Evolution is an elaborate fairy tale

Calvin · #**581** 3rd December 2003, 07:28 AM

Originally Posted by lucaspa

You haven't even found a creationist that argues that
Naikotome boy is a
hoax. Or that his cranium is not fully human. Much less any of the
other
individual fossils that I listed for you.

No I haven't, but your evolutionary friends have!

"The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the
fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus ," or the "Turkana Boy," which was
found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was
that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in
adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no
different from that of modern man. The American paleoanthropologist Alan
Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the
difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human."
Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it
because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."198 As we will see in the
next chapter, Neanderthals are a modern human race. Therefore, Homo
erectus is also a modern human race.

Even the evolutionist Richard Leakey states that the differences between
Homo erectus and modern man are no more than racial variance:

One would also see differences: in the shape of the skull, in the degree
of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These
differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between
the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological
variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each
other for significant lengths of time.

Professor William Laughlin from the University of Connecticut made
extensive anatomical examinations of Inuits and the people living on the
Aleut islands, and noticed that these people were extraordinarily
similar to Homo erectus . The conclusion Laughlin arrived at was that
all these distinct races were in fact different races of Homo sapiens
(modern man):

It is now a more pronounced fact in the scientific community that Homo
erectus is a superfluous taxon, and that fossils assigned to the Homo
erectus class are actually not so different from Homo sapiens as to be
considered a different species. In American Scientist, the discussions
over this issue and the result of a conference held on the subject in
2000 were summarized in this way:

Most of the participants at the Senckenberg conference got drawn into a
flaming debate over the taxonomic status of Homo erectus started by
Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Alan Thorne of the
University of Canberra and their colleagues. They argued forcefully that
Homo erectus had no validity as a species and should be eliminated
altogether. All members of the genus Homo, from about 2 million years
ago to the present, were one highly variable, widely spread species,
Homo sapiens , with no natural breaks or subdivisions. The subject of
the conference, Homo erectus , didn't exist.201

The conclusion reached by the scientists defending the abovementioned
thesis can be summarized as "Homo erectus is not a different species
from Homo sapiens , but rather a race within Homo sapiens ." On the
other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo erectus , a human race, and
the apes that preceded Homo erectus in the "human evolution" scenario
(Australopithecus , Homo Habilis , and Homo rudolfensis ). This means
that the first men appeared in the fossil record suddenly and without
any prior evolutionary
history."---http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man_05.html

I encourge everyone to visit this website, the pictures of the fossils
are especially revealing.

Calvin · #**582** 3rd December 2003, 07:35 AM

Originally Posted by lucaspa

LOL! What a false criteria you have! Calvin, the
transitionals have
already been found! What, call a news conference to declare "Hey,
that
Broken-Hill fossil found 35 years ago that we described as a
transitional from H.
erectus to H. sapiens. Guess what? It's still a transitional!
Where are
the TV cameras?" People already know this. Saying it's not known or
that the
transitionals aren't there doesn't make it truth. Then trying to say
that the
news media doesn't rush to announce something -- human evolution -- that
people
have known about for 40 years or more shows that the evidence isn't
there?
You've got to be kidding! Why should the media rush to announce
something
simply because a few die-hard creationists don't believe it?

LOL....what are you talking about? Every find is the "missing link"!!!
If we have the "missing link," why is the next find reported as the
"missing link?" And then only to be withdrawn later as just "close." Why
are evoloutionists arguing amongst themselves about these finds? Why
don't they have your level of confidence? Why don't they see it as you
see it, I mean they believe in evolution and they really want it to be
true as bad as you do? Why don't they agree?

May I? ............

Because the missing link is still MISSING!

Originally Posted by lucaspa

Oh, yes. I do remember something recent. Human evolution
with transitions
made the front page of Time magazine a couple years ago. I suppose you
missed
that, too.
23. Time article on Ardipethicus
http://www.
time.com/time/covers/1101010723/cover.html
New intermediates from ape to human keep being found and creationists
have to
keep making lame denials.

Yeah, good example. I'm glad you brought it up....

"The [Time] article claims that 'amazing new discoveries reveal the
secrets of our past' and 'remarkable new evidence is filling in the
story of how we became human'. In reality, there is actually little new
in this article. What is new is trivial, and does not establish human
evolution, any more than similar claims (now mostly discredited) did so
in the past.

The article papers over the profound disagreements amongst evolutionists
themselves about the significance of the various claims. For example,
Ardipithecus ramidus is proudly portrayed as our ancestor closest to the
apes. When the evidence is examined, it is found most wanting,
especially when it is remembered that it was claimed as THE missing link
at the time it was announced to the eager media. The bits and pieces
were found scattered over about a mile and put together to get 'the
missing link'.

Homo habilis is now widely recognized as a mixture of different types,
technically called an 'invalid taxon'. Skulls 9,11,12,13,14 and 15 are
all just variations of the true human kind. Various respected
evolutionists have provided evidence that Australopithecus spp.
(pictures 2-8) did not walk upright, certainly not in anything like the
human manner (e.g. Oxnard on anatomy,1 Spoor on inner ear balance organ
structure2), and are not transitional between apes and people. This is
totally left aside by the article. There is no reason to connect the
australopithecines to humans, except in the belief system of
evolutionists.

When complete fossils are found, they are easy to assign clearly as
either 'ape' or human, there are only 'ape-men' where imagination
colored by belief in evolution is applied to fragmented bits and
pieces."--http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4113.asp

Another deemed "missing link?" But I thought the most recent find was the missing link? And anyway, I thought you had a bunch of missing links from yesteryear?...LOL

SLP · #**583** 3rd December 2003, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by bevets

[left][color=#4f2700][font=Arial]

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. ~ Richard Lewontin

You DO realize, do you not, that the Lewontin quote has nothing to do with evolution?

That it came from a BOOK REVIEW?

pureone · #**584** 3rd December 2003, 11:39 AM

Keep pulling quotes out of AIG and the whole site will collapse.

bevets · #**585** 3rd December 2003, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by SLP

You DO realize, do you not, that the Lewontin quote has nothing to do with evolution?

That it came from a BOOK REVIEW?

So if someone were to ask Dr Lewontin 'Could this quote apply to evolution?', you believe his response would be 'Absolutely not, dont be silly'?

lucaspa · #**586** 3rd December 2003, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by Calvin

Ahhhh, whose head is in what sand? Do you just make this stuff-up as you go along? This must be the fifth or sixth time I have caught you making a blatant error---What's up?

Yes, I know the surveys. But you noticed I didn't base my claim on the surveys, didn't you? I based them on what people actually do. In Kansas, Ohio, New Mexico, Hawaii, Cobb County, etc. creationists have tried to get creationism into the school curricula. Kansas is the most illustrative. There the Kansas Board of Education dropped evolution from curricula standards. The members who did that were all Republican. The party with the most conservative Christians -- and therefore supposedly creationist. In the next primary election, all the members who voted for dropping evolution were defeated and pro-evolution candidates elected! What people say to a survey is one thing. When creationists try to take evolution away, people vote their real convictions.

Surveys also critically depend on how the questions are phrased. How people vote doesn't.

Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal,
a peer-reviewed journal published by Answers in Genesis.

False witness right here is calling Creation Ex Nihilo a "peer-reviewed journal" in an attempt to have it gain credibility. It never goes outside the circle of YECs. In the scientific literature, your papers are sent to your competitors -- the ones who disagree with you -- for review. You have to convince them. Not just the choir. But the critics.

10,000 scientists (including more than 4,000 life scientists) reject both macroevolution and theistic evolution.

The article didn't reference a paper on those numbers, did it? How many scientists in the US? At least 2 million. Let's see, 10,000 out of 2 million. That's 0.5% A half of one percent! Same or less with the "life scientists". Now, do you think you find 0.5% of people that agreed with any half-baked and false idea you cared to name? Yes. As I said, we are dealing with a few who won't admit that the theory is falsified.

I did....and you're wrong again. They were hailed as "The Missing Link"

"A million-year-old skull found in Ethiopia confirms the theory that modern man evolved from a single pre-human species that developed in Africa and migrated throughout the rest of the world ..."CNN

"Fossil find may be 'missing link"---BBC News

Well, how am I wrong? You claimed that transitionals never made it to CNN and therefore weren't legitimate. Here you confirm that they made it to CNN. By your criteria, you now must acknowledge them as genuine transitionals!

Nice of you to refute your own position.

"The situation was this. Until the mid-1980s, most evolutionists believed that the erectus skulls found in places like Asia and Europe had all emerged from an original erectus population which had emerged in Africa. Then others started saying that the skulls in Africa were a little different, and represented a separate species, which they named Homo ergaster, that is thought to have evolved into erectus.

This recent skull discovery has been made in Africa, and the skull is 'dated' (using the usual evolutionary assumptions) at one million years. It is a classic erectus skull, which seems to confirm the earlier view. This has caused people to reassess the whole matter of ergaster, with many now saying that ergaster never existed. I.e. they now point out that the differences between ergaster and erectus were, all along, too minor to call them a separate species. They were just a part of the range of variation in one group.

Right. Although the situation isn't yet settled. Tattersall and others still think that the skulls assigned to ergastor are different from the ones assigned to erectus. However, this has nothing to do with the skulls I posted that are intermediate between erectus and sapiens.

Other evolutionists are not convinced, despite the evidence confirming the tight anatomical overlap of features. However, this only highlights how all such matters involving classification of fossil bones are, by their very nature, highly subjective. It is not at all unreasonable, in the light of that subjectivity, for the creationist to maintain that there should really only be one Homo species acknowledged, namely Homo Sapiens

LOL! Nice try from your site. But it is unreasonable. Altho there are arguments over ergastor being erectus, there has never been an argument over erectus being sapiens. No one has ever suggested that.

This is consistent with what certain evolutionary paleoanthropologists, most notably Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, have been saying for some time now. They do believe that the individuals whose bones have been labeled erectus were the evolutionary ancestors of modern people (as were Neanderthals, in their view). But they seem to believe that the similarities are such that all Homo erectus specimens, along with Homo neanderthalensis and others, should really be called Homo Sapiens

That's a misrepresentation of Wolpoff. He has never said all erectus should be called sapiens. What Milford's Multiregional Hypothesis states is that there was a species -- Erectus -- that had widespread populations over Eurasia. Neandertals were part of the populations, or perhaps a separate species. Milford isn't clear on this point. These populations were isolated enough that they evolved separately but had enough gene flow that they managed to stay the same species while evolving into a new species, H. sapiens. However, the regional differences persisted. Thus, the Asian H. erectus gave rise to the Mongoloid race. The African erectus gave rise to the Negroid race, and neandertals gave rise to the Caucasoid race. Instead of all races having a single ancestor in Africa, Milford gives them different evolutionary histories. 2. Wolpoff, 1984, The Origin of Races. Paleobiol., 10: 389-406

which means, in a nutshell, people. There is evidence associated with erectus of many human cultural attributes, including burial of their dead, the use of ceremonial ochre, stone toolmaking, and even complex seafaring/navigation skills. (It's been recently discovered that 'Neanderthals Made High-Tech Superglue'.)

Right. But cultural does not equal being the same species. Morphology and reproductive isolation do. Even here, the article is misleading. Erectus and neandertals never made the more complicated stone tools that sapiens made. They had a different, simpler toolkit which never changed. Also, only sapiens seems to have made jewelry. Erectus made boats, but there is no evidence I am aware of "complex seafaring/navigation skills"
4. R Kunzig, Erectus afloat. Discover 20: 80, Jann. 1999. Data indicate that H. erectus used boats to get to Indonesia 800,000 years ago. Those are very narrow waters where you can see the next island. Not a lot required for navigation.

The TJ paper by creationist John Woodmorappe, titled The non-transitions in 'human evolution'-on evolutionists' terms concludes from the analysis of a number of characteristics that Homo ergaster, H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis as well as H. heidelbergensis were most likely 'racial' variants of modern man, while H. habilis4 and another specimen called H. rudolfensis were just types of australopithecines."

And Woodmarappe is a paleontologist? Nope. A physicist. Has Woodmorappe ever looked at the actual fossils? Nope. Now, you tell us to trust only the data. But you are about to trust someone who has no training in how to evaluate the data, has not looked at the original data, and has an oath that forbids him from concluding that there are transitional forms. You think this is an honest conclusion?

Gee Lucas....sounds like you better go over all your solid evidence with Milford.

Don't need to. Others have done it for me. The more recent genetic studies have falsified Wolpoff's Multiregional Hypothesis. Remember, if Wolpoff is right, then modern humans would have ancient DNA sequences obtained from neandertals -- who go back 300,000 years. Not there.

Have you seen the subsequent news reports saying these were "not the missing link" after all but...."close"....

Since you were so eager to quote the initial ones, why didn't you include the recent ones?

The DNA data. Look it up for yourself:
11. A Gibbons, Modern men trace ancestry to African migrants. Science 292:1051-1052, May 11, 2001. Y chromosome of EVERY person in the study could be traced to forefathers who lived in Africa 35,000 to 89,000 years ago. "one self-described 'dedicated multiregionalist,' Vince Sarich of the University of California, Berkeley, admitted: 'I have undergone a conversion -- a sort of epiphany. There are no old Y chromosomes lineages. There are no old mtDNA lineages. Period. It was a total replacement.' " In another study, Peter Underhill and colleagues analyzed 218 markers in 1062 men from 21 populations.Primary paper is Y Ke, B Su, D Lu, L Chen, H Li, C Qi, S Marzuki, R Deka, P Underhill, C Xiao, M Shriver, J Lell, D Wallace, RS Wells, M Selestad, P Oefner, D Zhu, W Huang, R Chakraborty, Z Chen, L Jin, African Origin of modern humans in east Asia: a tale of 12,000 Y chromosomes. Science 292: 1151-1153, May 11, 2001.
12. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...eandertal.html Neanderthal face not H. sapiens

lucaspa · #**587** 3rd December 2003, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by bevets

So if someone were to ask Dr Lewontin 'Could this quote apply to evolution?', you believe his response would be 'Absolutely not, dont be silly'?

Bevets, I've showed you in other posts that Lewontin's quote is taken out of context. Lewontin doesn't like Sagan's book. He thinks Sagan is wrong in setting up science as atheism. The whole review is sarcastic and a put-down. The out-of-context quote is actually showing how ridiculous Sagan is for pushing science = atheism.

Everyone, the entire review is here: http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarch...i?19970109028R

Notice the sentences immediately before the quote Bevets uses:
"What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity “in deep trouble.” Two’s company, but three’s a crowd."

The next paragraph, therefore, is exposing Sagan's prejudice against the supernatural. It is saying that Sagan is prejudiced and wrong.

lucaspa · #**588** 3rd December 2003, 02:15 PM

Originally Posted by Calvin

No I haven't, but your evolutionary friends have!

"The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the
fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus ," or the "Turkana Boy," which was
found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was
that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in
adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no
different from that of modern man. The American paleoanthropologist Alan
Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the
difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human."
Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it
because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."198 As we will see in the
next chapter, Neanderthals are a modern human race. Therefore, Homo
erectus is also a modern human race.

LOL! Boy, you can twist words, can't you? Walker doesn't state the skull is sapiens. He states it as neandertal. It is the AiG that is stating that neandertals are "modern human race." NOT Walker. Is there any false witness AiG won't stoop too? Any manipulation of words to mislead you that they won't do?

Where are your own words, Calvin? Where is your analysis of what AiG says? Why didn't you pick up on this? It's obvious that the quote was manipulated. Instead, you perpetuate the false witness and make it your own by saying it contradicts what I posted. If this is truth, why does it need such methods to let it be known?

Professor William Laughlin from the University of Connecticut made
extensive anatomical examinations of Inuits and the people living on the
Aleut islands, and noticed that these people were extraordinarily
similar to Homo erectus .

No references or data. Empy AiG words. Where is the evidence?

Calvin, are you under the impression that AiG is evidence? That in cutting and pasting these essays that you are actually providing evidence? You are not. You are only providing apologetics. Evidence in science consists of the actual data or statements of the people. Not what AiG says the people said. Leakey is one who proposed H. erectus as a species to begin with! The Turkana boy was the first example of that in Africa!

As for the supposed Laughlin study, the site does have references at the bottom. But for this crucial bit of "evidence", there is no reference. How do you know this study was ever done or what it really showed?

The data I have seen shows that the morphological features of H. erectus fall outside the bell-shaped curve of sapiens. Particularly the size of the braincase. Remember, 1100 cc vs 1500 cc for sapiens. Quite a difference.

Most of the participants at the Senckenberg conference got drawn into a flaming debate over the taxonomic status of Homo erectus started by
Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Alan Thorne of the
University of Canberra and their colleagues. They argued forcefully that
Homo erectus had no validity as a species and should be eliminated
altogether. All members of the genus Homo, from about 2 million years
ago to the present, were one highly variable, widely spread species,
Homo sapiens , with no natural breaks or subdivisions. The subject of
the conference, Homo erectus , didn't exist.201

The conclusion reached by the scientists defending the abovementioned
thesis can be summarized as "Homo erectus is not a different species
from Homo sapiens , but rather a race within Homo sapiens ."

Of course that was the conclusion reached by Wolpoff and Thorne! It was their idea to begin with! Did they convince the conference? NO! And now the DNA data posted in the previous thread shows them to be wrong. That data has come in since the conference and trumps whatever ideas Wolpoff and Thorne advanced there.

On the other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo erectus , a human race, and the apes that preceded Homo erectus in the "human evolution" scenario (Australopithecus , Homo Habilis , and Homo rudolfensis ). This means that the first men appeared in the fossil record suddenly and without any prior evolutionary
history."---http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man_05.html

Now, this isn't a conclusion from the conference. Notice where the quotation marks left off. This is the site trying to pretend its editorial comments were part of the conference. False witness.

I encourge everyone to visit this website, the pictures of the fossils
are especially revealing.

Yeah, its fun. For instance, this is the caption of one:
"Alan Thorne and Philip Macumber, who discovered the skulls, interpreted them both as Homo sapiens skulls, whereas they actually contained many features reminiscent of Homo erectus ."

More transitionals. Or Thorne mislabeled them. We now know from Indonesia that H. erectus persisted up to at least 20,000 years ago. So this could be a remnant H. erectus population.

The pictures comparing Turkana and an Australian aborigine cannot be seen clearly. The picture of a erectus skull and a living aborigine is apples and oranges. It is trying to give the impression of the superficial features, but doesn't tell us what the underlying bone of the living person looks like.

Now, if the site was honest, they could take the measurements of all the skull features and make up bell-shaped curves and then compare the bell-shaped curves.

lucaspa · #**589** 3rd December 2003, 02:41 PM

I've just been looking. The William Laughlin study referred to be darwinismrefuted seems to be made up out of whole cloth. A Google search on Laughlin erectus Inuit only turns up creationists sites making this statement, none of them with a reference. Just repeating what each other said.

The only reference to Laughlin I can find is one that he opposed the concept of "race" at http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/reader.doc

I have encountered this phenomenon before. One creationist site says something and then several repeat it as "fact" without ever checking to see if it is so.

Mechanical Bliss · #**590** 3rd December 2003, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by Calvin

You start with
the Word of God as truth and then you investigate His creation. This is
how true scientists work.

Creationists say the darndest things, I must say. So only "true scientists" (tm) operate by throwing out data they don't like? Yeah, that's science, all right. :rolleyes: