Darwinian Theator of the Mind: AKA Human Brain Evolution

[mark kennedy]

Where did you get this from? It's not in any of the books that I have read about Piltdown. By the way, it's Leakey, not Leaky.

Bones of Contention and thanks for the correction, spell checker just can't help you with some things

 

[Astrophile]

They took a human skull out of a mass grave from the Black Plague and put it with an orangutan jaw. They deliberately painted and grown down the teeth and a whole lot of other things.

Who were 'they', and where did you get this information about the mass grave from the Black Plague?

No one knows who really perpetrated the fraud but it was the prevailing transitional for almost a half a century.

The books that I have read recently name the solicitor Charles Dawson (1864-1916)
as the perpetrator of Piltdown and of about 30 other frauds, most of them archaeological and antiquarian rather than palaeontological. You could read Unravelling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and its Solution by John Evangelist Walsh and Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson by Miles Russell for the case against Dawson.

 

[Astrophile]

Bones of Contention and thanks for the correction, spell checker just can't help you with some things

I take it that this is Bones of Contention by Marvin Lubenow, not any of the other books with the same title.

 

[mark kennedy]

I take it that this is Bones of Contention by Marvin Lubenow, not any of the other books with the same title.

Yes, didn't realize you were looking for a citation.

Who were 'they', and where did you get this information about the mass grave from the Black Plague?

"There is the possibility that the skull itself was legitimately found in the pit. Radiocarbon dating determined it to be from 520-720 years old. Piltdown common had been used as a mass grace during the great plague of AD 1348-49." (Bones of Contention, Lebenow)​

Leakey mentions the Piltdown skull in his book 'Adam's Ancestors':

'If the lower jaw really belongs to the same individual as the skull, then the Piltdown man is unique in all humanity. . . It is tempting to argue that the skull, on the one hand, and the jaw, on the other, do not belong to the same creature. Indeed a number of anatomists maintain that the skull and jaw cannot belong to the same individual and they see in the jaw and canine tooth evidence of a contemporary anthropoid ape.'

He referred to the whole affair as an enigma: In By the Evidence he says 'I admit . . . that I was foolish enough never to dream, even for a moment, that the true explanation lay in a deliberate forgery.' (Leakey and Piltdown)
​

I know where I originally seen a passing remark that Leakey had expressed doubts about the jaw belonging to the Piltdown skull. I went back and couldn't find it so I found the quote above online. I think this is telling:

"Sir Arthur Keith, one of the leading proponents of Piltdown Man, was particularly instrumental in shaping Louis's thinking. "Sir Arthur Keith was very much Louis's father in science" noted Frida. Brilliant, yet modest and unassuming, Keith was regarded at the time of Piltdown's discovery as England's most eminent anatomist and an authority on human ancestry...a one man court of appeal for physical anthropologists from around the world....and his opinion that assured Piltdown a place on every drawing of humankinds family tree." (Ancestral Passions, Virginia Morell)
​

The influence of the Piltdown hoax cannot be overestimated.

The books that I have read recently name the solicitor Charles Dawson (1864-1916)
as the perpetrator of Piltdown and of about 30 other frauds, most of them archaeological and antiquarian rather than palaeontological. You could read Unravelling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and its Solution by John Evangelist Walsh and Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson by Miles Russell for the case against Dawson.

I'll check it out.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Splitting hairs I see, that begs the question of why our ancestors could interbreed with them. I know why, it's because they were human.

By that logic, whales and dolphins are the same as each other, since they can interbreed. Species identity is not determined solely by breeding compatibility, and we can tell that Neanderthals were not the same species as us (nor were they an ancestral species to our own) due to the fact of a multitude of genetic mutations present in the Neanderthal DNA recovered not seen in humans or chimpanzees, as well as the time and place in which they originated. Homo sapiens comes from Africa; Neanderthals originated in Europe and Asia. This is also why people with no ancestry from Europe or Asia do not have any genetic sequences associated with Neanderthals. Also, compare the skeletons of a human and a Neanderthal https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/df/3f/6d/df3f6da456c419946e07a6e858b1be02.jpg Look at the difference in the rib cage shape, in the face, in thickness of the bones; humans do not have this skeletal structure. In fact, humans have so little genetic variation, that there are only 9 distinct face types in our species, and this skull is nowhere close to any of them.

Additionally, it's not known if humans and chimpanzees can hybridize, since attempting to find out would be considered immoral, and the last time a crazy person tried to hybridize humans with another ape, it was with orangutans, which are not as closely related to us as chimps.​

Refute it? I was simply expanding on the details, there isn't enough here to refute. The truth is that only 29% of our genes are identical. Genes do not respond well to mutations and highly conserved genes, particularly brain related genes, do not respond well at all. The protein coding products showed indications of gross structural changes (differences really) so there's another can of worms you managed to dismiss without consideration. That doesn't even begin to address some 60 de novo (brand new) genes involved in brain related functions. Not a lot there to refute, your effectively conceding my point by omission.

Who is telling you the 29% nonsense? According to the Smithsonian, when deletions and additions, as well as genes humans and chimpanzees do not share, are included, it only raises the genetic difference between the two species by 4-5%, which makes for 91% similarity in DNA still. Maybe your biased sources aren't reliable, because like I said before, what motivation would scientists, whose jobs are to seek the truth, have to hide it? And yes, people that make money off of indoctrination or favor a certain religion heavily have immense motivation to lie. http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics

If that were the case I would have been a theistic evolutionist a long time ago. The truth is that the evidence is telling us that the divergence between chimpanzees and humans would require an extraordinary giant leap in adaptive evolution.

Not really. Have you ever seen the differences between breeds of dogs in terms of intelligence, brain size, and other physical traits? That's just within the same species thanks to a few thousand years of selective breeding. If you want to throw a deity in the mix, that'd make all things attributed to natural selection actually artificial selection by the deity, which is a far faster process. Also recall that the Bible itself never states how old the Earth is; the 6000 year thing comes from counting back ages and generations mentioned within the bible.

The historicity of Scripture is largely irrelevant but your right about one thing, I do believe the real history and origin of life in general and man in particular is told there by the only one who can tell the story. God did make his revelation through imperfect prophets and preserved it though imperfect scribes, I wouldn't argue otherwise. But there are larger questions regarding epistemology and philosophies of history at play here. Mine is an evidential argument based almost exclusively on the genomic research in the scientific literature quoted, cited and linked in the opening post. Something you have managed to avoid, but don't worry, I'll keep reminding you of it.

Sorry, I looked at your sources this time, ADHD sucks sometimes. However, I take issue with the fact that they are hugely biased in favor of Christianity, and have a converting agenda. Secular science has no favoritism; if strong evidence for deities was found, such beings would be incorporated into scientific models relevant to them. However, religiously themed organizations like the ones you source will only present information that supports a particular narrative. Do you think your sources would ever present evidence that the Hindu religion was accurate, if they came across any? If the answer is no, your sources are biased, and you are aware of it. "But Sarah, the scientists are biased in favor of a naturalistic explanation, and would never reveal evidence that was contrary to it". Actually, there are tons of secular scientists that currently dedicate their lives to challenging various components of evolutionary theory, and success for them would have rewards like large increases in funding, a potential Nobel Prize, and furthering the knowledge of our species. Science benefits from the truth, and suffers when the truth is stifled.

I would like nothing better then to be able to persuade you of the path to eternal life through Christ. Unfortunately that is something only God can do and that is between you and the God who made you.

If that were true, Christianity wouldn't be spread through indoctrination via missionaries. Also, I have literally forsaken my own free will in favor of the deity revealing itself to me in some way during prayer; I guess it'd rather I burn... or it's not real.

Darwinism is a term that is used to describe the naturalistic assumptions of modern academics and scientists that long ago rejected God as the cause of anything in the organic and inorganic world, going all the way back to and including the Big Bang.

Do people call themselves Darwinists, or are they only really called such by others? Most atheists are agnostic atheists, and it tends to be young and/or stupid atheists that are gnostic. Closed-mindedness is a detrimental trait for a scientist to have, so I see very little point in this label creationists made up. Also, evolution and the Big Bang have nothing to do with each other. So, a Darwinist would have to be an educated, gnostic atheist... that's a pretty rare breed, sir. Also, the Bible itself states that there was stuff before Yahweh started creating, so from a theological standpoint, it would be perfectly reasonable to conclude that Yahweh did not create space, time, or all the energy and matter in the universe, though the being can manipulate these things.

Evolution on the other hand is loosely defined as the change of alleles in populations over time, Darwinism was blended with population genetics during the Modern Synthesis thus the equivocation with evolution. I am simply exploring the evidence I have found in comparative genomics and paleontology and making an argument that Darwinism has failed to make there case..

If you think I will assert that no deity was involved, you'd be sorely mistaken. I merely say that there is no strong evidence that this is the case.

I will say this, I have never forgotten that the inverse logic is intuitively obvious. If creation is one possibility then inverse logic must stand as the only viable alternative. They are mutually exclusive and more importantly, logic dictates that they are forever the only two possible alternatives and you can't logically argue for one without accepting the inverse logic. That's something I have never seen a Darwinian do.

Actually, it's entirely possible that both of us are wrong, and the universe forms when Vishnu exhales, or that some other natural process entirely different from evolution is a more accurate explanation for the observed changes in populations over time. One of the important traits of a scientific theory is its capacity to be disproven. Saying otherwise is creating a false dichotomy for no reason.

Yea I seen your image that was linked to and I'm likewise unimpressed. All I said was, it sure looks like a chimpanzee to me and there isn't a dimes worth of difference in the morphology that can't be accounted for by normal changes over time. That is of course if we are talking about comparing ancient apes to modern one. Apes and humans are a very different story.

The changes over time that you consider normal are no different in terms of process by which they are produced than the ones you deem "abnormal". Humans are apes, by the way. The basic blood types we have are the same as those of chimpanzees. If we weren't physiologically similar to chimpanzees, we wouldn't use them in drug testing. If a deity wanted to genetically label humans as special, it would have been easy. The redundancy of codons makes it possible to "create" a human that shares well below 25% of its sequences with any other organism on Earth using the same chemical bases. But heck, why not use entirely different chemical bases for this one species, so there is no mistaking that it has no relation to the others? Also, the image I sent was fossils of chimpanzee ancestors, since you said you hadn't seen any (the two small skulls with the elderly gentleman).

You can scarcely find a discussion of the 'theory of evolution' that does not make mention of Charles Darwin and Lamarck, there is a reason for that.

Who brought Darwin up, you or me? I'd have no reason to ever bring up Darwin in discussions like this if creationists never brought him up.

Darwinism has become inextricably linked to the 'theory of evolution' through the Modern Synthesis.

Name one contribution of Darwin I have brought up in a positive light, or how I have implied he was relevant. Because he's not.

It seriously puzzles me that Darwinians went to so much trouble to permanently establish his philosophy of natural history as 'the theory of evolution' and so many evolutionists act like they have never heard of him.

I doubt educated people that support the theory of evolution haven't heard of his name, but I'd believe plenty wouldn't know the specifics of the original theory, given how much it has changed. Also, "philosophy of natural history" is a borderline nonsensical phrase to anyone that knows what they word philosophy means. What you should be asking is "how do you think we should approach the study of natural history"? I'd say scientifically.

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. He built his career on that hoax and so did many others.

No, his career was built on other contributions. He was already a respected member of the scientific community before the hoax. He was even knighted for his scientific contributions prior to the hoax. Look it up on a nonreligiously affiliated source, heck, even some religious sources should get this right. Do you honestly think some nobody could have even presented this hoax fossil to a scientific committee?

They took a human skull out of a mass grave from the Black Plague and put it with an orangutan jaw.

Don't forget the fossilized chimpanzee teeth also used.

They deliberately painted and grown down the teeth and a whole lot of other things. No one knows who really perpetrated the fraud but it was the prevailing transitional for almost a half a century.

Actually, even the people fooled by it considered it abnormal, because it didn't match up with the evolutionary pattern set up by other fossil finds.

I think the fact that their cranial capacity being 10% greater then our own is telling, especially when Taung and Lucy were dramatically smaller. The Neanderthal fossils were found from Iraq to Spain which would seem to indicate a migration pattern. Eden was in modern Iraq and the Ark would have touched down on Ararat which is modern Turkey.

The tools of Neanderthals were far behind those made by humans at the time. You can ignore the genetic evidence that they were not the same species as us all you like, but you'll be perpetuating your own ignorance. Look at this skull, look how it slants http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/.../_88317301_c0287593-neanderthal_skull-spl.jpg and look at this skull by comparison http://www.skullsite.co.uk/Human/human_lat.jpg . It would be interesting, however, if they were actually smarter than our species, and were simply outnumbered and less militant. There's no evidence that this was the case, though. Whales have bigger brains than we do to, but they're not smarter than humans.

Be careful to guard against equivocating mutations, which are really copy errors, with adaptive evolution.

What are you even talking about? There aren't different types of biological evolution.

I'm aware that things adapt over time but I credit molecular mechanisms we are only beginning to understand. Of course, I see this as divine providence and not necessarily divine intervention. We can talk about all the adaptive evolution you like and I do enjoy those kind of discussions. But let's be honest here, genetic mutations are the worst possible explanation for the evolution of brain related genes in the adaptive evolution of the human brain from that of apes.

I'd say fire rain is a far worse explanation. Also, the structure of chimpanzee brains is extremely close to that of humans, to the point that you could practically consider them mini human brains. The actually do better than us on memory tests.

I would like to be clear here, I was not being patronizing and that compliment was sincere I assure you. I appreciate a straight forward, honest response regardless of whether I agree with the conclusion or the substance. It is so much better then the shrill ad hominem attacks that invariably haunt these discussions.

It was more about the truck thing and the candid compliment together. I agree that ad hominems are a plague on these discussions.

 

[mark kennedy]

By that logic, whales and dolphins are the same as each other, since they can interbreed.​

They can't, the whale you are thinking about was a dolphin.

Species identity is not determined solely by breeding compatibility,

Thus Troglodytes and Bonobos.

and we can tell that Neanderthals were not the same species as us (nor were they an ancestral species to our own) due to the fact of a multitude of genetic mutations present in the Neanderthal DNA recovered not seen in humans or chimpanzees, as well as the time and place in which they originated.

I got you telling me that, I have the findings of researchers telling me something different. I have the path of the Neanderthals from Iraq to Spain which indicates a migration path. I actually know where they originated, just follow the bread crumbs.

Homo sapiens comes from Africa; Neanderthals originated in Europe and Asia. This is also why people with no ancestry from Europe or Asia do not have any genetic sequences associated with Neanderthals. Also, compare the skeletons of a human and a Neanderthal https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/df/3f/6d/df3f6da456c419946e07a6e858b1be02.jpg Look at the difference in the rib cage shape, in the face, in thickness of the bones; humans do not have this skeletal structure. In fact, humans have so little genetic variation, that there are only 9 distinct face types in our species, and this skull is nowhere close to any of them.

Nice picture but that's all that adds up to. Again, all I have is you telling me something and you are entitled to you opinion.

Additionally, it's not known if humans and chimpanzees can hybridize, since attempting to find out would be considered immoral, and the last time a crazy person tried to hybridize humans with another ape, it was with orangutans, which are not as closely related to us as chimps.

The Russians tried for a while, no luck. The chromosomes wouldn't line up in your wildest imaginations, a little basic genetics would probably do you some good.

Who is telling you the 29% nonsense?

The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium:

Orthologous proteins in human and chimpanzee are extremely similar, with ~29% being identical and the typical orthologue differing by only two amino acids, one per lineage. (Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome, Nature 2005)
​

Follow the link.

According to the Smithsonian, when deletions and additions, as well as genes humans and chimpanzees do not share, are included, it only raises the genetic difference between the two species by 4-5%, which makes for 91% similarity in DNA still. Maybe your biased sources aren't reliable, because like I said before, what motivation would scientists, whose jobs are to seek the truth, have to hide it? And yes, people that make money off of indoctrination or favor a certain religion heavily have immense motivation to lie. http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics

Your math skills are fuzzy:

A comparison of the entire genome, however, indicates that segments of DNA have also been deleted, duplicated over and over, or inserted from one part of the genome into another. When these differences are counted, there is an additional 4 to 5% distinction between the human and chimpanzee genomes. (Genetic Evidence. DNA. Smithsonian)​

That's 96% by most estimates dear, your drifting on the percentage points there. Religion has nothing to do with this, we are talking comparative genomics and 5% from 100% does not leave 91%.

Not really. Have you ever seen the differences between breeds of dogs in terms of intelligence, brain size, and other physical traits? That's just within the same species thanks to a few thousand years of selective breeding. If you want to throw a deity in the mix, that'd make all things attributed to natural selection actually artificial selection by the deity, which is a far faster process. Also recall that the Bible itself never states how old the Earth is; the 6000 year thing comes from counting back ages and generations mentioned within the bible.

Yes I have seen breeds of dogs and horses and all sorts of other things, your point? The timeline does come from the genealogies of the Bible but I thought that was a given. There is an unbroken timeline from Adam to Christ and it comes to 6,000 years. I'll take the living testimony of Scripture, in the custody of living witnesses, the Hebrew and Christian communities respectively, over a lot of old bones and dirt any day.

Sorry, I looked at your sources this time, ADHD sucks sometimes. However, I take issue with the fact that they are hugely biased in favor of Christianity, and have a converting agenda. Secular science has no favoritism; if strong evidence for deities was found, such beings would be incorporated into scientific models relevant to them. However, religiously themed organizations like the ones you source will only present information that supports a particular narrative. Do you think your sources would ever present evidence that the Hindu religion was accurate, if they came across any? If the answer is no, your sources are biased, and you are aware of it. "But Sarah, the scientists are biased in favor of a naturalistic explanation, and would never reveal evidence that was contrary to it". Actually, there are tons of secular scientists that currently dedicate their lives to challenging various components of evolutionary theory, and success for them would have rewards like large increases in funding, a potential Nobel Prize, and furthering the knowledge of our species. Science benefits from the truth, and suffers when the truth is stifled.

You are delightful, I do enjoy how you go on. I don't know what to tell you about Hindus, they never invited me to view their historical narratives. Science explores naturalistic phenomenon, the epistemology is limited to that exclusively. In order to understand origins you have to step back and take in a much broader view. It's not that there is anything wrong with science per se but I'll put it to you like this. We are walking through the park and decide to have lunch. Now we are not bakers but we find a bakery along the way. Of course, we cannot bake eclairs and bread ourselves but if we go in and buy them, we don't have to be bakers to eat our lunch.

Everybody benefits from truth, scientists don't have a monopoly on it. Natural phenomenon is not all there is unless you simply decide that's all there is. Science explores natural phenomenon and we all benefit from that, that's not the same as the naturalistic assumptions of Darwinism. What you just did is a logical fallacy called equivocation and it only happened because you are not seriously thinking about what the term 'science' actually means.

If that were true, Christianity wouldn't be spread through indoctrination via missionaries. Also, I have literally forsaken my own free will in favor of the deity revealing itself to me in some way during prayer; I guess it'd rather I burn... or it's not real.

Christianity is spread from faith to faith, from one persons testimony to another. I was not in Israel during the first century and I was not at the base of Sinai when the Law was given. What I do know, or maybe should say I believe, is that those testimonies are true and what Darwinians are putting out is a fabrication of history. I leave you to you own devices to decide what you believe.

Do people call themselves Darwinists, or are they only really called such by others? Most atheists are agnostic atheists, and it tends to be young and/or stupid atheists that are gnostic. Closed-mindedness is a detrimental trait for a scientist to have, so I see very little point in this label creationists made up. Also, evolution and the Big Bang have nothing to do with each other. So, a Darwinist would have to be an educated, gnostic atheist... that's a pretty rare breed, sir. Also, the Bible itself states that there was stuff before Yahweh started creating, so from a theological standpoint, it would be perfectly reasonable to conclude that Yahweh did not create space, time, or all the energy and matter in the universe, though the being can manipulate these things.

Darwinian isn't a term Creationists made up, the Modern Synthesis is often called neodarwinism, because it's inextricably linked to the philosophy of Charles Darwin originating in his book On the Origin of Species. He said and I quote:

Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his "Philosophie Zoologique,' and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduction to his "Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertébres.' In these works he upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. (On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin)
​

Now, if you believe that, 'all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition', then you are Darwinian in your worldview. See how that works?

If you think I will assert that no deity was involved, you'd be sorely mistaken. I merely say that there is no strong evidence that this is the case.

That's your opinion, don't pass it off as science.

Actually, it's entirely possible that both of us are wrong, and the universe forms when Vishnu exhales, or that some other natural process entirely different from evolution is a more accurate explanation for the observed changes in populations over time. One of the important traits of a scientific theory is its capacity to be disproven. Saying otherwise is creating a false dichotomy for no reason.

I don't propose a dichotomy, what I'm telling you since the OP is that the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes is a myth. It's assumed, not proven and arguments for a stone age ape man is simply the product of human imagination, the facts simply so not bear it out.

The changes over time that you consider normal are no different in terms of process by which they are produced than the ones you deem "abnormal". Humans are apes, by the way. The basic blood types we have are the same as those of chimpanzees. If we weren't physiologically similar to chimpanzees, we wouldn't use them in drug testing. If a deity wanted to genetically label humans as special, it would have been easy. The redundancy of codons makes it possible to "create" a human that shares well below 25% of its sequences with any other organism on Earth using the same chemical bases. But heck, why not use entirely different chemical bases for this one species, so there is no mistaking that it has no relation to the others? Also, the image I sent was fossils of chimpanzee ancestors, since you said you hadn't seen any (the two small skulls with the elderly gentleman).

Truth is I'm talking about the chemical, actually the molecular basis for heredity. There are DNA repair mechanisms, there are deleterious effects from mutations, there are real world consequences for changes in DNA over time. We call those disease and disorder and while adaptive evolution is a very real and ongoing thing there are limits beyond which one species cannot develop into another. See my signature.

Who brought Darwin up, you or me? I'd have no reason to ever bring up Darwin in discussions like this if creationists never brought him up.

I brought up Darwinism, defined it and you can react as you see fit.

Name one contribution of Darwin I have brought up in a positive light, or how I have implied he was relevant. Because he's not.

It's called the tree of life, that's what we have been talking about.

I doubt educated people that support the theory of evolution haven't heard of his name, but I'd believe plenty wouldn't know the specifics of the original theory, given how much it has changed. Also, "philosophy of natural history" is a borderline nonsensical phrase to anyone that knows what they word philosophy means. What you should be asking is "how do you think we should approach the study of natural history"? I'd say scientifically.

I think we should approach the subject of natural history the same way we should approach anything in reality. Logically. There is not one but two options here, God created or life was produced by exclusively naturalistic means. The inverse logic is intuitively obvious whatever you decide.

No, his career was built on other contributions. He was already a respected member of the scientific community before the hoax. He was even knighted for his scientific contributions prior to the hoax. Look it up on a nonreligiously affiliated source, heck, even some religious sources should get this right. Do you honestly think some nobody could have even presented this hoax fossil to a scientific committee?

No body did for half a century and what came in the wake of the hoax was chimpanzees being passed off as human ancestors. Ever notice, there are no chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record?

Actually, even the people fooled by it considered it abnormal, because it didn't match up with the evolutionary pattern set up by other fossil finds.

True enough, but the longevity should be telling us something.

The tools of Neanderthals were far behind those made by humans at the time. You can ignore the genetic evidence that they were not the same species as us all you like, but you'll be perpetuating your own ignorance. Look at this skull, look how it slants http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/.../_88317301_c0287593-neanderthal_skull-spl.jpg and look at this skull by comparison http://www.skullsite.co.uk/Human/human_lat.jpg . It would be interesting, however, if they were actually smarter than our species, and were simply outnumbered and less militant. There's no evidence that this was the case, though. Whales have bigger brains than we do to, but they're not smarter than humans.

Whales don't make tools and we have better tools then people a hundred years ago.

What are you even talking about? There aren't different types of biological evolution.

Of course there are.

I'd say fire rain is a far worse explanation. Also, the structure of chimpanzee brains is extremely close to that of humans, to the point that you could practically consider them mini human brains. The actually do better than us on memory tests.

Fire and rain kill living things, mutations can kill you in the womb. Think about what you are saying.

It was more about the truck thing and the candid compliment together. I agree that ad hominems are a plague on these discussions.

Your fun, I am really enjoying the exchange. You had one mild equivocation but that can be dismissed as my opinion. Your not making a lot of personal remarks, as a matter of fact you express your opinion rather politely. I just hope you learn a little something about genetics because it's been my experience that you will benefit from it no matter where you land on the origins spectrum.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Speedwell]

I would like nothing better then to be able to persuade you of the path to eternal life through Christ. Unfortunately that is something only God can do and that is between you and the God who made you. Darwinism is a term that is used to describe the naturalistic assumptions of modern academics and scientists that long ago rejected God as the cause of anything in the organic and inorganic world, going all the way back to and including the Big Bang. Evolution on the other hand is loosely defined as the change of alleles in populations over time, Darwinism was blended with population genetics during the Modern Synthesis thus the equivocation with evolution. I am simply exploring the evidence I have found in comparative genomics and paleontology and making an argument that Darwinism has failed to make there case.

I will say this, I have never forgotten that the inverse logic is intuitively obvious. If creation is one possibility then inverse logic must stand as the only viable alternative. They are mutually exclusive and more importantly, logic dictates that they are forever the only two possible alternatives and you can't logically argue for one without accepting the inverse logic. That's something I have never seen a Darwinian do.

So the thrust of all this is that you believe you can scientifically disprove common descent, in particular the common ancestry of man and the other creatures, and thus prove the existence of the God of your interpretation of Scripture by "inverse logic." Is that right?

 

[mark kennedy]

So the thrust of all this is that you believe you can scientifically disprove common descent, in particular the common ancestry of man and the other creatures, and thus prove the existence of the God of your interpretation of Scripture by "inverse logic." Is that right?

No, I raised objections to Darwinian universal common decent based on the evolution of the human brain from that of apes. Were you seriously not paying attention? Come on, you can do better then that. I got an idea, try to finish reading the OP and address the issues raised because the fallacious rhetoric isn't working.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Speedwell]

No, I raised objections to Darwinian universal common decent based on the evolution of the human brain from that of apes. Were you seriously not paying attention? Come on, you can do better then that. I got an idea, try to finish reading the OP and address the issues raised because the fallacious rhetoric isn't working.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Asking a question is "fallacious rhetoric?"

I asked you if you believed you could scientifically disprove universal common descent. You responded, "No, I raised objections to Darwinian universal common decent based on the evolution of the human brain from that of apes." What does that mean? That you are raising objections but have no intent of disproving it?

And what is your aim in raising objections to it/disproving it (whichever applies) if not to advance your own explanation for the origin of man by the "inverse logic" which you, yourself, brought into the discussion?

 

[mark kennedy]

All I see is a false dichotomy. I can't "continue to pretend" any such thing since I have never believed it. What I "accept" is that the assumption that the universe works by natural forces is entirely compatible with divine providence.

What you have decided to do is to reject the inverse logic, or otherwise made a decision about it. I would agree that in most of the history of life and man that divine providence continued unaided, perhaps adjusted from time to time, but functionally independent. I would strongly disagree at the point of origin, God created life in general and man in particular in six literal days. What you are describing is a naturalistic assumption, call it a conclusion but it's still a rational inference with regards to a cause. This has implications with regards to the testimony of Scripture and things like the Incarnation, virgin birth, resurrection and the event described in John 3 as being born again. I believe in natural law, I believe in divine providence, as a matter of fact I believe in natural selection but not at the point of origin. Everything is traced back to the mind of God and we are all the work of his hands. If we can agree on one thing it would be a start, God being our Savior with regards to sin and death is a miracle.

I leave you to ponder the aspects of this statement and I remind you, the point of the thread is the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes. Every effect must have a cause, I know we can agree on that one. The only real question is with regards to whether the cause is natural or miraculous.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[VirOptimus]

What follows are from over ten years of study of the comparative studies related to human brain evolution. Comparative Genomics should have ended, or at least challenged, Darwinian evolution by now but it is exalted above all skepticism. The a priori assumption of universal common descent is immutable in modern philosophies of natural history. The reason they are not isn't the weight of the evidence indicating chimpanzee-human common ancestry, but the animosity toward anything remotely theistic being suggested as a cause:

Idols of the Theater are those which are due to sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up in the field of theology, philosophy, and science, and because they are defended by learned groups are accepted without question by the masses. When false philosophies have been cultivated and have attained a wide sphere of dominion in the world of the intellect they are no longer questioned. False superstructures are raised on false foundations, and in the end systems barren of merit parade their grandeur on the stage of the world. (Novum Organum)​

This grand theatrical production has been performing for over a century now, it's history littered with fabrication. Perhaps the longest running demonstration was easily the Piltdown fraud. The Piltdown Hoax was the flagship transitional of Darwinism for nearly half a century and it was a hoax. A skull taken from a mass gravesite used during the Black Plague matched up with an orangatan jawbone. Even Louise Leakey, the famous paleontologist has said that jaw didn’t belong with that skull so people knew, long before it was exposed, that Piltdown was contrived.

The problem was that there was nothing to replace it as a transitional from ape to man. Concurrent with the prominence of the Piltdown fossil Raymond Dart had reported on the skull of an ape that had filled with lime creating an endocast or a model of what the brain would have looked like. Everyone considered it a chimpanzee child since it’s cranial capacity was just over 400cc but with the demise of Piltdown, a new icon was needed in the Darwinian theater of the mind. Raymond Dart suggests to Louis Leakey that a small brained human ancestor might have been responsible for some of the supposed tools the Leaky family was finding in Africa. The myth of the stone age ape man was born.

The Scottish anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith had built his long and distinguished career on the Piltdown fossil. When it was exposed it sent Darwinians scrambling, Arthur Keith had always rejected the Taung Child (Raymond Dart’s discovery) a chimpanzee child. Rightfully so since it’s small even for a modern chimpanzee. Keith would eventually apologized to Dart and Leakey would take his suggested name for the stone age ape man, Homo habilis, but there was a very real problem. The skull was too small to be considered a human ancestor, this impasse became known as the Cerebral Rubicon and Leakey’s solution was to simply ignore the cranial capacity.

Ever notice that there are no Chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record? That’s because every time a gracial (smooth) skull, that is dug up in Asian or Africa they are automatically one of our ancestors.

Australopithecus afarensis: AL 288-1
Australopithecus africanus: Taung 1
Lucy a Chimpanzee
Taung Skull not Humn-like 26 August 2014​

These two are the only Hominid fossils I've seen that are really being passed of as transitional. They both have chimpanzee size brains, with all the features one would expect of a knuckle dragging, tree dwelling ape. What is far more important then finding something indicating a transitional fossil, which they have failed to do, is to understand what the basis of the three-fold of the human brain from that of apes:

The evolutionary time separating human and macaque (20–25 million years) is grossly comparable to that separating rat and mouse (16–23 million years)…214 such genes in all of the four taxa chosen…

Increases in brain size and complexity are evident in the evolution of many primate lineages…However, this increase is far more dramatic in the lineage leading to humans than in other primate lineages…

accelerated protein evolution in a large cohort of nervous system genes, which is particularly pronounced for genes involved in nervous system development, represents a salient genetic correlate to the profound changes in brain size and complexity during primate evolution, (Molecular Evolution of the Human Nervous System. Bruce T. Lahn et al. Cell 2004)​

That was probably the broadest comparison of brain related genes between apes and humans shortly after the unveiling of the findings of the Human Genome Project in 2001. Since then they have discovered at least two dramatic giant leaps that would have had to occur in order of the human brain to have emerged from ape like ancestors SRGAP2, HAR1F. In addition genes involved with the development of language (FOXP2), changes in the musculature of the jaw (MYH16) , and limb and digit specializations (HACNS1).

The ancestral SRGAP2 protein sequence is highly constrained based on our analysis of 10 mammalian lineages. We find only a single amino-acid change between human and mouse and no changes among nonhuman primates within the first nine exons of the SRGAP2 orthologs. This is in stark contrast to the duplicate copies, which diverged from ancestral SRGAP2A less than 4 mya, but have accumulated as many as seven amino-acid replacements compared to one synonymous change. (Human-specific evolution of novel SRGAP2 genes by incomplete segmental duplication Cell May 2012)
​

What is the problem with 7 amino acid replacements in a highly conserved brain related gene? The only observed effects of changes in this gene in humans is disease and disorder:

• 15,767 individuals reported by Cooper et al. (2011)] for potential copy-number variation. We identified six large (>1 Mbp) copy-number variants (CNVs), including three deletions of the ancestral 1q32.1 region…
• A ten year old child with a history of seizures, attention deficit disorder, and learning disabilities. An MRI of this patient also indicates several brain malformations, including hypoplasia of the posterior body of the corpus callosum…
• Translocation breaking within intron 6 of SRGAP2A was reported in a five-year-old girl diagnosed with West syndrome and exhibiting epileptic seizures, intellectual disability, cortical atrophy, and a thin corpus callosum. (Human-specific evolution of novel SRGAP2 genes by incomplete segmental duplication Cell May 2012)

The search for variation with regard to this vital gene yielded no beneficial effect upon which selection could have acted. The only conceivable way the changes happen is relaxed functional constraint which, unless it emerged from the initial mutation perfectly functional it surly would have killed the host. Mutations are found in children with 'developmental delay and brain malformations, including West Syndrome, agenesis of the corpus callosum, and epileptic encephalopathies'.(cited above)

Of course Creationists have their opinions about this gene:

SRGAP2A, SRGAP2B, SRGAP2C, and SRGAP2D, which are located in three completely separate regions on chromosome number 1.1 They appear to play an important role in brain development.2 Perhaps the most striking discovery is that three of the four genes (SRGAP2B, SRGAP2C, and SRGAP2D) are completely unique to humans and found in no other mammal species, not even apes…Unique in their protein coding arrangement and structure. The genes do not look duplicated at all… (Newly Discovered Human Brain Genes Are Bad News for Evolution by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D)​

In one of the areas of the human genome that would have had to change the most, Human Accelerated Region (HAR), we find a gene that has changed the least over just under 400 million years HAR1F. Just after the Cambrian is would have had to emerge de novo, fully formed, fully functional and permanently fixed along broad taxonomic categories. In all the time since it would allow only two substitutions, then, while the DNA around it is being completely overhauled it allows 18 substitutions in a regulatory gene only 118 nucleotides long. The vital function of this gene cannot be overstated:

The most dramatic of these ‘human accelerated regions’, HAR1, is part of a novel RNA gene (HAR1F) that is expressed specifically in Cajal– Retzius neurons in the developing human neocortex from 7 to 19 gestational weeks, a crucial period for cortical neuron specification and migration. HAR1F is co-expressed with reelin, a product of Cajal–Retzius neurons that is of fundamental importance in specifying the six-layer structure of the human cortex. (An RNA gene expressed during cortical development evolved rapidly in humans, Nature 16 August 2006)​

This all has to occur after the chimpanzee human split, while our ancestors were contemporaries in equatorial Africa, with none of the selective pressures effecting our ancestral cousins. This is in addition to no less then 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them. Selection can explain the survival of the fittest but the arrival of the fittest requires a cause:

The de novo origin of a new protein-coding gene from non-coding DNA is considered to be a very rare occurrence in genomes. Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee. The functionality of these genes is supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence. RNA– seq data indicate that these genes have their highest expression levels in the cerebral cortex and testes, which might suggest that these genes contribute to phenotypic traits that are unique to humans, such as improved cognitive ability. Our results are inconsistent with the traditional view that the de novo origin of new genes is very rare, thus there should be greater appreciation of the importance of the de novo origination of genes…(De Novo Origin of Human Protein-Coding Genes Plod 2011)​

Whatever you think happened one thing is for sure, random mutations are the worst explanation possible. They cannot produce de novo genes and invariably disrupt functional genes. You can forget about gradual accumulation of, 'slow and gradual accumulation of numerous, slight, yet profitable, variations' (Darwin). That would require virtually no cost and extreme benefit with the molecular cause fabricated from vain imagination and suspended by pure faith.

All responses are welcome, fallacious arguments will be identified and recorded as neutral. All substantive arguments will be addressed, in as much as I'm able, and I have a plan to ensure nothing gets buried in this thread.

Grace and peace,
Mark

This has been refuted a million times now Mark.

Really, how is your paper for peer review progressing? You know thats the way to challange scientific theories.

 

[Speedwell]

Every effect must have a cause, I know we can agree on that one. The only real question is with regards to whether the cause is natural or miraculous.

No we don't agree; that's the false dichotomy I was speaking of: that an effect must have a natural or a divine cause, that one kind of cause excludes the possibility of the other.

 

[mark kennedy]

No we don't agree; that's the false dichotomy I was speaking of: that an effect must have a natural or a divine cause, that one kind of cause excludes the possibility of the other.

It’s simply illogical for God to create life in general and man in particular and for God to use exclusively naturalistic means. There are only two explanations for the origin of life:

Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from preexisting species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.(D.J. Futuyma, Science on Trial)​

It is misguided to believe that compromise on this topic is acceptable or even possible. Evolutionists have deliberately targeted belief in God's miraculous interposition as the main issue.

The doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species...being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’ (Preface, On the Origin of Species)
​

I'm not the one who made the two world view mutually exclusive. Futuyma isn't a Creationist, he is an evolutionary biologist. To pretend that God created life and life arose through exclusively naturalistic processes is an equivocation, the two possibilities are mutually exclusive, that much is obvious.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Ophiolite]

I think it comes down to subject and predicate, the subject is your opponent and the predicate is something negative. Like all logical fallacies the reasoning is divorced from anything substantive. An ad hominem is really just an insult inserted where an actual argument should be and these threads are generally plagued with them. It's part of the dramatic theater that permeates Darwinian rhetoric.

Have a nice day
Mark

Thank you for your clear an concise reply. It was a little different from the definition I had anticipated, so I am glad I asked.

Unfortunately, applying these criteria to your OP I find it replete with fallacious arguments. That is to say, you repeatedly identify some aspect of Darwinian theory, or of evolutionists and then apply an unsubstantiated perjorative remark. That neatly matches your definition.

I can provide specific examples on request.

 

[Speedwell]

It’s simply illogical for God to create life in general and man in particular and for God to use exclusively naturalistic means. There are only two explanations for the origin of life:

Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from preexisting species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.(D.J. Futuyma, Science on Trial)​

It is misguided to believe that compromise on this topic is acceptable or even possible. Evolutionists have deliberately targeted belief in God's miraculous interposition as the main issue.

The doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species...being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’ (Preface, On the Origin of Species)
​

I'm not the one who made the two world view mutually exclusive. Futuyma isn't a Creationist, he is an evolutionary biologist. To pretend that God created life and life arose through exclusively naturalistic processes is an equivocation, the two possibilities are mutually exclusive, that much is obvious.

Grace and peace,
Mark

So may I take it that you deny that an event or phenomenon can have both a natural cause and a divine one, that if Darwin's statement of the adequacy of natural causality is correct, then divine causality is excluded?
You can edit that question any way you want; the point is an important one and I want to be sure I have a correct understanding of your position on the issue.

 

[mark kennedy]

So may I take it that you deny that an event or phenomenon can have both a natural cause and a divine one, that if Darwin's statement of the adequacy of natural causality is correct, then divine causality is excluded?
You can edit that question any way you want; the point is an important one and I want to be sure I have a correct understanding of your position on the issue.

Creation in the sense of 'bara', as I have told you repeatedly, is miraculous in the absolute sense, at least the Qul form. It's used of the Creation of the universe once, life in general once and man in particular three times. I've been crystal clear on my position as was Lamarck and Darwin. The Genesis account of creation includes another word for God's work in creation translated 'made', used to speak of procreation. Ever here someone describe the birth of their child as a miracle, sometimes attributing to God natural processes is perfectly reasonable, God's providence is a work of God. Creation carries with it the law of excluded middle, if A then not B, if B then not A, this is restricted to the universe, life and man in the Genesis account at the point of origin.

With some qualifications I would agree that both my be involved just not in God's divine fiat in the beginning.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

Thank you for your clear an concise reply. It was a little different from the definition I had anticipated, so I am glad I asked.

Unfortunately, applying these criteria to your OP I find it replete with fallacious arguments. That is to say, you repeatedly identify some aspect of Darwinian theory, or of evolutionists and then apply an unsubstantiated perjorative remark. That neatly matches your definition.

I can provide specific examples on request.

Of course you can bring that up, it's fair game. The truth is we all do it, you see it in political rhetoric all the time. I warn you though, if you start think about this your going to see more fallacies in human reasoning then you comfortable with. It would be less then honest of me to go on about fallacies if I don't accept that I'm as capable of falling into the trap myself.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Speedwell]

Creation in the sense of 'bara', as I have told you repeatedly, is miraculous in the absolute sense, at least the Qul form. It's used of the Creation of the universe once, life in general once and man in particular three times. I've been crystal clear on my position as was Lamarck and Darwin. The Genesis account of creation includes another word for God's work in creation translated 'made', used to speak of procreation. Ever here someone describe the birth of their child as a miracle, sometimes attributing to God natural processes is perfectly reasonable, God's providence is a work of God. Creation carries with it the law of excluded middle, if A then not B, if B then not A, this is restricted to the universe, life and man in the Genesis account at the point of origin.

With some qualifications I would agree that both my be involved just not in God's divine fiat in the beginning.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Thank you. That makes clear that the dichotomy you propose is not a "false" dichotomy in the sense that you offer it merely as a rhetorical device. I still believe that you are mistaken in imposing it on Darwin, who is not likely to have had the same scriptural basis for it as you have. My take in it is that when talking about natural causes he is more likely only to have meant proximate Efficient causes in the Aristotelian sense. That is my personal position on natural causality in any case, which is why I don't feel bound to "exclude the middle."

 

[PsychoSarah]

They can't, the whale you are thinking about was a dolphin.​

Oh, you're right, my bad (misleading hybrid name, curse you, singular existing wolphin!). Lions and tigers, then, are the same thing to you. Cat-kind, I guess. As would be horses and zebras, dogs and wolves... lots of stuff can hybridize, but won't regularly do so. I, for one, have no desire to have relations with a chimp, which I have no sexual attraction to. Even if someone wanted to be a weirdo and try to do something with one, they're far stronger than humans and wouldn't take kindly to the attempt.

I got you telling me that, I have the findings of researchers telling me something different. I have the path of the Neanderthals from Iraq to Spain which indicates a migration path. I actually know where they originated, just follow the bread crumbs.

Then by that logic, the Bible was originally meant for the Neanderthals, not our species. Since we can genetically demonstrate that Neanderthals are not human, just like my mother demonstrated who my father was in court. Well, not Homo sapiens sapiens, that is. Technically, the word "human" can be applied to any species in the same genus as us (which includes Neanderthals), but since we are the only living members of the genus that remain, it's never really used for any other species but our own. Feel free to try to argue that all members of the genus are the same species if you really want, but most creationists such as yourself try to say most of them are chimps http://www.sciencecodex.com/aggregated-images/body/kDyLQFTNj2RZN5s8.jpg at the end of the day, the best evidence for evolution is not the fossil record anyway, and besides the very few that we can get DNA from, we actually have no idea which, if any, of the fossilized species we have found are human ancestors. They are more of a demonstration of concept than anything else.

Nice picture but that's all that adds up to. Again, all I have is you telling me something and you are entitled to you opinion.

Not my opinion, but what others have measured. I don't produce the data I have presented in this debate with you myself, though I have done some genetic studies with corn before. Want to know some stuff about corn genetics ?
​

The Russians tried for a while, no luck. The chromosomes wouldn't line up in your wildest imaginations, a little basic genetics would probably do you some good.

The Russian guy was the one that did it with orangutans. He didn't try it with chimpanzees.

The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium:

Orthologous proteins in human and chimpanzee are extremely similar, with ~29% being identical and the typical orthologue differing by only two amino acids, one per lineage. (Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome, Nature 2005)
​

Follow the link.



Your math skills are fuzzy:

A comparison of the entire genome, however, indicates that segments of DNA have also been deleted, duplicated over and over, or inserted from one part of the genome into another. When these differences are counted, there is an additional 4 to 5% distinction between the human and chimpanzee genomes. (Genetic Evidence. DNA. Smithsonian)​

That's 96% by most estimates dear, your drifting on the percentage points there. Religion has nothing to do with this, we are talking comparative genomics and 5% from 100% does not leave 91%.

I was subtracting the 5% from the 96%, since it said additional genetic difference. You still aren't acknowledging that the fact that it is well above 25% implies relatedness. If you want to know why more than 25% indicates that, I can expand on it.

Yes I have seen breeds of dogs and horses and all sorts of other things, your point? The timeline does come from the genealogies of the Bible but I thought that was a given. There is an unbroken timeline from Adam to Christ and it comes to 6,000 years. I'll take the living testimony of Scripture, in the custody of living witnesses, the Hebrew and Christian communities respectively, over a lot of old bones and dirt any day.

Ever notice that the Bible is worse with numbers than you think I am? That text states that pi=3, which it does not. It's really easy to accidentally add or subtract a zero, especially in translation after decades upon decades of the stories only being passed down verbally.

My point with the dogs is the variation; look at the cranium size difference between a chihuahua and a golden retriever, in individuals that can breed https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6203/6033438594_4d08c734b8_b.jpg and share ancestry (wolf/dog kind ).

You are delightful, I do enjoy how you go on. I don't know what to tell you about Hindus, they never invited me to view their historical narratives.

5 words: sea of butter in space. Gosh, I love those stories. Most educated Hindus view the stories as allegorical, though.

explores naturalistic phenomenon, the epistemology is limited to that exclusively. In order to understand origins you have to step back and take in a much broader view.

Only if the universe originated in an unnatural way, which there is no strong evidence for. But even in an unnatural origin, how do you propose we distinguish it? It's not as if we can compare our universe to another one (yet), and even if we could, if all universes were created, it'd be mighty difficult to tell.

It's not that there is anything wrong with science per se but I'll put it to you like this. We are walking through the park and decide to have lunch. Now we are not bakers but we find a bakery along the way. Of course, we cannot bake eclairs and bread ourselves but if we go in and buy them, we don't have to be bakers to eat our lunch.

I've baked bread before. Heck, we might one day have the technology to make contained universes ourselves. The current limits of humanity are a poor measure for the limits of nature.

Everybody benefits from truth, scientists don't have a monopoly on it.

I never said they did. Heck, it's math that gets to claim proof, after all.

Natural phenomenon is not all there is unless you simply decide that's all there is.

Whether or not conventional natural phenomena are all that there are is not connected to any preconceptions either of us have. I used to believe in ghosts, but that has no impact on whether or not they exist, and if they do, the fact that I no longer believe in them won't make them stop existing, nor will it prevent me from seeing evidence for them should I be exposed to it.

Science explores natural phenomenon and we all benefit from that, that's not the same as the naturalistic assumptions of Darwinism.[/QUOTE]
You know, Darwinists, the creationist term for the rare educated gnostic atheist that supports evolution and has a weird philosophy. I don't know anyone like that. Maybe there are some, but I don't get the impression that such a group would be very large or influential. Or one that I would like. I especially hate anti-theists, and lots of anti-theists are gnostic atheists. They tend to be really rude to theists just for them being theists.

What you just did is a logical fallacy called equivocation and it only happened because you are not seriously thinking about what the term 'science' actually means.

It's just actively trying to learn about the world (and universe) around us. The scientific method is a specific process by which scientists do it. But if you don't think I know what science actually means, mind defining it?

Christianity is spread from faith to faith, from one persons testimony to another. I was not in Israel during the first century and I was not at the base of Sinai when the Law was given. What I do know, or maybe should say I believe, is that those testimonies are true and what Darwinians are putting out is a fabrication of history. I leave you to you own devices to decide what you believe.

I don't choose to be an atheist, actually. I have been trying to believe for more than 8 years now. I pray for belief on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Try to choose to not believe, and see if you can. Belief is not a fully conscious choice. I have challenged many theists to, for one hour, choose to be atheists, and then make themselves theists again, but none have even accepted the challenge.

Darwinian isn't a term Creationists made up, the Modern Synthesis is often called neodarwinism, because it's inextricably linked to the philosophy of Charles Darwin originating in his book On the Origin of Species. He said and I quote:

Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his "Philosophie Zoologique,' and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduction to his "Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertébres.' In these works he upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. (On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin)
​

Now, if you believe that, 'all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition', then you are Darwinian in your worldview. See how that works?

I don't. I just note that there is no strong evidence of divine intervention in nature that I have been exposed to. Also, Neo Darwinism is one of the stranger terms for modern evolutionary theory; it's not a term applied to people. A "Neo Darwinist" would just be a person that supports evolutionary theory, be they atheist or theist. Evolution and deities are not mutually exclusive, they're just not mutually inclusive.

That's your opinion, don't pass it off as science.

If you have strong evidence for the existence of a deity, I would very much like for you to present it, if you don't mind.

I don't propose a dichotomy, what I'm telling you since the OP is that the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes is a myth. It's assumed, not proven and arguments for a stone age ape man is simply the product of human imagination, the facts simply so not bear it out.

And you take your information from sources of ill repute that do not publish peer reviewed findings. That is, there are no mechanisms in place to prevent sources like that from publishing data pulled out of the imagination. Furthermore, why are you so focused on human brains. Wouldn't you also consider chimpanzee brains "too complex" to have naturally formed. They share a few definitive structures with the brains of humans http://image.slidesharecdn.com/comp...tive-primate-anatomy-22-728.jpg?cb=1198784468 , and why stop there? If natural selection can't produce a human brain, it shouldn't even be able to form a simple mouse brain, or any brain.

Humans are full of hubris, sir, and no one wants to think of their "cousin as some dirty monkey". But benign mutations do exist, and there are few genes in which mutations are so consistently detrimental that there are exceedingly few variations seen in nature. They are called HOX genes, and brain development genes aren't a part of that group, aside from the genes that direct the organ to be produced at all.

Truth is I'm talking about the chemical, actually the molecular basis for heredity. There are DNA repair mechanisms, there are deleterious effects from mutations, there are real world consequences for changes in DNA over time. We call those disease and disorder and while adaptive evolution is a very real and ongoing thing there are limits beyond which one species cannot develop into another. See my signature.

If there were biological limits to how much variation could be tolerated in the genome before a species failed, then life on this planet isn't going to last very long. What we should observe in all species is a decrease in health every generation. We don't. Yet, the mutations keep piling up, producing minor changes, and sometimes major ones. The entire digestive tract of a lizard species changed completely within 30 generations, a rarity in evolution but evolution nevertheless. If that organ could change to digest different foods, why not a brain change to be larger?

I brought up Darwinism, defined it and you can react as you see fit.

I don't know what Darwinism is, because every creationist I have talked to that brought it up defined it differently, and no Darwinist has ever come up to define it. You said that it was the same as Neo Darwinism, but the way you talk about it doesn't imply the standard definition associated with that term.

It's called the tree of life, that's what we have been talking about.

Darwin actually used it as a metaphor rather than a proposed addition to evolutionary theory. -_- and his example was bears becoming whales, silly Darwin, it was a different, extinct mammal XD I jest, although the bear thing is true, that was his example. Old versions of theories are funny. I especially like the pudding model for atoms, how did they think reactions could work XD?

I think we should approach the subject of natural history the same way we should approach anything in reality. Logically. There is not one but two options here, God created or life was produced by exclusively naturalistic means.

Why not both things? A deity put life on Earth, and that life evolved through natural processes over time. Or, more weirdly, a deity created some of the life on this planet, while other life forms arose entirely naturally. There's lots of exotic ideas we could toss around. That's why we need evidence and observation to shift out the nonsense as best as we can. There are logical ideas that are not correct, and ideas that seem counter-intuitive yet nature reflects them.

No body did for half a century and what came in the wake of the hoax was chimpanzees being passed off as human ancestors. Ever notice, there are no chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record?

I showed you a picture of some chimp ancestral fossils, remember, the old guy with two skulls? Those were ancestors of chimps, note that they are far smaller than the skulls of modern chimps. Like I said, though, our species has some narcissistic tendencies, so these fossils don't get as much attention as they might deserve.

Also, the hoax began in 1912, was officially declared without a shadow of a doubt a hoax in 1953, and was cast into extreme doubt that left most of the scientific community at odds with it thanks to evaluations in 1915. It took a while to be completely discarded because it was a well-made fake that fit the expectations of a hominid fossil at the time, but modern advancements in chemical testing makes it near impossible to fake fossils any more, because of the chemicals used to fake age and you can't fool radioactive dating methods like you can the human eye.

True enough, but the longevity should be telling us something.

Hinduism is the oldest surviving religion.

Whales don't make tools and we have better tools then people a hundred years ago.

Dolphins use tools. So do non-human apes and many monkey species. A few bird species do as well. I'm not sure if whales do, though, those large bodies might get in the way. It kind of astounds me that dolphins manage to do it with no movable digits.

Fire and rain kill living things, mutations can kill you in the womb. Think about what you are saying.

I was giving an example of a worse explanation in a humorous way, but I guess that wasn't clear enough. Mutations can kill, but most of the time, they don't do anything, and some mutations are demonstrably beneficial. Unless you think that an extended family of people with bones so dense they never broke them regardless of injury existed since Adam's time and no one thought to comment on it. I feel like people would have noticed it, maybe made some false idols of them or praised them as being protected by a deity. That's pretty much what you are arguing: all physical traits seen in humans that are beneficial, and all variations that are beneficial in different ways, existed since Adam and Eve... who would have had to not be human to have a genome long enough to hold all of that variation. And what of the "give and take" traits, such as the gene for sickle cell anemia, which grants a hefty resistance to malaria, but in turn causes a potentially deadly condition in people with two copies of the gene?

Your fun, I am really enjoying the exchange. You had one mild equivocation but that can be dismissed as my opinion. Your not making a lot of personal remarks, as a matter of fact you express your opinion rather politely. I just hope you learn a little something about genetics because it's been my experience that you will benefit from it no matter where you land on the origins spectrum.

I'm a Biomedical Sciences student; I sure hope I know a thing or two about genetics XD. I make an effort to be polite, because I have no issue with the people I debate. I don't usually even mind the ideas they hold, I just disagree from time to time.

 

[mark kennedy]

Oh, you're right, my bad (misleading hybrid name, curse you, singular existing wolphin!). Lions and tigers, then, are the same thing to you. Cat-kind, I guess. As would be horses and zebras, dogs and wolves... lots of stuff can hybridize, but won't regularly do so. I, for one, have no desire to have relations with a chimp, which I have no sexual attraction to. Even if someone wanted to be a weirdo and try to do something with one, they're far stronger than humans and wouldn't take kindly to the attempt.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, there are distinct species that can still interbreed. Some very close ones that can't, eastern and western African gorillas for instance.

Then by that logic, the Bible was originally meant for the Neanderthals, not our species. Since we can genetically demonstrate that Neanderthals are not human, just like my mother demonstrated who my father was in court. Well, not Homo sapiens sapiens, that is. Technically, the word "human" can be applied to any species in the same genus as us (which includes Neanderthals), but since we are the only living members of the genus that remain, it's never really used for any other species but our own. Feel free to try to argue that all members of the genus are the same species if you really want, but most creationists such as yourself try to say most of them are chimps http://www.sciencecodex.com/aggregated-images/body/kDyLQFTNj2RZN5s8.jpg at the end of the day, the best evidence for evolution is not the fossil record anyway, and besides the very few that we can get DNA from, we actually have no idea which, if any, of the fossilized species we have found are human ancestors. They are more of a demonstration of concept than anything else.

What I pointed out is that researchers believed human ancestors and Neanderthals interbreed and some pretty impressive DNA research backed that up.

Not my opinion, but what others have measured. I don't produce the data I have presented in this debate with you myself, though I have done some genetic studies with corn before. Want to know some stuff about corn genetics ?

Sure, I'd love to hear your thoughts on corn genetics.

​

The Russian guy was the one that did it with orangutans. He didn't try it with chimpanzees.

It was tried with chimpanzees, incredibly unsuccessful:

Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was the first person to attempt to create a human–ape hybrid by artificial insemination.[10] Ivanov outlined his idea as early as 1910 in a presentation to the World Congress of Zoologists in Graz.[citation needed] In the 1920s, Ivanov carried out a series of experiments, working with human sperm and female chimpanzees, but he failed to achieve a pregnancy. (Humanzee, Wikipedia)​

I was subtracting the 5% from the 96%, since it said additional genetic difference. You still aren't acknowledging that the fact that it is well above 25% implies relatedness. If you want to know why more than 25% indicates that, I can expand on it.

Feel free to expand at will but the divergence stands at 96% overall. Now I'm aware that this does not take into account polymorphic chromosomal rearrangements and this is all done with algorithms. My biggest concern is brain related genes as the OP reflects.

Ever notice that the Bible is worse with numbers than you think I am? That text states that pi=3, which it does not. It's really easy to accidentally add or subtract a zero, especially in translation after decades upon decades of the stories only being passed down verbally.

Oh but I have, the census is a prime example. Yes their numbering system was terrible and contradictions along those line abound. We don't really know a lot about the verbal vs. written except that it obviously overlaps. What the Hebrews lacked in numbering systems and various other systems is nothing to the way those writings are far and away the best preserved documents from antiquity.

My point with the dogs is the variation; look at the cranium size difference between a chihuahua and a golden retriever, in individuals that can breed https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6203/6033438594_4d08c734b8_b.jpg and share ancestry (wolf/dog kind ).

My biggest concern is human evolution, other anecdotal comparisons are interesting but not what I'm focused on.

5 words: sea of butter in space. Gosh, I love those stories. Most educated Hindus view the stories as allegorical, though.

Well ultimately they view reality as a dream of Bahamian taking a nap in a pool. A very different thing with Judaeo-Christian theism.

Only if the universe originated in an unnatural way, which there is no strong evidence for. But even in an unnatural origin, how do you propose we distinguish it? It's not as if we can compare our universe to another one (yet), and even if we could, if all universes were created, it'd be mighty difficult to tell.

It might seem unnatural to us but for God creating the universe is perfectly natural, for him at least.

I've baked bread before. Heck, we might one day have the technology to make contained universes ourselves. The current limits of humanity are a poor measure for the limits of nature.

My point was we don't have to be scientists to learn from their end product.

I never said they did. Heck, it's math that gets to claim proof, after all.

That's right and a zero sum gain from mutations in brain related genes creates a real problem for natural selection when it has nothing but disease and disorder to work with.

Whether or not conventional natural phenomena are all that there are is not connected to any preconceptions either of us have. I used to believe in ghosts, but that has no impact on whether or not they exist, and if they do, the fact that I no longer believe in them won't make them stop existing, nor will it prevent me from seeing evidence for them should I be exposed to it.

How do I know your not a ghost, how do you know I'm not? Just kidding. I used to be into UFOs but I looked into it and it didn't pan out. I still enjoy a good conspiracy theory but I don't base my world view on them. I like to glean what I can from peer reviewed scientific literature but I don't pretend to understand the discussion of methodology. I believe in the tangible and refuse to have my world view dictated to me, I reserve the right to remain unconvinced.

Science explores natural phenomenon and we all benefit from that, that's not the same as the naturalistic assumptions of Darwinism.

You know, Darwinists, the creationist term for the rare educated gnostic atheist that supports evolution and has a weird philosophy. I don't know anyone like that. Maybe there are some, but I don't get the impression that such a group would be very large or influential. Or one that I would like. I especially hate anti-theists, and lots of anti-theists are gnostic atheists. They tend to be really rude to theists just for them being theists.

Go and learn about the Modern Synthesis because it's aka is neodarwinism. It's neither obscure nor an invention of Creationists, it's synonymous with naturalistic assumptions.

It's just actively trying to learn about the world (and universe) around us. The scientific method is a specific process by which scientists do it. But if you don't think I know what science actually means, mind defining it?

It's from a French word meaning 'knowledge', btut during the Scientific Revolution it became isolated to inductive methods regarding the exploration of natural phenomenon. Now while that is not viable for a dictionary definition I think you will find it's sufficient as a working definition of what science is in the modern world. Methodology isn't what we are talking about, we are talking about the universal common ancestor as an a priori assumption. Naturalistic assumptions are fine in that context but we should never mistake them for a litmus test for truth.

I don't choose to be an atheist, actually. I have been trying to believe for more than 8 years now. I pray for belief on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Try to choose to not believe, and see if you can. Belief is not a fully conscious choice. I have challenged many theists to, for one hour, choose to be atheists, and then make themselves theists again, but none have even accepted the challenge.

We all struggle in our search for the truth, I was functionally agnostic and toy with the concept when I feel stressed. The truth is it would be easier but it's a lot harder when you actually experience what Christians have been telling us for 2000 years. One of the themes of the CF debate forums at one time was, 'the truth will prevail', that's not a slogan, it's reality in it's purest forms. We may well breath our last and that is the end, we may well face God, I chose to believe that latter. I don't know what you have been through, we know what people do but God knows why. A friend once told me, actually a Jesuit who left the ministry to marry, ask God and he will give you the proof. I thought he was a well meaning loon but here I am defending Biblical Creationism on a public debate forum.

I don't know how people are convinced but I know one thing for sure. If you are convinced apart from God's work in your life it's all for nothing. It's not religion, it's not philosophy, ultimately it's the relationship you have with the God who made you and all I can do is tell you what I have become convinced of.

I don't. I just note that there is no strong evidence of divine intervention in nature that I have been exposed to. Also, Neo Darwinism is one of the stranger terms for modern evolutionary theory; it's not a term applied to people. A "Neo Darwinist" would just be a person that supports evolutionary theory, be they atheist or theist. Evolution and deities are not mutually exclusive, they're just not mutually inclusive.

Darwinism isn't some remote philosophy from history, it's what we call the 'theory of evolution. Evolution is actually just a phenomenon in nature. The creation of life and the ongoing process of evolution are two different things. Creation is only at the point of origin. Evolution is a living theory, it happens after life has started.

If you have strong evidence for the existence of a deity, I would very much like for you to present it, if you don't mind.

That's the unfortunate part, for me to have to explain it would be to explain something less then God. I won't bore you with Biblical quotes, the Scriptures are clear that everyone who comes into the world see God's divine attributes and eternal nature reflected in nature. As many atheists as I have debated not one has asked me what God is like. God is self existing and self evident, if God needs me to prove he exists then well...we are not talking about the God of the Bible.

And you take your information from sources of ill repute that do not publish peer reviewed findings. That is, there are no mechanisms in place to prevent sources like that from publishing data pulled out of the imagination. Furthermore, why are you so focused on human brains. Wouldn't you also consider chimpanzee brains "too complex" to have naturally formed. They share a few definitive structures with the brains of humans http://image.slidesharecdn.com/comp...tive-primate-anatomy-22-728.jpg?cb=1198784468 , and why stop there? If natural selection can't produce a human brain, it shouldn't even be able to form a simple mouse brain, or any brain.

Indeed, why stop with the human brain since I never intended any such thing. I believe there are limits beyond which things cannot evolve and so did Mendel, see my signature. I decided that the human brain was a better place to start because of the peer reviewed scientific literature being generated on an unprecedented scale. Like I tried to tell you, I can eat an eclair without knowing how to bake one.

Humans are full of hubris, sir, and no one wants to think of their "cousin as some dirty monkey". But benign mutations do exist, and there are few genes in which mutations are so consistently detrimental that there are exceedingly few variations seen in nature. They are called HOX genes, and brain development genes aren't a part of that group, aside from the genes that direct the organ to be produced at all.

It's not my ego that drives my interest in these discussions, it's my interest in the life sciences. I don't really care if I'm descended from a monkey, an ape or a single cell organism. My concern is whether or not there is a substantive reason for me to prefer that explanation over a conviction regarding the witness of Scripture. I see nothing all that compelling but I'm willing to consider it.

If there were biological limits to how much variation could be tolerated in the genome before a species failed, then life on this planet isn't going to last very long. What we should observe in all species is a decrease in health every generation. We don't. Yet, the mutations keep piling up, producing minor changes, and sometimes major ones. The entire digestive tract of a lizard species changed completely within 30 generations, a rarity in evolution but evolution nevertheless. If that organ could change to digest different foods, why not a brain change to be larger?

Digestion is largely a chemical process, when we are talking about genes involved with highly conserved brain related genes it's not the same thing at all. We know, two major changes that would have happened to brain related genes in addition to 60 genes that would have had to be produced de novo. I don't think you can equivocate that with lizard digestive systems, at least not logically.

I don't know what Darwinism is, because every creationist I have talked to that brought it up defined it differently, and no Darwinist has ever come up to define it. You said that it was the same as Neo Darwinism, but the way you talk about it doesn't imply the standard definition associated with that term.

Darwin defined it.

Darwin actually used it as a metaphor rather than a proposed addition to evolutionary theory. -_- and his example was bears becoming whales, silly Darwin, it was a different, extinct mammal XD I jest, although the bear thing is true, that was his example. Old versions of theories are funny. I especially like the pudding model for atoms, how did they think reactions could work XD?

Actually Darwin talked of a land creature, that came ashore, only to return to the sea. It was so far out he abandoned it but amphibians in the fossil record are actually compelling transitionals.

Why not both things? A deity put life on Earth, and that life evolved through natural processes over time. Or, more weirdly, a deity created some of the life on this planet, while other life forms arose entirely naturally. There's lots of exotic ideas we could toss around. That's why we need evidence and observation to shift out the nonsense as best as we can. There are logical ideas that are not correct, and ideas that seem counter-intuitive yet nature reflects them.

I only reject evolution at the point of origin but understand, I believed the New Testament witness concerning the miracles before I ever bothered with the Old Testament. I can no more reject the miracles of the Old Testament then I can the ones in the New Testament and bottom line, a naturalistic worldview doesn't make any sense from a theistic frame of reference as far as I can tell.

I showed you a picture of some chimp ancestral fossils, remember, the old guy with two skulls? Those were ancestors of chimps, note that they are far smaller than the skulls of modern chimps. Like I said, though, our species has some narcissistic tendencies, so these fossils don't get as much attention as they might deserve.

I'm working from what I know of hominid fossils and from what I can tell chimpanzee ancestors are being passed off as our ancestors. From the last 5 million years if it were not for three teeth there would be no fossil evidence that chimpanzees if they were not alive today. What really concerns me is that the Taung baby and Lucy look an awful lot like chimpanzees including a lot of Homo habilis fossils. I'm profoundly unimpressed.

Also, the hoax began in 1912, was officially declared without a shadow of a doubt a hoax in 1953, and was cast into extreme doubt that left most of the scientific community at odds with it thanks to evaluations in 1915. It took a while to be completely discarded because it was a well-made fake that fit the expectations of a hominid fossil at the time, but modern advancements in chemical testing makes it near impossible to fake fossils any more, because of the chemicals used to fake age and you can't fool radioactive dating methods like you can the human eye.

Leakey mentions the Piltdown skull in his book 'Adam's Ancestors':

'If the lower jaw really belongs to the same individual as the skull, then the Piltdown man is unique in all humanity. . . It is tempting to argue that the skull, on the one hand, and the jaw, on the other, do not belong to the same creature. Indeed a number of anatomists maintain that the skull and jaw cannot belong to the same individual and they see in the jaw and canine tooth evidence of a contemporary anthropoid ape.'​

He referred to the whole affair as an enigma: In By the Evidence he says 'I admit . . . that I was foolish enough never to dream, even for a moment, that the true explanation lay in a deliberate forgery.' (Leakey and Piltdown)
​

Leakey had expressed doubts about the jaw belonging to the Piltdown skull. I think this is telling:

"Sir Arthur Keith, one of the leading proponents of Piltdown Man, was particularly instrumental in shaping Louis's thinking. "Sir Arthur Keith was very much Louis's father in science" noted Frida. Brilliant, yet modest and unassuming, Keith was regarded at the time of Piltdown's discovery as England's most eminent anatomist and an authority on human ancestry...a one man court of appeal for physical anthropologists from around the world....and his opinion that assured Piltdown a place on every drawing of humankinds family tree." (Ancestral Passions, Virginia Morell)​

The influence of the Piltdown hoax cannot be overestimated.

Hinduism is the oldest surviving religion.

It's very old, I'll grant that.

Dolphins use tools. So do non-human apes and many monkey species. A few bird species do as well. I'm not sure if whales do, though, those large bodies might get in the way. It kind of astounds me that dolphins manage to do it with no movable digits.

Foundries, factories, tool and die shops...the average mechanics tool box, MIT. Come on, that's not the same thing as dolphins playing with things they find at random or birds building a nest.

I was giving an example of a worse explanation in a humorous way, but I guess that wasn't clear enough. Mutations can kill, but most of the time, they don't do anything, and some mutations are demonstrably beneficial. Unless you think that an extended family of people with bones so dense they never broke them regardless of injury existed since Adam's time and no one thought to comment on it. I feel like people would have noticed it, maybe made some false idols of them or praised them as being protected by a deity. That's pretty much what you are arguing: all physical traits seen in humans that are beneficial, and all variations that are beneficial in different ways, existed since Adam and Eve... who would have had to not be human to have a genome long enough to hold all of that variation. And what of the "give and take" traits, such as the gene for sickle cell anemia, which grants a hefty resistance to malaria, but in turn causes a potentially deadly condition in people with two copies of the gene?

There is a much better way to deal with malaria then a deformed blood cell, that slows the spread of the bacteria. Get rid of the Mosquitoes. Mutations with beneficial traits are very seldom beneficial in the sense of an adaptive evolutionary trait.

Among the mutations that affect a typical gene, different kinds produce different impacts. A very few are at least momentarily adaptive on an evolutionary scale. Many are deleterious. Some are neutral, that is, they produce no effect strong enough to permit selection. (Rates of Spontaneous Mutation, Genetics 1998)​

I'm a Biomedical Sciences student; I sure hope I know a thing or two about genetics XD. I make an effort to be polite, because I have no issue with the people I debate. I don't usually even mind the ideas they hold, I just disagree from time to time.

You've been more then fair, I appreciate you hearing me out. Maybe it was created, maybe it was designed, maybe we just exist as a dream in them mind of Brahmin. We are earth bound and far removed from the courts of heaven, it's hard not to be just a little skeptical, I'm just saying, all human reasoning needs to process what we are taking in logically. Natural science is about what is going on with natural phenomenon but the epistemology is limited, God and history and philosophy belong to a much broader area of understanding.

I wish you great success in your studies and appreciate your candor and patience. I just wish you would give some thought to the divergence on a Biomedical level and consider one important point, is there a molecular basis for the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes?

Grace and peace,
Mark