Originally posted by John MacNeil When I stated that the Bible presented the only view of how we are on this planet and delineated from all other hominid species, that is not to be taken as an endorsement of creation. The scientific view does not allow for such a construction of ecological systems without evidence. What the scientific view does recognize, is that the Bible presents a view that has us delineated from all other hominid species. It is that particular view of our delineated existance, which has been proved by the paleontological and genetic branches of science, which counts as valid theory.
From the Smithsonian Website you posted "Our understanding of the fossil record shows that distinctively human traits appeared neither recently nor all at once. Rather, they evolved piecemeal over a period of roughly 5 million years. By 4 million years ago, humans were habitually <I>bipedal</I> (walking on two legs) yet had brains roughly a third of the size of a modern human's (about the size of a modern ape's brain). By 2.5 million years ago the manufacture of stone tools was common. Large increases in brain size occurred even later. Complex behaviors such as adaptation to a wide range of environments and cultural diversification emerged only within the last 100,000 years. " So I'm wondering why you think the site supports the "Biblical" position of delineated lineages.
How the Cro-Magnon people of today came to physically exist here is not proved ...
Science doesn't endorse or reject creationism.
Science has falsified creationism. It did that 150 years ago. The data that did that hasn't gone away.
As to the "Cro-Magnon people", let's remember that Cro-Magnons are H. sapiens. While they appear in the fossil record about 30,000 years ago in Europe and don't have any ancestors
in Europe, that doesn't mean that they don't have ancestors or that there are not fossils connecting H. sapiens to another species. I suspect that what we have here, John, is your use of Cro-Magnon to obscure the issue. Examples of transitional individual fossils connecting H. sapiens (Cro-Magnon) to H. erectus, besides the one I already posted (which John blithely ignores) are:
Omo valley. Omo-2 "remarkable mixture of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens characteristics" pg. 70.
Omo-1: another mix of erectus and sapiens
Skhul and Jebel Qafza caves: "robust" H. sapiens at 120 Kya that have brow ridges like erectus but brain case like sapiens.
Tautavel, 200Kya: large brow ridges and small cranium but rest of face looks like H. sapiens.
"We shall see the problem of drawing up a dividing line between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens is not easy." pg 65.
Ngaloba Beds of Laetoli, 120 Kya: ~1200 cc and suite of archaic (erectus) features.
Guamde in Turkana Basin, 180 Kya: more modern features than Ngaloba but in-between erectus and sapiens.
Skhul, Israel "posed a puzzle to paleoanthropologists, appearing to be almost but not quite modern humans" Page references to F. Clark Howell, Early Man Time Life Library, 1980. So you see the data has been there for a long time for anyone who really wants to see it.
A note about people stating on the forum that they are scientists. Making such a claim, while hiding behind a monicker, does not render the claimant additional persuasive clout in their posting.
If that is directed at me, then you are again way off base. I'm not "hiding" behind a moniker. Lucas is my last name, PA are my initials. In my profile I list my place of employment -- New York Medical College -- so you can find me on their website. You can also do a PubMed search under "lucas pa" to find my publications. I am not the microbiologist, but the stem cell guy. You want the rough drafts of the papers, to see that they are genuine?
The current writings about the evolutionary change from pre-Cro-Magnon hominids to Cro-Magnon hominids is voluminous, but it is all peripheral. All of it is assumed, speculated and specious.
Citations, please. And please stop using "Cro-Magnon". The correct term is H. sapiens, since Cro-Magnon refers only to those H. sapiens fossils found in southern Europe. You don't do your own credibility any good by the failure to use the correct terminology.
In essence, it is all wishful thinking by people who want to believe in the evolution theory at all costs because without it they will be lost.
LOL! This is wishful thinking on your part. Why would they be lost without evolution?
If there is no evolution theory, that doesn't mean that they have to endorse the creation theory.
Of course they don't endorse creationism. Since creationism is already falsified.
Sorry, your attempt to falsify evolution simply doesn't work.
Even
if there were no transitionals between sapiens and erectus -- and there are -- that would not falsify evolution. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The genetic, morphological, and embryological data alone would establish our relationship with the other apes. After all, Huxley had no fossil evidence when he argued the evolution of humans and apes from a common ancestor in the 1860s. He used the similarities between the other ape species and us to establish the common ancestry.
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE7/index.html