degradation and recycling... and so on without end. Yet the coherence of the whole is maintained. The question is indeed, then, “How does the organism meaningfully dispose of all its molecules, getting them to the right places and into the right interactions?” The same sort of question can be asked of cells, for example in the growing embryo, where literal streams of cells are flowing to their appointed places, differentiating themselves into different types as they go, and adjusting themselves to all sorts of unpredictable perturbations — even to the degree of responding appropriately when a lab technician excises a clump of them from one location in a young embryo and puts them in another, where they may proceed to adapt themselves in an entirely different and proper way to the new environment. It is hard to quibble with the immediate impression that form (which is more idea-like than thing-like) is primary, and the material particulars subsidiary. Two systems biologists, one from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Germany and one from Harvard Medical School, frame one part of the problem this way: "The human body is formed by trillions of individual cells. These cells work together with remarkable precision, first forming an adult organism out of a single fertilized egg, and then keeping the organism alive and functional for decades. To achieve this precision, one would assume that each individual cell reacts in a reliable, reproducible way to a given input, faithfully executing the required task. However, a growing number of studies investigating cellular processes on the level of single cells revealed large heterogeneity even among genetically identical cells of the same cell type. (Loewer and Lahav 2011)",,, And then we hear that all this meaningful activity is, somehow, meaningless or a product of meaninglessness. This, I believe, is the real issue troubling the majority of the American populace when they are asked about their belief in evolution. They see one thing and then are told, more or less directly, that they are really seeing its denial. Yet no one has ever explained to them how you get meaning from meaninglessness — a difficult enough task once you realize that we cannot articulate any knowledge of the world at all except in the language of meaning.,,, http://www.netfuture.org/2012/May1012_184.html#2

Now Zach, you may have no problem believing all that unfathomed complexity in humans came about by purely undirected material processes, but, especially since you have no real time experimental evidence to support your claim, I simply find your belief to be insane in the extreme! Other than being insane, I'm sure you are a nice guy! :) bornagain77

bornagain77: the fossil evidence for ‘early homo’ is far more flimsy than you seem willing to realize Not knowing everything doesn't mean not knowing anything, nor are your quote-mines representative of the scientific findings. The original paper discusses the difficulty of resolving the diversity of early Homo, but there is no ambiguity as to whether the fossils represent modern humans. They do not. See Spoor et al., Reconstructed Homo habilis type OH 7 suggests deep-rooted species diversity in early Homo, Nature 2015. Zachriel

Zach the fossil evidence for 'early homo' is far more flimsy than you seem willing to realize,,, on top of the lucy fraud which I've already discussed (and which the researchers were duped by),,, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/recent-fossil-find-a-cambrian-explosion-for-humans/#comment-552258 ,,,besides that humorous 'paleoanthropology by powersaw' fraud, it turns out 'homo habilis' is another transitional fossil built more out of Darwinian fantasy and imagination than reality:

Another “Oldest Homo” Contender Alleged - March 5, 2015 Excerpt: It’s always best to examine the source. This time the announcement stems from a paper in Nature, “Reconstructed Homo habilis type OH 7 suggests deep-rooted species diversity in early Homo” from Fred Spoor’s group working in Ethiopia. In the figures, we find one fragmentary jaw, with the caption saying, “As preserved, marking individual parts that were adjusted in the reconstruction.” The researchers also “reconstructed” in a computer model the fragmentary pieces of the type specimen of Homo habilis, found in the 1960s by Louis and Mary Leakey.,,, ,,,the distorted preservation of the diagnostically important OH 7 mandible has hindered attempts to compare this specimen with other fossils. Here we present a virtual reconstruction.,,, Those who grew up with the Leakey stories plastered on covers of National Geographic may be shocked at Fred Spoor’s account of their work on so-called Handy Man: "But Homo’s origins are increasingly confusing, as a reanalysis of 1.8-million-year-old fossil specimens, reported in Nature, demonstrates. In the early 1960s, a team led by palaeoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey found a deformed lower jaw, hand and partial skull in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. “It was reported in a very informal way in Nature: ‘Sir: I found a bone and I’m showing you a picture now. Goodbye,’” says Fred Spoor, a palaeoanthropologist at University College London. The Leakey team later designated the remains as a new species that they called Homo habilis, meaning the handy man. They contended that members of the species had made stone tools that had been discovered nearby years earlier. But the material was so sparse that all manner of other fossils were later designated H. habilis. “It’s how I cut my teeth as a palaeoanthropologist — working with the mess that is Homo habilis,” says Lieberman. “It became very clear that there was too much variation to accommodate just one species.” http://crev.info/2015/03/oldest-homo-alleged/

as Henry Gee said, such fossil evidence is far more appropriate for bedtime stories than for science

“No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way... To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.” Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life

bornagain77

Transitional forms means there would be a smooth blending of traits that would blur any lines for distinct categories of classification. Aurelio Smith:

Nineteenth-century thinking!

Ignorant spewage? Even in the 21st century evolutionary biologists say that gradual evolution would produce many, many transitional forms. Obviously Aurelio loves to be ignorant. Joe

Piotr:

It’s hard to believe that someone who has spent years hanging about blogs discussing biology can remain so ignorant.

The ignorance is all yours, Piotr.

Most of the human genome undergoes recombination, and individual humans, like individuals in any other sexually reproducing population, inherit genetic traits from both parents.

Yes, I know. Did you have a point?

The result is a network of gene flow, not a family tree. And if there is no family tree, there is no nested hierarchy.

LoL! A family tree is not a nested hierarchy you ignorant puke.

However, some fragments of our genome are inherited only from the mother (mtDNA) or only from the father (about 95% of the Y chromosome). The histories of these fragments do form a neatly branching family tree, and, accordingly, any mutations that occur in them and are passed on to the descendants via the germline do produce a nested hierarchy of innovations.

Look, Piotr, Linnean Classification is the observed nested hierarchy. It doesn't have anything to do with descent with modification. I quoted Darwin and Wagner. I can quote others too.

A nested hierarchy is the pattern produced by mutations inherited in a family tree.

That is incorrect. You are obviously ignorant when it comes to nested hierarchies. Joe

bornagain77: Neither are the researchers themselves certain of what it is. The researchers identified it as the genus Homo, but not Homo sapiens. See Villmoare, Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia, Science 2015. Zachriel

So genes aren't plastic? Thanks for agreeing that the modern synthesis is bunk! Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology – Denis Noble – 17 MAY 2013 Excerpt: The ‘Modern Synthesis’ (Neo-Darwinism) is a mid-20th century gene-centric view of evolution, based on random mutations accumulating (in genes) to produce gradual change through natural selection.,,, We now know that genetic change is far from random and often not gradual.,,, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/abstract bornagain77

As to Mendel's work on discrete genetic inheritance and the Darwinian necessity for genetic plasticity:

podcast - On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin talks with geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig about Gregor Mendel’s laws of inheritance and how they opposed the thinking of Darwin. podcast - Mendel Vs. Darwin - part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2015/01/mendel-vs-darwin/ Mendel Vs. Darwin - part. 2 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2015/01/mendel-vs-darwin-pt-2/ Mendel Vs. Darwin, part. 3 Dr. Lönnig discusses how Darwinian evolutionary biology held back the acceptance of the laws of inheritance, discovered by the famous monk Gregor Mendel. (Darwinists orginally tried to censor Mendel's work) http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2015/01/mendel-vs-darwin-pt-3/ Modern Synthesis Of Neo-Darwinism Is False – Denis Nobel – video https://vimeo.com/115822429 ,, In the preceding video, Dr Nobel states that around 1900 there was the integration of Mendelian (discrete) inheritance with evolutionary theory, and about the same time Weismann established what was called the Weismann barrier, which is the idea that germ cells and their genetic materials are not in anyway influenced by the organism itself or by the environment. And then about 40 years later, circa 1940, a variety of people, Julian Huxley, R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewell Wright, put things together to call it ‘The Modern Synthesis’. So what exactly is the ‘The Modern Synthesis’? It is sometimes called neo-Darwinism, and it was popularized in the book by Richard Dawkins, ‘The Selfish Gene’ in 1976. It’s main assumptions are, first of all, is that it is a gene centered view of natural selection. The process of evolution can therefore be characterized entirely by what is happening to the genome. It would be a process in which there would be accumulation of random mutations, followed by selection. (Now an important point to make here is that if that process is genuinely random, then there is nothing that physiology, or physiologists, can say about that process. That is a very important point.) The second aspect of neo-Darwinism was the impossibility of acquired characteristics (mis-called “Larmarckism”). And there is a very important distinction in Dawkins’ book ‘The Selfish Gene’ between the replicator, that is the genes, and the vehicle that carries the replicator, that is the organism or phenotype. And of course that idea was not only buttressed and supported by the Weissman barrier idea, but later on by the ‘Central Dogma’ of molecular biology. Then Dr. Nobel pauses to emphasize his point and states “All these rules have been broken!”. Professor Denis Noble is President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences. Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology - Denis Noble - 17 MAY 2013 Excerpt: The ‘Modern Synthesis’ (Neo-Darwinism) is a mid-20th century gene-centric view of evolution, based on random mutations accumulating to produce gradual change through natural selection.,,, We now know that genetic change is far from random and often not gradual.,,, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/abstract Die, selfish gene, die - The selfish gene is one of the most successful science metaphors ever invented. Unfortunately, it’s wrong - Dec. 2013 Excerpt: But 15 years after Hamilton and Williams kited [introduced] this idea, it was embraced and polished into gleaming form by one of the best communicators science has ever produced: the biologist Richard Dawkins. In his magnificent book The Selfish Gene (1976), Dawkins gathered all the threads of the modern synthesis — Mendel, Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Watson, Crick, Hamilton, and Williams — into a single shimmering magic carpet (called the selfish gene). Unfortunately, say Wray, West-Eberhard and others, it’s wrong. https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/epigenetics-dawkins-selfish-gene-discredited-by-still-more-scientists-you-should-have-heard-of/

At the 10:30 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Trifonov states that the concept of the selfish gene

'inflicted an immense damage to biological sciences', for over 30 years" - Trifonov Second, third, fourth… genetic codes - One spectacular case of code crowding - Edward N. Trifonov - video https://vimeo.com/81930637

bornagain77

#67 Joe, It's hard to believe that someone who has spent years hanging about blogs discussing biology can remain so ignorant. Are you intersted in learning anything, or only in making noises from the peanut gallery? Most of the human genome undergoes recombination, and individual humans, like individuals in any other sexually reproducing population, inherit genetic traits from both parents. The result is a network of gene flow, not a family tree. And if there is no family tree, there is no nested hierarchy. However, some fragments of our genome are inherited only from the mother (mtDNA) or only from the father (about 95% of the Y chromosome). The histories of these fragments do form a neatly branching family tree, and, accordingly, any mutations that occur in them and are passed on to the descendants via the germline do produce a nested hierarchy of innovations. What else would you expect? A nested hierarchy is the pattern produced by mutations inherited in a family tree. Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA has a family tree; species have a family tree. Whatever is part of a family tree can be expected to display nested hierarchy effects. Piotr

Common descent does not produce a nested hierarchy based on shared characteristics. Period. Sampling a continuum of your family will not produce a nested hierarchy based on defined characteristics. Also Linnean Classification, ie the nested hierarchy wrt biology, doesn't have anything to do with common descent Joe

Joe

Transitional forms means there would be a smooth blending of traits that would blur any lines for distinct categories of classification.

Only if we had to deal with every single one. Sampling a continuum frequently allows sufficient discreteness and distinctness to allow naming, despite shading in the actual continuum. Hangonasec

An example? Darwin, 1859; Mayr, 1982; Denton, 1985; Wagner, 2014. Transitional forms means there would be a smooth blending of traits that would blur any lines for distinct categories of classification.

The goals of scientists like Linnaeus and Cuvier- to organize the chaos of life’s diversity- are much easier to achieve if each species has a Platonic essence that distinguishes it from all others, in the same way that the absence of legs and eyelids is essential to snakes and distinguishes it from other reptiles. In this Platonic worldview, the task of naturalists is to find the essence of each species. Actually, that understates the case: In an essentialist world, the essence really is the species. Contrast this with an ever-changing evolving world, where species incessantly spew forth new species that can blend with each other. The snake Eupodophis from the late Cretaceous period, which had rudimentary legs, and the glass lizard, which is alive today and lacks legs, are just two of many witnesses to the blurry boundaries of species. Evolution’s messy world is anathema to the clear, pristine order essentialism craves. It is thus no accident that Plato and his essentialism became the “great antihero of evolutionism,” as the twentieth century zoologist Ernst Mayr called it.- Andreas Wagner, “Arrival of the Fittest”, pages 9-10

Extinction has only defined the groups: it has by no means made them; for if every form which has ever lived on this earth were suddenly to reappear, though it would be quite impossible to give definitions by which each group could be distinguished, still a natural classification, or at least a natural arrangement, would be possible.- Charles Darwin chapter 14

Joe

Joe: That is evidence against descent with modification which posits many transitional forms which would ruin a clear nested hierarchy. You lose, again. Why? Perhaps you could provde an example. velikovskys

as to: "Are you saying the fossil is not a non-sapiens hominin?" I don't know for certain what the fossil fragment is. Whether it is human or ape. Neither are the researchers themselves certain of what it is. In fact, they qualify their fragment fossil finding with phrases such as "seems to share" and 'may be a transitional'.

The jawbone was found close to where Lucy was discovered in 1974. The specimen of Australopithecus afarensis, dubbed Lucy, is from 3.2 million years ago. The species walked upright, but only stood a meter tall and had a small brain. This contrasts with the species Homo, “characterized by an upright, bipedal posture, sophisticated tool-making abilities and a relatively large braincase”, reports BBC News. The Ethiopian jawbone seems to share traits similar to both species, and may be a transitional fossil, filling in an evolutionary gap. http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/jawbone-found-ethiopia-set-rewrite-history-push-back-origins-humans-002745 picture: http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/Ledi-Geraru-jawbone.jpg

Thus, how can you be certain of what the fossil fragment definitely is when the researchers themselves characterize their finding so tentatively?, i.e. 'seems to,, may be', And why should I take your certainty over their hesitant uncertainty? In fact, I have much reason to doubt their interpretation of the fossil fragment, as tentative as it is, since they made a false claim about 'lucy' in the article. i.e. In regards to 'lucy' they claimed:

"The species (lucy) walked upright"

Yet that claim is simply an urban legend. Darwinists, as usual, were shameless in their manipulation of the fossil evidence of lucy to make it fit their Darwinian worldview that lucy walked upright. The following video clip, 'the powersaw incident', humorously shows how biased Darwinists are with the evidence (i.e. aka 'fit!, Damn you, Fit!' method of paleoanthropology).

Lucy - The Powersaw Incident - a humorous video showing how biased evolutionists can be with the evidence - 32:08 mark of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI4ADhPVpA0&feature=player_detailpage#t=1928 entire video: Lucy - She's No Lady - lecture video (of note: review of the 'severely distorted' evidence of Lucy starts at about the 17:00 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI4ADhPVpA0

The evidence simply does not fit the 'lucy walked' narrative that is relentlessly sold by Darwinists to the public as if it were the gospel truth on par with the fact that Jesus died and rose again.

Lucy Makeover Shouts a Dangerously Deceptive Message About Our Supposed Ancestors by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on October 5, 2013 Excerpt: Australopithecus afarensis is extinct. Its bones suggest it was not identical to living apes, but it did have much in common with them. Many have assessed the skeletal pieces of the various afarensis and possible afarensis fossils that have been found. Overall, these skeletal parts reveal an animal well-adapted to arboreal life. Its wrist bones also suggest it was a knuckle-walker. Reconstructions of its pelvis demonstrate its so-called “bipedal” gait was nothing like a human being’s upright gait. In fact, it is only the evolutionary wish to impute a bipedal gait to this animal that marches its fossils upright across the pages of the evolutionary story. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-makeover-shouts-a-dangerously-deceptive-message-about-our-supposed-ancestors/ "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 "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

Thus, since the researchers could be so wrong about lucy, claiming she walked we she in fact did not walk, why should I trust their interpretation as to what the current fossil fragment 'seems to,, may be'? I simply have no reason to place any confidence in their 'new' interpretation of this fossil fragment, as tentative as it is, since they were so wrong in the first interpretation about lucy. bornagain77

Zachriel:

There’s a clear nested hierarchy?

That is evidence against descent with modification which posits many transitional forms which would ruin a clear nested hierarchy. You lose, again. Obviously Zachriel doesn't have an actual argument. Joe

bornagain: I have answered your question twice now. You did? Not sure we see it. Are you saying the fossil is not a non-sapiens hominin? bornagain: as to the infamous pre-Cambrian rabbit, that certainly would not falsify common descent Of course it would, as would many other findings. However, the fossil succession clearly supports some sort of evolutionary transition. bornagain: no they don’t support overall phylogeny There's a clear nested hierarchy. Did you have an actual argument? Zachriel

Find an organism that has no plausible ancestors;

Define "plausible" and then tell us who gets to determine what is and isn't a plausible ancestor. Joe

Zach, answer 1 is word play, of course a hypothesis is an assumption, moreover your supposed confirmation of that assumption is imaginary. as to the infamous pre-Cambrian rabbit, that certainly would not falsify common descent

The evolutionist J. B. S. Haldane, when asked what would convince him that evolution was false, replied that finding a rabbit fossil in pre-Cambrian rocks would do quite nicely. Such a fossil would, by standard geological dating, be out of sequence by several hundreds of millions of years. Certainly such a finding, if rigorously confirmed, would overturn the current understanding of the history of life. But it would not overturn evolution. Haldane’s rabbit is easily enough explained as an evolutionary convergence, in which essentially the same structure or life form evolves twice. In place of a common underlying intelligent design, evolutionists invoke evolutionary convergence whenever confronted with similar biological structures that cannot reasonably be traced back to a common evolutionary ancestor. So long as some unknown or unexplored evolutionary pathway might have led to the formation of some biological structure or organism, evolutionists prefer it over alternative explanations such as intelligent design. And since the unknown and unexplored allow for an infinity of loopholes, the committed evolutionist regards Darwinian and other materialist explanations of life’s origin and subsequent development as always trumping alternative explanations, regardless of the evidence. - By William A. Dembski "What Would Disprove Evolution?" - July 10, 2012 Excerpt: Fossils are found in the "wrong place" all the time (either too early, or too late). Paleontological theory, however, allows for such devices as "ghost lineages" to repair the damage; see ENV's coverage here and here. (links on the site) Again, discordance between molecular and anatomical phylogenies is commonplace in systematics; see here.(link on the site) But we expect Coyne is able to handle these anomalies via his shock-absorbing adjective "complete," which allows an indefinitely large range of possibilities, short of "complete" discordance (whatever that means). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/what_would_disp061891.html

as to: "bornagain77: if common descent were truly falsifiable, as all robust theories of science are, then why does the Cambrian explosion itself not falsify your assumption of common descent? Zach: Because there are plausible ancestors, and genetic studies support the overall phylogeny. " No they are not plausible and no they don't support overall phylogeny as I said earlier: "The reason why it (the Cambrian) does not falsify common descent for Darwinists is because Darwinists are always able to imagine fossils where none exist, or to imagine transitions that never occurred. Once again, this is NOT a testable science, but is pseudo-science masquerading as a science." I have answered your question twice now. As is usual for a Darwinist, you refuse to listen to the answer. I can't help you there! It is up to you to decide to be more open and less dogmatic. bornagain77

bornagain77: common descent is assumed as true in your position from the outset. We responded to this already, which you ignored. It wasn’t a simple presumption, but a hypothesis that led to a valid prediction, the existence of non-sapiens Hominins. bornagain77: Moreover there is simply no way to falsify your assumption that common descent is true. Of course there is. Find an organism that has no plausible ancestors; e.g. a centaur, a precambrian rabbit. bornagain77: if common descent were truly falsifiable, as all robust theories of science are, then why does the Cambrian explosion itself not falsify your assumption of common descent? Because there are plausible ancestors, and genetic studies support the overall phylogeny. You still haven't answered the question. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was *successfully* mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess? Zachriel

Thanks tjguy. Zach, as to: "Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of common descent." common descent is assumed as true in your position from the outset. Moreover there is simply no way to falsify your assumption that common descent is true. Even the current fossil is older than some of the other fossils that were formerly proposed to be transitional. But instead of anyone noticing this embarrassing problem, (save for David A. DeWitt and other skeptics of evolution), the 'story' of common descent is simply held to be confirmed by yet another fragment of a fossil. Such inherent bias simply is not science. It is in fact 'a ratchet mechanism of confirmation bias', i.e. everything confirms the theory nothing ever falsifies it. You may disagree that your assumption of common descent is unfalsifiable, but let me ask you, if common descent were truly falsifiable, as all robust theories of science are, then why does the Cambrian explosion itself not falsify your assumption of common descent?

Cambrian Explosion Ruins Darwin's Tree of Life (2 minutes in 24 hour day) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKxkUb_AAg What Types of Evolution Does the Cambrian Explosion Challenge? - Stephen Meyer - video - (challenges Universal Common Descent and the Mechanism of Random Variation/Natural Selection) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaF7t5wRFtA&list=UUUMhP2x7_7psVO-H4MJFpAQ

The reason why it does not falsify common descent for Darwinists is because Darwinists are always able to imagine fossils where none exist, or to imagine transitions that never occurred. Once again, this is NOT a testable science, but is pseudo-science masquerading as a science. In essence, in regards to the fossil record Darwinists consider their 'imagination run amok' to be 'hard science'. For prime example of the 'imagination run amok' of Darwinists in the fossil record, I present the infamous march to man cartoon that is presented in some textbooks as a fact:

“We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a), "most hominid fossils, even though they serve as basis of endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of of jaws and scraps of skulls" Stephen Jay Gould Paleoanthropologist Exposes Shoddiness of “Early Man” Research - Feb. 6, 2013 Excerpt: The unilineal depiction of human evolution popularized by the familiar iconography of an evolutionary ‘march to modern man’ has been proven wrong for more than 60 years. However, the cartoon continues to provide a popular straw man for scientists, writers and editors alike. ,,, archaic species concepts and an inadequate fossil record continue to obscure the origins of our genus. http://crev.info/2013/02/paleoanthropologist-exposes-shoddiness/ New York Times Inherits the Spin, Republishes Darwinists’ Error-Filled “Answers” to Jonathan Wells’ – 2008 Excerpt: And all three of these textbooks include fanciful drawings of ape-like humans that help to convince students we are no exception to the rule of purposelessness. Some biology textbooks use other kinds of illustrations ,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/08/new_york_times_inherits010581.html

'Artistic Reconstruction' is even more misleading than the drawings are:

Paleoanthropology Excerpt: In regards to the pictures of the supposed ancestors of man featured in science journals and the news media Boyce Rensberger wrote in the journal Science the following regarding their highly speculative nature: "Unfortunately, the vast majority of artist's conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. But a handful of expert natural-history artists begin with the fossil bones of a hominid and work from there…. Much of the reconstruction, however, is guesswork. Bones say nothing about the fleshy parts of the nose, lips, or ears (or eyes). Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it.... Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture." http://conservapedia.com/Evolution#Paleoanthropology The Fragmented Field of Paleoanthropology - July 2012 Excerpt: "alleged restoration of ancient types of man have very little, if any, scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public" Earnest A. Hooton - physical anthropologist - Harvard University http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/the_fragmented_062101.html "National Geographic magazine commissioned four artists to reconstruct a female figure from casts of seven fossil bones thought to be from the same species as skull 1470. One artist drew a creature whose forehead is missing and whose jaws look vaguely like those of a beaked dinosaur. Another artist drew a rather good-looking modern African-American woman with unusually long arms. A third drew a somewhat scrawny female with arms like a gorilla and a face like a Hollywood werewolf. And a fourth drew a figure covered with body hair and climbing a tree, with beady eyes that glare out from under a heavy, gorilla-like brow." “Behind the Scenes,” National Geographic 197 (March, 2000): 140 picture - these artists "independently" produced the 4 very "different" ancestors you see here http://www.omniology.com/JackalopianArtists.html

One can see that 'artistic license' for human evolution being vividly played out on the following site.

10 Transitional Ancestors of Human Evolution by Tyler G., March 18, 2013 http://listverse.com/2013/03/18/10-transitional-ancestors-of-human-evolution/

Please note, on the preceding site, how the sclera (white of the eye), a uniquely human characteristic, was brought in very early on, in the artists' reconstructions, to make the fossils appear much more human than they actually were, even though the artists making the reconstructions have no clue whatsoever as to what the colors of the eyes, of these supposed transitional fossils, actually were.

Evolution of human eye as a device for communication - Hiromi Kobayashi - Kyoto University, Japan Excerpt: The uniqueness of human eye morphology among primates illustrates the remarkable difference between human and other primates in the ability to communicate using gaze signals. http://www.saga-jp.org/coe_abst/kobayashi.htm

Clearly inventing evidence to fit a 'just so story' is not science but is pseudo-science! But Zach, why are you not equally shocked at such a fraudulent confirmation bias in your chosen belief system?? What is in it for you to ignore such shenanigans and pretend there are no severe problems with Darwinism??/ One would think, given the inherent Nihilism of atheism, that Darwinists would be a lot fairer to the evidence than they actually are. But alas, Darwinists are perhaps the most dogmatic of Dogmatists when it comes to allowing their theory to be questioned. Sad! bornagain77

111 bornagain77

Piotr, fine that is your choice, but, once again, how can you choose to ignore me if you have no free will to choose with in the first place?,,, as is held in your atheistic worldview? Admitting you have a problem is the first step in recovery! :) bornagain77

wd400:

Where in this jawbone do we see that evolution is not falsifiable?

Where is unguided evolution testable? Joe

Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of common descent.

Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of baraminology. Unguided evolution can't even get beyond prokaryotes. Joe

Piotr, Until you produce a mechanism capable of getting beyond populations of prokaryotes, you don't have anything to discuss. Joe

tjguy: Experimentation is limited to the few bones we have. Who in their right mind really thinks that the current interpretation of the data is accurate? The Relativity of Wrong http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm Zachriel

BA77, Until you agree to focus on the topic of the discussion, I'll just scroll over your spam. Piotr

Piotr at 47, your ad hominem aside for a moment, please tell me exactly how is it possible for me to 'choose' to believe the most rational position if your materialistic worldview were actually true?

Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html

along that line, how is the following experiment even possible if materialism were true?

Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a “Gedankenexperiment” called “delayed-choice entanglement swapping”, formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor’s choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. “We found that whether Alice’s and Bob’s photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured”, explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as “spooky action at a distance”. The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. “Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”, says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html

In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past (deterministic) how in blue blazes are my choices instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past? This experiment is simply impossible for any coherent materialistic presupposition! And that is just free will Piotr, the really 'hard problem' for your materialism to explain is consciousness. But let's deal with the insurmountable free will problem first, and then when can get to the really 'hard problem' for atheistic materialism. bornagain77

Excerpt from a write up on this find over at http://crev.info/2015/03/oldest-homo-alleged/

Ewen Callaway, in the same issue of Nature, calls it a “messy history” below his flashy headline, “Ethiopian jawbone may mark dawn of humankind.” Be sure to read the subtitle: “A 2.8-million-year-old mandible and a digital model of a key fossil paint a complicated picture of the genus Homo.” Those who grew up with the Leakey stories plastered on covers of National Geographic may be shocked at Fred Spoor’s account of their work on so-called Handy Man: But Homo’s origins are increasingly confusing, as a reanalysis of 1.8-million-year-old fossil specimens, reported in Nature, demonstrates. In the early 1960s, a team led by palaeoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey found a deformed lower jaw, hand and partial skull in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

“It was reported in a very informal way in Nature: ‘Sir: I found a bone and I’m showing you a picture now. Goodbye,’” says Fred Spoor, a palaeoanthropologist at University College London. The Leakey team later designated the remains as a new species that they called Homo habilis, meaning the handy man. They contended that members of the species had made stone tools that had been discovered nearby years earlier.

AND, at the very end of the article, we find this very interesting addition:

Update 3/05/15: PhysOrg says that a study found “significant facial variation” among pre-Columbian South Americans – yet they were essentially contemporaneous, and all members of one species: Homo sapiens. THIS SHOWS THAT VARIATION DOES NOT IMPLY EVOLUTION. Ann Ross at NC State. who examined archaeological sites across South America, says, “for a long time, the conventional wisdom was that there was very little variation prior to European contact. Our work shows that there was actually significant variation.” The work “may affect a lot of hypotheses regarding New World anthropology,” PhysOrg says.

It's all so subjective and is far from a precise science. Even what we think we know today is quite speculative and really, to claim we "know" anything for certain, is a bit arrogant because we are dealing with history here. Experimentation is limited to the few bones we have. Who in their right mind really thinks that the current interpretation of the data is accurate? It keeps changing year after year after year. And there is no foreseeable end to it. I wish textbooks would be more honest about how imprecise and subjective this paleoanthropological stuff it. tjguy

bornagain77: The fossil record, despite your denial to the contrary, is not nearly as conducive to your presupposed conclusion of common descent as you imagine. You still haven't attempted an answer to the question. Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of common descent. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was *successfully* mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess? Zachriel

http://books.google.com/books... BA77, A rule of thumb: whenever you come across a book whose authors have to flash their credential on the cover like this:

Brad Harrub, PhD Bert Thompson, PhD

-- don't believe a word of what you find between the covers. It's a sure sign of cargo-cult scholarship. Real scientists never do this. Piotr

as to "Now, on the other hand, if Darwinists claimed that the difference between australopithecine and Homo was obvious and clear, with a wide unbridgeable chasm between the two, then disagreements as to which camp habilus, or rudolfensis, or sediba, or afarensis, etc belong in would be pretty funny – don’t you think?" funny you mention that: Skull "Rewrites" Story of Human Evolution -- Again - Casey Luskin - October 22, 2013 Excerpt: "There is a big gap in the fossil record," Zollikofer told NBC News. "I would put a question mark there. Of course it would be nice to say this was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and us, but we simply don't know." - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/skull_rewrites_078221.html “A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012) Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr (What Evolution Is. 2001) Evolution of the Genus Homo – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Ian Tattersall, Jeffery H. 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.”,,,, “Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate.” http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Casey Luskin, in the talk and links I referenced earlier has many more quotes from Darwinists saying basically the same thing. Moreover, This unbridged gap that recently came out is also interesting: Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language – December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, “The mystery of language evolution,” Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It’s difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html Now this is very interesting because Darwinists have no empirical evidence whatsoever that Darwinian processes can generate non-trivial functional information, and yet we have the sudden appearance of creatures that can create information at will. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/recent-fossil-find-a-cambrian-explosion-for-humans/#comment-552066 bornagain77

BA77,

Perhaps some of the confusion stems from the confusion of Darwinists themselves?

The disagreements that Darwinists have regarding human evolution are the kinds that would be expected if Darwinism were true. If, for instance, the transition from australopithecus to Homo was gradual with intermediate species, then don't you think that there should be fossils and groups in which it is disputed as to which camp they belong to? I would find it problematic if such disagreements didn't occur. And if evolution works by species splintering into sister species, then shouldn't there be times when it's disputed as to which sister species are ancestral to another species? And, of course, there's always going to be the usual disagreements between lumpers and splitters. Now, on the other hand, if Darwinists claimed that the difference between australopithecine and Homo was obvious and clear, with a wide unbridgeable chasm between the two, then disagreements as to which camp habilus, or rudolfensis, or sediba, or afarensis, etc belong in would be pretty funny - don't you think? ;-) goodusername

goodusername, "have claimed numerous times, and alluded to again in this OP. That the Dmanisi find, with its mix of habilis, rudolfensis, and erectus features" Perhaps some of the confusion stems from the confusion of Darwinists themselves? For instance: 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=PT28 Human Evolution Excerpt: Tattersall thinks H. erectus was an evolutionary dead end. Uconn says he was our immediate ancestor. There are several other differences which we won’t take the time to point out. A recent issue of Science presents the six different explanations of hominid evolution at the right, which they refer to as “Figure 1.” Their caption says: Figure 1. Cladograms favored in recent early hominin parsimony analyses. (A) Most parsimonious cladogram recovered by Chamberlain and Wood (19) using Chamberlain’s (18) operational taxonomic units. Homo sp. = H. rudolfensis. (B) Most parsimonious cladogram obtained in Chamberlain (18). African H. erectus = H. ergaster. (C) Cladogram favored in Wood (9). Homo sp. nov. = H. rudolfensis and H. aff. erectus = H. ergaster. (D) Most parsimonious cladogram recovered by Wood (2). A. boisei includes A. aethiopicus. (E) Most parsimonious cladogram obtained by Lieberman et al. (20). 1470 group = H. rudolfensis; 1813 group = H. habilis. (F) Cladogram favored by Strait et al. (17). http://scienceagainstevolution.org/v4i4f.htm bornagain77

BA77,

You need to get your facts straight.

I thought I had. I was repeating what News, DeWitt who "knows a thing or two about skulls", and others here have claimed numerous times, and alluded to again in this OP. That the Dmanisi find, with its mix of habilis, rudolfensis, and erectus features, indicates that what were thought to be separate species of early Homo are in fact a single species of human. And that there's a clear and obvious break between this group and the australopithecines. And as you and Luskin have argued, habilis and rudolfensis are just apes along with australopithecines. So we have two groups: One that includes australopithecines, habilus, rudolfensis (along with the newly found jaw bone) And another group that includes habilus, rudolfensis, modern humans (along with the newly found jaw bone) And there's a clear obvious unbridgeable gap between these two groups. What's the problem? Let me know if I misrepresented anyone's views. goodusername

BA77, here's some advice. Don't expose me and wd400, expose the great science conspiracy. Then, create a new paradigm of science. Then create a web site, people visit mainly to see what outrageous areas of nothingness this new paradigm investigates. Then write interminable posts supporting it with vacuosity, then... Hang on...! rvb8

Fine by me, it makes it easier on me to expose you as fraudulent when I can just do it in one shot and be done with it. (Although, every once in a while, I would like to expose you as fraudulent over and over again using the evidence you present against you) "In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge http://izquotes.com/quote/147518 It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness - David L. Abel Excerpt: "If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise." If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: "No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone." https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_ bornagain77

wd400. Heh!:) Me too! rvb8

BA, I mainly scroll over your posts. wd400

wd400, did you see post 5? Exactly what experiment can we run that would potentially falsify Darwinism? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/recent-fossil-find-a-cambrian-explosion-for-humans/#comment-552008 A Philosophical Question...Does Evolution have a Hard Core ? Some Concluding Food for Thought In my research on the demarcation problem, I have noticed philosophers of science attempting to balance (usually unconsciously) a consistent demarcation criteria against the the disruptive effects that it’s application might have with regard to the academic status quo (and evolution in particular)… Few philosophers of science will even touch such matters, but (perhaps unintentionally) Imre Lakatos does offer us a peek at how one might go about balancing these schizophrenic demands (in Motterlini1999: 24) “Let us call the first school militant positivism; you will understand why later on. The problem of this school was to find certain demarcation criteria similar to those I have outlined, but these also had to satisfy certain boundary conditions, as a mathematician would say. I am referring to a definite set of people to which most scientists as well as Popper and Carnap would belong. These people think that there are goodies and baddies among scientific theories, and once you have defined a demarcation criterion. you should divide all your theories between the two groups. You would end up. for example, with a goodies list including Copernicus’s (Theory1), Galileo’s (T2), Kepler’s (T3), Newton’s (T4) … and Einstein’s (T5), along with (but this is just my supposition) Darwin’s (T6). Let me just anticipate that nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific, but this is exactly what we are looking for.” So basically, the demarcation problem is a fun game philosophers enjoy playing, but when they realize the implications regarding the theory of evolution, they quickly back off… http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/philo/hardcore_pg.htm bornagain77

Wallstreeter, Do you remember what you said in #2?

What we see here is that Darwinian evolution is non falsifiable. When the fossil evidence speaks out against it they will say that it’s a result of poor fossil record and twhn proceed to take a rain check on the fossil record while proclaiming Darwinian evolution a scientific fact .

Where in this jawbone do we see that evolution is not falsifiable? wd400

Piotr and others, it is you that are making the positive claim for evolution therefore it is you that needs to defend it. We don't need even one iota of evidence for any other competing theory , what we continually see is the evidence for Darwinian evolution being full of subjective opinions, wishful thinking and blind faith . If you people questioned Darwinian evolution as you question God, veridical Nde's and psi Darwinian evolution would have been thrown into the trash where it belongs a lomg time ago. Isn't it you atbeists that came up with the saying that the onus of proof is on the one making theosis over claim ? I guess you use that saying selectively don't u ;) wallstreeter43

"Whatever the explanation of bipedal locomotion in hominines" gosh I was hoping for something a little more,,, a little more,,, let's see,,, I was hoping for something ,,, Oh I know,,, I was hoping for something a little more SCIENTIFIC than 'Whatever the explanation' for crying out loud. Goodness grief you guys are pathetic. :) bornagain77

#32 BA77, OK, I get it. You can only cut and paste, not discuss anything. That's a good reason for ignoring you. Piotr

#30 BA77 Whatever the explanation of bipedal locomotion in hominines (I made no claims about it), australopithecine fossils are associated with dry savannas (grassland with widely spaced trees) rather than tropical rainforests. Chimps are pretty adaptable, but live mostly in dense jungle forests and wet savannas today, and it's at least possible that it was the preferred habitat of their ancestors. Piotr

as to: "will you, please, explain to me what “a different species of bacteria” is?" No! I quoted Professor Linton and gave you his e-mail. If you were truly honest in your inquiry, (instead of just playing games as you always do), and wanted rock solid answers for your questions, you would jump at the chance to ask him instead of me,,,, to ask him if it was really true that no bacteria has ever been changed by Darwinian processes into another type of bacteria. Myself, considering the paltry results of Lenski, and the extreme conservation of morphology for bacteria throughout deep time, I do not doubt his claim one bit. Richard Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiments with E. coli and the Origin of New Biological Information - September 2011 Excerpt: The results of future work aside, so far, during the course of the longest, most open-ended, and most extensive laboratory investigation of bacterial evolution, a number of adaptive mutations have been identified that endow the bacterial strain with greater fitness compared to that of the ancestral strain in the particular growth medium. The goal of Lenski's research was not to analyze adaptive mutations in terms of gain or loss of function, as is the focus here, but rather to address other longstanding evolutionary questions. Nonetheless, all of the mutations identified to date can readily be classified as either modification-of-function or loss-of-FCT. (Michael J. Behe, "Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations and 'The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution'," Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4) (December, 2010).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/richard_lenskis_long_term_evol051051.html The Paradox of the "Ancient" (250 Million Year Old) Bacterium Which Contains "Modern" Protein-Coding Genes: “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.” Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637 AMBER: THE LOOKING GLASS INTO THE PAST: Excerpt: These (fossilized bacteria) cells are actually very similar to present day cyanobacteria. This is not only true for an isolated case but many living genera of cyanobacteria can be linked to fossil cyanobacteria. The detail noted in the fossils of this group gives indication of extreme conservation of morphology, more extreme than in other organisms. http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2007/03/amber-looking-glass-into-past_23.html Static evolution: is pond scum the same now as billions of years ago? Excerpt: But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change. Schopf was struck 30 years ago by the apparent similarities between some 1-billion-year-old fossils of blue-green bacteria and their modern microbial counterparts. "They surprisingly looked exactly like modern species," Schopf recalls. Now, after comparing data from throughout the world, Schopf and others have concluded that modern pond scum differs little from the ancient blue-greens. "This similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times," says Schopf. As evidence, he cites the 3,000 such fossils found; http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Static+evolution%3A+is+pond+scum+the+same+now+as+billions+of+years+ago%3F-a014909330 Scientists discover organism that hasn't evolved in more than 2 billion years - February 3, 2015 Excerpt: Using cutting-edge technology, they found that the bacteria look the same as bacteria of the same region from 2.3 billion years ago -- and that both sets of ancient bacteria are indistinguishable from modern sulfur bacteria found in mud off of the coast of Chile. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150203104131.htm bornagain77

#29 BA77, Why should I take it up with someone else? You brought it up, so will you, please, explain to me what "a different species of bacteria" is? Piotr

as to this old chestnut: "If chimp ancestors preferred rainforests while the hominin lineage had branched out into grassland habitats," Another Difficulty with Darwinian Accounts of How Human Bipedalism Developed - David Klinghoffer - February 21, 2013 Excerpt: A Darwinian evolutionary bedtime story tells of how proto-man achieved his upright walking status when the forests of his native East Africa turned to savannas. That was 4 to 6 million years ago, and the theory was that our ancestors stood up in order to be able to look around themselves over the sea of grasslands, which would have been irrelevant in the forests of old. A team of researchers led by USC's Sarah J. Feakins, writing in the journal Geology, detonate that tidy explanation with their finding that the savannas, going back 12 million years, had already been there more than 6 million years when the wonderful transition to bipedalism took place ("Northeast African vegetation change over 12 m.y."). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/02/another_difficu069411.html As well, about half way down in the following article, Casey Luskin reveals that many supposed human ancestors are found in wooded areas, which questions the 'savanna hypothesis' from yet another angle. For Neil Tyson and Cosmos, Serious Scientific Controversies Are All a Thing of the Past - Casey Luskin May 6, 2014 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/05/for_neil_tyson_085291.html Moreover,,, Energy Efficiency Doesn’t Explain Human Walking? Sept. 17, 2012 Excerpt: Why hominids evolved upright walking is one of the biggest questions in human evolution. One school of thought suggests that bipedalism was the most energetically efficient way for our ancestors to travel as grasslands expanded and forests shrank across Africa some five million to seven million years ago. A new study in the Journal of Human Evolution challenges that claim, concluding that the efficiency of human walking and running is not so different from other mammals. Physiologists Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton in England and Craig White of the University of Queensland in Australia compared the efficiency of human locomotion to that of 80 species of mammals, including monkeys, rodents, horses, bears and elephants.,,, To evaluate whether energy efficiency played a role in the evolution of upright walking, Halsey and White note that hominids should be compared to their closest relatives. For example, if human walking is more efficient than chimpanzee walking than you would expect based on chance alone, then it lends support to the energy-efficiency explanation. But that’s not what the researchers found. In fact, the energetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are smaller than the differences between very closely related species that share the same type of locomotion, such as red deer versus reindeer or African dogs versus Arctic foxes. In some cases, even different species within the same genus, such as different types of chipmunks, have greater variation in their walking efficiencies than humans and chimps do. http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/09/energy-efficiency-doesnt-explain-human-walking/ bornagain77

as to: Define “a different species of bacteria”. take it up with,,, Alan H. Linton – emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol http://www.bris.ac.uk/contact/person/getDetails?personKey=O23Xi3P1CXp7t6ydBy4Xu99UMgBrK4 Myself, I'm a bit more lenient than Professor Linton is. Instead of mutating and selecting a bacteria into a entirely new type of bacteria, all I ask Darwinists to demonstrate is the origination of a single molecular machine by Darwinian processes. “The argument that random variation and Darwinian gradualism may not be adequate to explain complex biological systems is hardly new […} in fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject — evolution — with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses works in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.” Prof. James Shapiro – “In the Details…What?” National Review, 19 September 1996, pp. 64. Michael Behe - No Scientific Literature For Evolution of Any Irreducibly Complex Molecular Machines http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5302950/ Dr. James Tour, who, in my honest opinion, currently builds the most sophisticated man-made molecular machines in the world, will buy lunch for anyone who can explain to him exactly how Darwinian evolution works: Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows Darwinian Evolution Does Not Work - James Tour, Phd. - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y5-VNg-S0s “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God." James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world - Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111 Science & Faith — Dr. James Tour – video (At the two minute mark of the following video, you can see a nano-car that was built by Dr. James Tour’s team) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR4QhNFTtyw bornagain77

#27 ppolish, Today there are two chimp species, one of them with four subspecies, more different from one another than any human populations. Extant chimps are therefore much more varied than extant humans. If chimp ancestors preferred rainforests while the hominin lineage had branched out into grassland habitats, the chances of their being preserved as fossils were very different. The only known fossil chimp remains come from a savannah environment; the jungle populations may have left very few bones behind (none have been found so far). Piotr

Lots of different humans over the last three million years. How about chimp? Lots of different chimps? Not much fossil evidence out there. ppolish

BA77 Define "a different species of bacteria". Piotr

Contemplating Bill Nye’s 51 skulls slide - February 10, 2014 - with video Excerpt: David A. DeWitt, Biology & Chemistry chair at Liberty, knows a thing or two about skulls, and writes to say, "This afternoon and evening I tracked down 46 of the 51 skulls that were on the slide Nye showed in the Ken Ham debate (at about 1:05 on the Youtube video). This was a challenge because some of them are not very well analyzed, partial skulls, etc. While some of them are well known, others are rarely discussed. I believe only a well-trained anthropologist would have been able to address that slide in the very brief time that it was visible. It was especially confusing because the skulls are in different orientations (including one that is viewed from the bottom and one that is just a jaw). They were not shown with the same scale so the relative sizes are wrong, and they are not grouped or lined up in any clear order. They are mixed up by type of skull and by date, and the only label is the name of the individual skull. I suspect that this was deliberate.,,," "I can only conclude that the sole purpose of showing such a slide was to confuse and obfuscate, not educate.” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/from-david-dewitt-at-liberty-u-contemplating-bill-nyes-51-skulls-slide/ seeing as Darwinists have been caught being very less than forthright in the past with the fossil evidence, I think we skeptics of human evolution are more than justified to ask them to experimentally prove the plausibility of changing one body plan into another: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/recent-fossil-find-a-cambrian-explosion-for-humans/#comment-552060 Scant search for the Maker Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282 bornagain77

Some brain volumes (in cm^3): Chimpnazee/bonobo: 300-500 Ardipithecus ramidus: 300-350 Australopithecus afarensis: 380-500 Paranthropus robustus: 410-530 Homo habilis/rudolfensis: 500-800 H. ergaster/georgicus/erectus: 600-1200 H. heidelbergensis: 1100-1400 H. neanderthalensis: 1125-1750 H. sapiens: 1000-1490 Piotr

"Homo such as habilis, rudolfensis, erectus, etc aren’t just a single species, but in fact are all Homo sapiens." You need to get your facts straight. For instance even though habilis has homo in front of it we find that the homo prefix is misleading: A Big Bang Theory of Homo – Casey Luskin – August 2012 Excerpt: To the contrary, she explains, habilis “displays much stronger similarities to African ape limb proportions” than even Lucy. She called these results “unexpected in view of previous accounts of Homo habilis as a link between australopithecines and humans.” Without habilis as an intermediate, it is difficult to find fossil hominins to serve as direct transitional forms between the australopithecines and Homo. Rather, the fossil record shows dramatic and abrupt changes that correspond to the appearance of Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/a_big_bang_theo063141.html Moreover, Homo Rudolfensis is now known to be fraudulent in its representation: “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 DeWitt’s digital manipulation of skull 1470 - August 13, 2012 Excerpt: The skull as presented in the news websites has some significant issues that suggests that the facial reconstruction is seriously off. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/dewitts-reconstruction-of-skull-1470/ Moreover, homo erectus is notorious for its abuse of classification: 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 Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution into disarray - OCT. 17, 2013 Excerpt: Over decades excavating sites in Africa, researchers have named half a dozen different species of early human ancestor, but most, if not all, are now on shaky ground.,,, If the scientists are right, it would trim the base of the human evolutionary tree and spell the end for names such as H rudolfensis, H gautengensis, H ergaster and possibly H habilis. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution Skull "Rewrites" Story of Human Evolution -- Again - Casey Luskin - October 22, 2013 Excerpt: "I think it's probably premature to dump everything into Homo erectus," Johanson told NBC News. "This is what you're going to find the most opposition to.",,, "There is a big gap in the fossil record," Zollikofer told NBC News. "I would put a question mark there. Of course it would be nice to say this was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and us, but we simply don't know." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/skull_rewrites_078221.html supplemental note: No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests - Oct. 21, 2013 Excerpt: The article, "No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans," relies on fossils of approximately 1,200 molars and premolars from 13 species or types of hominins -- humans and human relatives and ancestors. Fossils from the well-known Atapuerca sites have a crucial role in this research, accounting for more than 15 percent of the complete studied fossil collection.,,, They conclude with high statistical confidence that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such as Homo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match. "None of the species that have been previously suggested as the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans has a dental morphology that is fully compatible with the expected morphology of this ancestor," Gómez-Robles said. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm Moreover, as if that was not bad enough, where the fossil record is most complete is where we find the fossil evidence to run completely contrary to Darwinian expectations: If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? - January 20, 2011 Excerpt: John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.” “Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.,,, He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking of supplemental note: The Red Ape - Cornelius Hunter - August 2009 Excerpt: "There remains, however, a paradoxical problem lurking within the wealth of DNA data: our morphology and physiology have very little, if anything, uniquely in common with chimpanzees to corroborate a unique common ancestor. Most of the characters we do share with chimpanzees also occur in other primates, and in sexual biology and reproduction we could hardly be more different. It would be an understatement to think of this as an evolutionary puzzle." http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-ape.html bornagain77

Zachriel, as Casey Luskin pointed out in the lecture that you apparently could not be bothered to listen to, the fossils fall into two distinct groups, ape-like and human-like

Yes, we can all agree that the fossils fall into two distinct groups. As argued in the OP, the Dmanisi find shows that early Homo such as habilis, rudolfensis, erectus, etc aren't just a single species, but in fact are all Homo sapiens. This means there's a clear wide divide between humans and the australopithecines, which, as BA77 has shown, are apes, and includes habilis and rudolfensis. Err, uh, the point is there are two distinct groups and no intermediates. And the newly discovered jaw bone falls clearly into the human group, as argued in the OP, probably belonging to H. habilis, which, as we've seen, is an ape. Umm, whatever... it's clearly a human... or an ape. goodusername

bornagain77: Zachriel, as Casey Luskin pointed out ... You can't seem to bring yourself to address the question. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was *successfully* mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess? Zachriel

Zachriel, as Casey Luskin pointed out in the lecture that you apparently could not be bothered to listen to, the fossils fall into two distinct groups, ape-like and human-like:

A Big Bang Theory of Homo - Casey Luskin - August 2012 Excerpt: To the contrary, she explains, habilis "displays much stronger similarities to African ape limb proportions" than even Lucy. She called these results "unexpected in view of previous accounts of Homo habilis as a link between australopithecines and humans." Without habilis as an intermediate, it is difficult to find fossil hominins to serve as direct transitional forms between the australopithecines and Homo. Rather, the fossil record shows dramatic and abrupt changes that correspond to the appearance of Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/a_big_bang_theo063141.html Has Science Shown That We Evolved from Ape-like Creatures? by Casey Luskin - Fall 2013 (useful references at the end of the article) Excerpt: A closer look at the literature shows that hominin fossils generally fall into one of two categories—ape-like species or human-like species (of the genus Homo)—and that there is a large, unbridged gap between them. Despite the claims of many evolutionary paleoanthropologists, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors. In fact, scientists are quite sharply divided over who or what our human ancestors even were. Newly discovered fossils are often initially presented to the public with great enthusiasm and fanfare, but once cooler heads prevail, their status as human evolutionary ancestors is invariably called into question. - http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo26-science-faith/has-science-shown-that-we-evolved-from-ape-like-creatures.php "A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense." Dr. Ian Tattersall: - paleoanthropologist - emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History - (Masters of the Planet, 2012)

Moreover, there is an inherent bias for Darwinists to 'see faces in the clouds' in regards to human evolution. In the following video, from 15:05 minute mark to 19:15 minute mark, Phillip Johnson directly addresses that inherent bias of Darwinists for 'seeing faces in the clouds' for human evolution:

“What I saw about the fossil record again,, was that Gould and Eldridge were experts in the area where the animal fossil record is most complete. That is marine invertebrates.,, And the reason for this is that when,, a bird, or a human, or an ape, or a wolf, or whatever, dies,, normally it does not get fossilized. It decays in the open, or is eaten by scavengers. Things get fossilized when they get covered over quickly with sediments so that they are protected from this natural destructive process. So if you want to be a fossil, the way to go about it is to live in the shallow seas, where you get covered over by sediments when you die,,. Most of the animal fossils are of that kind and it is in that area where the fossil record is most complete. That there is a consistent pattern.,, I mean there is evolution in the sense of variation, just like the peppered moth example. Things do vary, but they vary within the type. The new types appear suddenly, fully formed, without an evolutionary history and then they stay fundamentally stable with (cyclical) variation after their sudden appearance, and stasis (according) to the empirical observations made by Gould and Eldridge. Well now you see, I was aware of a number of examples of where evolutionary intermediates were cited. This was brought up as soon as people began to make the connection and question the (Darwinian) profession about their theory in light of the controversy. But the examples of claimed evolutionary transitionals, oddly enough, come from the area of the fossil record where fossilization is rarest. Where it is least likely to happen.,,, One of things that amused me is that there are so many fossil candidates for human ancestorship, and so very few fossils that are candidates for the great apes.,, There should be just as many. But why not? Any economist can give you the answer to that. Human ancestors have a great American value and so they are produced at a much greater rate.,, These also were grounds to be suspicious of what was going on,,, ,,,if the problem is the greatest where the fossil record is most complete and if the confirming examples are found where fossils are rarest, that doesn’t sound like it could be the explanation." - Phillip Johnson - April 2012 - audio/video 15:05 minute mark to 19:15 minute mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJDlBvbPSMA&feature=player_detailpage#t=903s

Of supplemental note as to the inherent bias of Darwinists:

"One famous fossil skull, discovered in 1972 in northern Kenya, changed its appearance dramatically depending on how the upper jaw was connected to the rest of the cranium. Roger Lewin recounts an occasion when paleoanthropologists Alan Walker, Michael Day, and Richard Leakey were studying the two sections of skull 1470. According to Lewin, Walker said: You could hold the [upper jaw] forward, and give it a long face, or you could tuck it in, making the face short…. How you held it really depended on your preconceptions. It was very interesting watching what people did with it. Lewin reports that Leakey recalled the incident, too: Yes. If you held it one way, it looked like one thing; if you held it another, it looked like something else." Roger Lewin, Bones of Contention, Second Edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), p 160 Good-bye Heidelberg Man: You Never Existed - July 11, 2014 Excerpt: “If someone kills one person they go to jail,” anthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco noted last month at a meeting here in France’s deep south. “But what happens if you kill off a whole species?” The answer soon became apparent: anguished debate. In the balance was Homo heidelbergensis, a big-brained human ancestor generally seen as a pivotal figure, (common ancestor of modern humans and our extinct closest cousins, the Neandertals), during a murky period of evolution. At the invitation-only meeting, researchers debated whether this species really was a major player—or "no more than a paleoanthropologists’ construct". http://crev.info/2014/07/heidelberg-man-never-existed/

bornagain77

Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of baraminology. Joe

bornagain77: The fossil record, despite your denial to the contrary, is not nearly as conducive to your presupposed conclusion of common descent as you imagine. You didn't attempt an answer to the question. Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of common descent. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was *successfully* mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess? Zachriel

The fossil record, despite your denial to the contrary, is not nearly as conducive to your presupposed conclusion of common descent as you imagine. What you desperately need, as Joe pointed out already, is experimental support. And in that regards you not only have no support, but you have many lines of evidence directly contradicting your claim that basic body plans can be radically changed into new body plans. bornagain77

The "hypothesis" of common descent still doesn't have a mechanism capable of getting beyond populations of prokaryotes and that is given starting populations of prokaryotes. Strange that evos ignore that problem. Joe

bornagain77: actually common descent (besides being shown to be highly implausible in the lab) is still a presupposed conclusion searching for supporting evidence in the fossil record Every non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of common descent. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was successfully mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess? Zachriel

To underscore ‘the image of God’ postulation of Christian Theism, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:

Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer – video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU

As well, as if that was not ‘spooky enough’, information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality:

Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word.” Anton Zeilinger – a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf “it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.” – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Quantum physics just got less complicated – Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that ‘wave-particle duality’ is simply the quantum ‘uncertainty principle’ in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, “The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,”,,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html

That life and physical reality itself are both found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their basis, and that man possesses the unique ability to understand and create information, is certainly strong evidence that we indeed possess ‘the image of God’ as the anchor of our soul, just as is postulated in Christian Theism.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. You Won’t Let Go Share – Michael W. Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRb_NIQTzyA

bornagain77

actually common descent (besides being shown to be highly implausible in the lab) is still a presupposed conclusion searching for supporting evidence in the fossil record

“most hominid fossils, even though they serve as basis of endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of of jaws and scraps of skulls” Stephen Jay Gould

And what the fossil teeth have revealed thus far about supposed human evolution is not good for those who prefer the Darwinian position to be true

No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests – Oct. 21, 2013 Excerpt: The article, “No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans,” relies on fossils of approximately 1,200 molars and premolars from 13 species or types of hominins — humans and human relatives and ancestors. Fossils from the well-known Atapuerca sites have a crucial role in this research, accounting for more than 15 percent of the complete studied fossil collection.,,, They conclude with high statistical confidence that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such as Homo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match. “None of the species that have been previously suggested as the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans has a dental morphology that is fully compatible with the expected morphology of this ancestor,” Gómez-Robles said. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence – Casey Luskin – June 2011 Excerpt: So the researchers constructed an evolutionary tree based on 129 skull and tooth measurements for living hominoids, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, and did the same with 62 measurements recorded on Old World monkeys, including baboons, mangabeys and macaques. They also drew upon published molecular phylogenies. At the outset, Wood and Collard assumed the molecular evidence was correct. “There were so many different lines of genetic evidence pointing in one direction,” Collard explains. But no matter how the computer analysis was run, the molecular and morphological trees could not be made to match15 (see figure, below). Collard says this casts grave doubt on the reliability of using morphological evidence to determine the fine details of evolutionary trees for higher primates. “It is saying it is positively misleading,” he says. The abstract of the pair’s paper stated provocatively that “existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable”.[10] http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html#comment-9266481 Human Origins, and the Real Reasons for Evolutionary Skepticism – Jonathan M. – December 9, 2012 Excerpt: “Cladistic analysis of cranial and dental evidence has been widely used to generate phylogenetic hypotheses about humans and their fossil relatives. However, the reliability of these hypotheses has never been subjected to external validation. To rectify this, we applied internal methods to equivalent evidence from two groups of extant higher primates for whom reliable molecular phylogenies are available, the hominoids and paionins. We found that the phylogenetic hypotheses based on the craniodental data were incompatible with the molecular phylogenies for the groups. Given the robustness of the molecular phylogenies, these results indicate that little confidence can be placed in phylogenies generated solely from higher primate craniodental evidence. The corollary of this is that existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/human_origins_a1067181.html

Of related interest, Casey Luskin, speaking at a 2014 Science and Human Origins conference, discusses why the fossil evidence falls short of supporting the Darwinian claim that humans evolved from some ape-like precursors.

2014 – podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us/ podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 2 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-2/ podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 3 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-3/ podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 4 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-4/

And lest we forget this recent paper, the ‘image of God’ inherent to man, (i.e. our unique ability to understand and create information), shows no signs of having gradually evolved:

Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language – December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, “The mystery of language evolution,” Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It’s difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html

bornagain77

bornagain77: before assuming that common descent is true as you do and trying to force fit these uncooperative fossils into your pre-assumed conclusion It wasn't a simple presumption, but a hypothesis that led to a valid prediction, the existence of non-sapiens Hominins. Zachriel

"Where (chimps and humans) really differ, and they differ by orders of magnitude, is in the genomic architecture outside the protein coding regions. They are vastly, vastly, different.,, The structural, the organization, the regulatory sequences, the hierarchy for how things are organized and used are vastly different between a chimpanzee and a human being in their genomes." Raymond Bohlin (per Richard Sternberg) - 9:29 minute mark of video https://vimeo.com/106012299 Richard Sternberg PhD – podcast – On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2. (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) 5:30 minute mark quote: “Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species”,,, http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ Humans, Chimpanzees and Monkeys Share DNA but Not Gene Regulatory Mechanisms - (Nov. 6, 2012) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121106201124.htm A Listener's Guide to the Meyer-Marshall Debate: Focus on the Origin of Information Question -Casey Luskin - December 4, 2013 Excerpt: "There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN (developmental gene regulatory network) subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way." - Eric Davidson http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/a_listeners_gui079811.html Darwin's Doubt (Part 8) by Paul Giem - developmental gene regulatory networks and epigenetic information - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLl6wrqd1e0&list=SPHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t&index=8 Still Awaiting Engagement: A Reply to Robert Bishop on Darwin's Doubt - Paul Nelson - September 8, 2014 Excerpt: "Neo-Darwinian evolution is uniformitarian in that it assumes that all process works the same way, so that evolution of enzymes or flower colors can be used as current proxies for study of evolution of the body plan. It erroneously assumes that change in protein coding sequence is the basic cause of change in developmental program; and it erroneously assumes that evolutionary change in body plan morphology occurs by a continuous process. All of these assumptions are basically counterfactual. This cannot be surprising, since the neo-Darwinian synthesis from which these ideas stem was a pre-molecular biology concoction focused on population genetics and adaptation natural history, neither of which have any direct mechanistic import for the genomic regulatory systems that drive embryonic development of the body plan." Eric Davidson - 2011 ,, it is difficult to miss Davidson's thrust. As far as the origin of animal body plans is concerned, neo-Darwinism isn't incomplete or insufficient. It is dead wrong.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/still_awaiting_089641.html

Thus, where Darwinists most need plasticity in the genome to be viable as a theory, (i.e. developmental Gene Regulatory Networks), is the place where mutations are found to be 'always catastrophically bad'. Yet, it is exactly in this area of the genome (i.e. regulatory networks) where 'substantial' differences are found between even supposedly closely related species such as chimps and humans. Needless to say, this is the exact opposite finding for what Darwinism would have predicted for what should have been found in the genome. bornagain77

Zachriel, before assuming that common descent is true as you do and trying to force fit these uncooperative fossils into your pre-assumed conclusion, do you not think that it would be far more appropriate, scientifically speaking, to experimentally demonstrate that common descent is possible or even plausible before you do as such? For instance, the developmental gene regulatory networks (dGRNs) between chimps and humans are found to be very different. Yet changing, i.e. mutating, developmental Gene Regulatory Networks is found to be 'always catastrophically bad'

When Theory Trumps Observation: Responding to Charles Marshall's Review of Darwin's Doubt -Stephen C. Meyer - October 2, 2013 Excerpt: Developmental gene regulatory networks (dGRN) are control systems. A labile (flexible) dGRN would generate (uncontrolled) variable outputs, precisely the opposite of what a functional control system does. It is telling that although many evolutionary theorists (like Marshall) have speculated about early labile dGRNs, no one has ever described such a network in any functional detail -- and for good reason. No developing animal that biologists have observed exhibits the kind of labile developmental gene regulatory network that the evolution of new body plans requires. Indeed, Eric Davidson, when discussing hypothetical labile dGRNs, acknowledges that we are speculating "where no modern dGRN provides a model" since they "must have differed in fundamental respects from those now being unraveled in our laboratories."8 By ignoring this evidence, Marshall and other defenders of evolutionary theory reverse the epistemological priority of the historical scientific method as pioneered by Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin and others.9 Rather than treating our present experimentally based knowledge as the key to evaluating the plausibility of theories about the past, Marshall uses an evolutionary assumption about what must have happened in the past (transmutation) to justify disregarding experimental observations of what does, and does not, occur in biological systems. The requirements of evolutionary doctrine thus trump our observations about how nature and living organisms actually behave. What we know best from observation takes a back seat to prior beliefs about how life must have arisen. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/when_theory_tru077391.html An Interview with Stephen C. Meyer TT: Is the idea of an original human couple (Adam and Eve) in conflict with science? Does DNA tell us anything about the existence of Adam and Eve? SM: Readers have probably heard that the 98 percent similarity of human DNA to chimp DNA establishes that humans and chimps had a common ancestor. Recent studies show that number dropping significantly. More important, it turns out that previous measures of human and chimp genetic similarity were based upon an analysis of only 2 to 3 percent of the genome, the small portion that codes for proteins. This limited comparison was justified based upon the assumption that the rest of the genome was non-functional “junk.” Since the publication of the results of something called the “Encode Project,” however, it has become clear that the noncoding regions of the genome perform many important functions and that, overall, the non-coding regions of the genome function much like an operating system in a computer by regulating the timing and expression of the information stored in the “data files” or coding regions of the genome. Significantly, it has become increasingly clear that the non-coding regions, the crucial operating systems in effect, of the chimp and human genomes are species specific. That is, they are strikingly different in the two species. Yet, if alleged genetic similarity suggests common ancestry, then, by the same logic, this new evidence of significant genetic disparity suggests independent separate origins. For this reason, I see nothing from a genetic point of view that challenges the idea that humans originated independently from primates, http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/scripture-and-science-in-conflict/ The mouse is not enough - February 2011 Excerpt: Richard Behringer, who studies mammalian embryogenesis at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas said, “There is no ‘correct’ system. Each species is unique and uses its own tailored mechanisms to achieve development. By only studying one species (eg, the mouse), naive scientists believe that it represents all mammals.” http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57986/ Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F Darwin or Design? - Paul Nelson at Saddleback Church - Nov. 2012 - ontogenetic depth (excellent update) - video Text from one of the Saddleback slides: 1. Animal body plans are built in each generation by a stepwise process, from the fertilized egg to the many cells of the adult. The earliest stages in this process determine what follows. 2. Thus, to change -- that is, to evolve -- any body plan, mutations expressed early in development must occur, be viable, and be stably transmitted to offspring. 3. But such early-acting mutations of global effect are those least likely to be tolerated by the embryo. Losses of structures are the only exception to this otherwise universal generalization about animal development and evolution. Many species will tolerate phenotypic losses if their local (environmental) circumstances are favorable. Hence island or cave fauna often lose (for instance) wings or eyes. http://www.saddleback.com/mc/m/7ece8/

bornagain77

bornagain77: This evidence led to a reassessment of Homo habilis and its relationship to modern humans. That's intrinsic to evolution, that, because of common ancestry, it can be difficult to distinguish close relatives. In any case, there are non-sapiens Hominins in the fossil record, as expected from an evolutionary history. Zachriel

Homo Habilis Excerpt: This species was initially considered to be a direct ancestor of modern humans but fossil discoveries in the mid-1980s showed that Homo habilis had rather ape-like limb proportions. This evidence led to a reassessment of Homo habilis and its relationship to modern humans. Many scientists no-longer regard this species as one of our direct ancestors and instead have moved it onto a side branch of our family tree. http://australianmuseum.net.au/Homo-habilis/ 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://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/68503570/abstract Human evolution? Excerpt: Some scientists have proposed moving this species (habilis) out of Homo and into Australopithecus (ape) due to the morphology of its skeleton being more adapted to living on trees rather than to moving on two legs like H. sapiens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Genus_Homo Who Was Homo habilis—And Was It Really Homo? - Ann Gibbons - June 2011 Abstract: In the past decade, Homo habilis's status as the first member of our genus 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. That suggests the handyman had yet to make the key adaptations associated with our genus, such as the ability to exploit a variety of foods in many environments, the authors say. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6036/1370.summary 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://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 bornagain77

Homo habilis itself is morphologically intermediate between australopithecines and H. ergaster/erectus, and the main reason why it is placed in Homo rather than Australopithecus is its relatively large brain. Genera (like other traditional ranks) are quite arbitrary anyway. From the cladistic point of view, Homo is a subtaxon of Australopithecus. Piotr

That is a real problem since it means that humans overlapped with australopithcines including especially sediba which is a mere 2 million years old.

It was already known that the genus Homo overlapped with australopithecines by hundreds of thousands of years. Despite sediba's advanced features (it's been long debated as to whether it's australopithecine or Homo) its young date has always been an problem for those arguing that it is the ancestor of Homo, and is why afarensis is still seen as the most likely ancestor.

Humans dated 2.8 million years ago?

Of course, by "humans" they are referring to the genus, Homo, and not the species Homo sapiens.

Sophisticated tools used by H. erectus?

Well, they should. They are the successors to H. habilis after all.

Neanderthal genes in modern humans?

Yes, not sure what the problem is supposed to be there.

Range of variation in Dmanisi overlapping H. erectus to modern humans?

There's nothing like modern humans at Dmanisi. The variety of finds at Dmanisi include most of the varieties of Homo that existed at that time - about 1.8 million years ago. It's a score for the lumpers, as opposed to the splitters who argue that there were 5 or more species of Homo at the time, but nothing there comes close to resembling a modern human.

A. sediba is a mixture of Homo and Australopithecine remains in South Africa?

Yes, which is an issue for those who want to argue that there was some kind of jump or gap from Australopithecines to Homo. If the experts can't agree on whether it's Australopithecine or Homo, then how wide is the break? The same goes for this recent fossil find. It doesn't imply any gaps, just the opposite:

Prof Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas said the discovery makes a clear link between an iconic 3.2 million-year-old hominin (human-like primate) discovered in the same area in 1974, called "Lucy". Could Lucy's kind - which belonged to the species Australopithecus afarensis - have evolved into the very first primitive humans? "That's what we are arguing," said Prof Villmoare.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31718336 goodusername

wd400, speaking of rigid falsification of a supposedly scientific theory, what specific, and rigid, demarcation/falsification criteria in Darwinism do you think would rigidly falsify Darwinism? And if no rigid falsification criteria can be found for Darwinism then why would you think any finding would falsify Darwinism?

Darwinism is a Pseudo-Science: The primary reasons why Darwinism is a pseudo-science instead of a proper science are as such: 1. No Rigid Mathematical Basis (Demarcation/Falsification Criteria) 2. No Demonstrated Empirical Basis 3. Random Mutation and Natural Selection are both grossly inadequate as ‘creative engines’ 4. Information is not reducible to a material basis, (in fact, in quantum teleportation it is found that material ultimately reduces to a information basis) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oaPcK-KCppBztIJmXUBXTvZTZ5lHV4Qg_pnzmvVL2Qw/edit

The main reason why Darwinian evolution is more properly thought of as a pseudo-science instead of a proper science is because Darwinian evolution has no rigid mathematical basis, like other overarching physical theories of science do. A rigid mathematical basis in order to potentially falsify it (in fact, in so far as math can be applied to Darwinian claims, mathematics constantly shows us that Darwinian evolution is astronomically unlikely),,

“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” - Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003 Darwinians Try to Usurp Biomimetics Popularity - October 9, 2014 Excerpt: "it is remarkable, therefore, that formal mathematical, rather than verbal, proof of the fact that natural selection has an optimizing tendency was still lacking after a century and a half later.",,, More importantly, its proponents are still struggling, a century and a half after Darwin, to provide evidence and the mathematical formalism to demonstrate that random natural processes have the creative power that Darwin, Dawkins, and others claim it has. Everyone already knows that intelligent causes have such creative power. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/darwinians_try090231.html Active Information in Metabiology – Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II – 2013 Except page 9: Chaitin states [3], “For many years I have thought that it is a mathematical scandal that we do not have proof that Darwinian evolution works.” In fact, mathematics has consistently demonstrated that undirected Darwinian evolution does not work.,, Consistent with the laws of conservation of information, natural selection can only work using the guidance of active information, which can be provided only by a designer. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.4/BIO-C.2013.4

Chaitin is quoted, by Marks, at 10:00 minute mark of following video in regards to Darwinism lack of a mathematical proof - Dr. Marks also comments on the honesty of Chaitin in personally admitting that his long sought after mathematical proof for Darwinian evolution failed to deliver the goods.

On Algorithmic Specified Complexity by Robert J. Marks II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No3LZmPcwyg&feature=player_detailpage#t=600 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True - Roger Highfield - January 2014 Excerpt:,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—'laws'—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468 Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science - Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/paulijcs8.pdf “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109.

Whereas nobody can seem to find 'universal truths' in Darwinism that can be tested against so as to potentially falsify Darwinism, ID does not suffer from such an embarrassing lack of scientific rigor:

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge http://izquotes.com/quote/147518 It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness - David L. Abel Excerpt: "If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise." If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: "No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone." https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_

bornagain77

wallstreeter43, What in the jawbone do you think should falsify "darwinism"? And (for anyone) why should Homo overlapping with Australopithecus be a problem? wd400

How anyone can take these muppets seriously I don't know. What a load of baloney. If these science terrorists would only admit to the world what many have already discovered, that being they don't know squat, will science move forward. Only once these anti scientific anti human philosophies are stripped away will science be able to flourish once again. humbled

What we see here is that Darwinian evolution is non falsifiable. When the fossil evidence speaks out against it they will say that it's a result of poor fossil record and twhn proceed to take a rain check on the fossil record while proclaiming Darwinian evolution a scientific fact . Nice links BA77 I'll have some good reading to do while getting over the flu :) wallstreeter43

as to sediba

Australopithecus sediba: The Hype-Cycle Starts Again – Casey Luskin – September 2011 Excerpt: So leading paleoanthropologists like Bernard Wood, Donald Johanson, Fred Spoor, Ian Tattersal, and Tim White aren’t convinced that Au. sediba was a human ancestor, but the media believes it’s perfectly acceptable to promote the opposite view to the public.,,, A final problem with the claims being made about Au. sediba is related the paleoanthropologist who found the fossils himself. Science reports that he formerly had a career as a TV news producer and has a tendency to overstate his findings:,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/australopithecus_sediba_the_hy050831.html Missing link fossil a “hotchpotch,” “may never have existed” - April 2014 Excerpt: The fossils of Australopithecus sediba, which promised to rewrite the story of human evolution, may actually be the remains of two species jumbled together. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/missing-link-fossil-a-hotchpotch-may-never-have-existed/ The Fall of Australopithecus sediba: Controversy and the Quest for Glory Cloud Claims of Human Ancestry - Casey Luskin - June 12, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/the_fall_of_aus073211.html Human ancestry declared to be still an enduring puzzle - David Tyler - June 10, 2013 Excerpt: "Given the mix of features seen in A. sediba, it is difficult to understand why these researchers insist that it lies at the base of the Homo lineage. Similar intellectual gymnastics are required to comprehend the authors' argument that no African Homo fossils exist from before the time of A. sediba. Although the recent papers constitute a fascinating further analysis of the A. sediba fossils, I do not think that they provide compelling evidence that this species is anything other than an unusual australopith from a Pliocene-Pleistocene time period that is already populated by a fair number of them." - William H. Kimbel - Hesitation on hominin history - Nature, 497, 573-574 (30 May 2013) http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2013/06/10/human_ancestry_declared_to_be_still_an_e

Here is a excellent summary of Casey Luskin's research (up to 2012) finding that the claims for human evolution in the fossil record are almost always (very) over-hyped. (as well the articles have excellent pointers exposing the less than forthright debating tactics of Darwinists, (such as shifting the burden of proof for one less than forthright tactic), when they debate human evolution with someone who doubts that it occurred:

How do Theistic Evolutionists Explain the Fossil Record and Human Origins? - Casey Luskin - September 14, 2012 Excerpt: In six recent articles (see the links at right), I have argued that the fossil record does not support the evolution of ape-like species into human-like species. Rather, hominin fossils generally fall into two distinct groups: ape-like species and human-like species, with a large, unbridged gap between them.,,, Third, not all paleontologists agree with Kidder that the lack of transitional fossils is simply the result of the unsophisticated (and all-too-easy) excuse the fossil record is poor. Consider what paleontologist Niles Eldredge and paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersal (who are both committed evolutionists) co-wrote in a book on human origins: "The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record." (Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, p. 59 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1982).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/how_do_theistic_1064301.html

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