What Makes us Human?

Mallon · #51 23rd June 2009, 08:10 PM

Originally Posted by sawdust

You simply missed the point. We don't have to answer any of the questions you asked. We are given enough information in the scripture to recognise there are different kinds and that each of these different kinds were created by God fully formed.

I'm not so sure I did miss the point.
As I said, if "kinds" are real, discrete groupings within nature, then distinguishing them from one another should be a trivial matter. And if they are static through time, as you imply, then telling them apart as we progress through the fossil record should likewise be simple.
But it's not. What you call discrete "kinds" today look less and less discrete as we look further back into the fossil record. Humans and chimps may look very different today, but the line gets blurrier and blurrier as we trace our lineages back in the fossil record:

Thus, it seems that "kinds" are not real, discrete groupings, and that the use of the word "kind" in the Bible is in a phenomenological sense, and not a scientific one.

And no, I'm not trying to read evolution into Genesis. That's the whole point of recognizing phenomenological language.

Mallon · #52 23rd June 2009, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by Calypsis4

If evolution were true then it should be an easy matter of revealing how organisms can change into other organisms by sexual cross bredding of similar kinds. Alas, man cannot do this with any kind of ape successfully even though evolutionists tell us that apes and man have a common ancestor with them. It's all nonsense.

Have you ever heard of ring species? They completely undermine this point.

The truth is that they have a common Creator and not a common ancestor.

"Common creator" doesn't explain the nested hierarchical pattern into which life is organized. Only common ancestry accounts for that pattern.

juvenissun · #53 23rd June 2009, 09:47 PM

Originally Posted by Mallon

I'm not so sure I did miss the point.
As I said, if "kinds" are real, discrete groupings within nature, then distinguishing them from one another should be a trivial matter. And if they are static through time, as you imply, then telling them apart as we progress through the fossil record should likewise be simple.
But it's not. What you call discrete "kinds" today look less and less discrete as we look further back into the fossil record. Humans and chimps may look very different today, but the line gets blurrier and blurrier as we trace our lineages back in the fossil record:

Thus, it seems that "kinds" are not real, discrete groupings, and that the use of the word "kind" in the Bible is in a phenomenological sense, and not a scientific one.

And no, I'm not trying to read evolution into Genesis. That's the whole point of recognizing phenomenological language.

Put the flesh on this bones and watch their appearances and behaviors, then a 3-year-old will know what the "kind" means. There may be some mixed-ups over the boundaries, but it does not really matter. The main point is that we do not mix mankind with animal-kind.

I said you are brain-washed by paleontology, you don't believe it. Like the first question I talked to you two years ago, if you give my body hair (fur?) back, then I would probably reconsider the relationship between mankind and ape-kind.

gluadys · #54 23rd June 2009, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by Calypsis4

If evolution were true then it should be an easy matter of revealing how organisms can change into other organisms by sexual cross bredding of similar kinds. Alas, man cannot do this with any kind of ape successfully even though evolutionists tell us that apes and man have a common ancestor with them. It's all nonsense. The truth is that they have a common Creator and not a common ancestor.

Problem is that evolutionary theory doesn't say that we get all or even most new species by cross-breeding. It says we get many new species by separating a single species into different lines of descendants.

That is why it speaks of common ancestors.

A tigon or a liger does not have a common ancestor. It has two different ancestors.

Furthermore, that new species come about by splitting a single species is not an untested idea. This is observed in nature and in controlled experiments.

Mallon · #55 24th June 2009, 12:17 AM

Originally Posted by juvenissun

I said you are brain-washed by paleontology, you don't believe it.

Brainwashed people have no intelligent thoughts of their own to offer because they've spent little time thinking critically about the issues, so they resort to attacking others by accusing them of being brainwashed.

Like the first question I talked to you two years ago, if you give my body hair (fur?) back, then I would probably reconsider the relationship between mankind and ape-kind.

Now here come the excuses/backtracking/goalpost-moving!

juvenissun · #56 24th June 2009, 02:24 PM

[quote=Mallon;52169844]

Brainwashed people have no intelligent thoughts of their own to offer because they've spent little time thinking critically about the issues, so they resort to attacking others by accusing them of being brainwashed.

Very wrong. Brainwashed people can think perfectly. But the whole thinking is biased and confined.

Now here come the excuses/backtracking/goalpost-moving!

As a geologist, I love and I also hate exception. For this one, I love to know what happened to them. And I hate people who use them for any general argument. It is not math or physics. Three exceptions are nothing while you have millions of samples.

Mallon · #57 24th June 2009, 02:25 PM

Who called it?

juvenissun · #58 24th June 2009, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by Mallon

Now here come the excuses/backtracking/goalpost-moving!

Take this one as an example. When this person stood side by side with a chimp/ape/..., I think a 3-year-old can STILL tell who is human and who is not.
Think: if both were presented as skeletons, then even me WILL have trouble to tell who is who.

You tell me why.

(my idea: when we only compare bones, A LOT of information about the life is missing. That is probably one of the most significant problem with paleontology and anthropology.)

Mallon · #59 24th June 2009, 02:43 PM

Keep shifting those goalposts, juvie. You're doing a fine job.

sawdust · #60 24th June 2009, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by Mallon

I'm not so sure I did miss the point.
As I said, if "kinds" are real, discrete groupings within nature, then distinguishing them from one another should be a trivial matter. And if they are static through time, as you imply, then telling them apart as we progress through the fossil record should likewise be simple.
But it's not. What you call discrete "kinds" today look less and less discrete as we look further back into the fossil record. Humans and chimps may look very different today, but the line gets blurrier and blurrier as we trace our lineages back in the fossil record:

Thus, it seems that "kinds" are not real, discrete groupings, and that the use of the word "kind" in the Bible is in a phenomenological sense, and not a scientific one.

And no, I'm not trying to read evolution into Genesis. That's the whole point of recognizing phenomenological language.

The problem is you're looking at fossils that more than likely have no bearing whatsoever on this current creation.

The scriptures teach past creations as well as future creations. As long as that fact remains unrecognised, science will continue to look at the earth as one long history and continue to make the same old mistakes (of interpretation).

And I didn't imply "kinds" were static except within the particular "kind" because that is what the scriptures teach. How much variation within a kind is possible? I have no idea. I didn't design the specifications.

You say you didn't miss the point and yet you continue to place your "observations" over and above what the word of God teaches. Learn what the word teaches first, then what we observe in the natural order will have a very different understanding.

peace