The Fossils for Human Evolution

[The Barbarian]

The reason we will never see a complete skeleton of a humanoid ape-man is because none have been found in relative completeness - lying on its side with all bones in correct anatomical position.

We usually see something like this, if we're lucky:

Fortunately, primates are symmetrical,so one side tells you what the other side is. The big deal was later finding hand and foot bones of others of the same species. For people who understand anatomy, there's a huge amount of information here. The hip, knee, and hip joint tell us, for example, that this was a bipedal hominid. The hand shows an opposable thumb which is more like modern humans than those of other apes. Lucy had much better knee and hip information. It's not what many ignorant people have written about it.

Note: Lucy is the name assigned to a COMPOSITE of several individuals, therefore, not considered genuine evidence for evolution.

No, that's a common misconception. Her bones are all from the same find. The missing bones were inferred, but are shown as restored from other specimens of her species.

The more we find, the more we understand about the way these creatures lived and functioned.

 

[The Barbarian]

Remember, humans are fallible and corrupt, even desperate creationists who have nothing better to do than to go over bits and pieces of dry bones looking for any possible or even imagined problesm to 'spice things up' to gain an audience. Creationists do this sort of thing all the time. One particularly dishonest creationist even started a false story that parts of Lucy were found kilometers away from her actual body.

Don't trust people with an agenda like that.

 

[The Barbarian]

What does Karl Popper say about evolution theory?

Well, let's take a look...

The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. . . . I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological," and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. . . .

I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. . . .

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. [p. 346]
What Did Karl Popper Really Say About Evolution? | National Center for Science Education

Turns out that Popper, after acquainting himself with Darwinism, discovered that evolutionary theory is indeed testable, and points out that it confirms common descent:

The Mendelian underpinning of modern Darwinism has been well tested and so has the theory of evolution which says that all terrestrial life has evolved from a few primitive unicellular organisms, possibly even from one single organism.
ibid (my emphasis)

 

[VladTheEmailer]

In his book: Lucy, The beginnings of Humankind, Donald Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy, admitted he has doubts about ape-men fossils because the remains are bits and pieces with no way to tell if they belong to one individual and how those pieces should fit:

"Yes, there are older hominid fossils, but they are all fragments. Everything that has been reconstructed from them has had to be done by matching up those little pieces - a tooth here, a bit of jaw there, maybe a complete skull from somewhere else, plus a leg bone from some other place. The fitting together has been done by scientists who know those bones as well as I know my own hand. And yet, when you consider that such reconstruction may consist of pieces from a COUPLE DOZEN INDIVIDUALS WHO MAY HAVE LIVED HUNDREDS OF MILES APART AND MAY HAVE BEEN SEPARATED FROM EACH OTHER BY A HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS IN TIME, well, when you look at the complete individual you've just put together, you have to say to yourself 'JUST HOW REAL IS HE?'"

The he goes on to say,
"With Lucy you know. It's all there. You don't have to guess. You don't have to imagine an arm bone you haven't got. You see it. You se it for the first time from something older than a Neanderthaler."

What Creationist website did you copy and paste this from?

 

[The Barbarian]

The he goes on to say,
"With Lucy you know. It's all there. You don't have to guess. You don't have to imagine an arm bone you haven't got. You see it. You se it for the first time from something older than a Neanderthaler."

Should have known it was yet another creationist dishonesty. Do those guys have any idea what it does to their credibility when they do things like this?

It's particularly low for them to lie to their followers, who often get the blame for it when they repeat it to others.

 

[VladTheEmailer]

Should have known it was yet another creationist dishonesty. Do those guys have any idea what it does to their credibility when they do things like this?

It's particularly low for them to lie to their followers, who often get the blame for it when they repeat it to others.

I attempted to find the source and it appears to be a defunct Ray Comfort Website.

With the amount of Creationist lies, how can anyone be blamed for becoming an Atheist?

 

[Job 33:6]

I've always found it weird that YECs talk about Lucy as if she is the only individual of her species. Meanwhile 400+ other individual "Lucy's" have been found since the original.

 

[Job 33:6]

Btw, Gutsick gibbon also has a nice video on the ark encounter too^

 

[The Barbarian]

I attempted to find the source and it appears to be a defunct Ray Comfort Website.

He's got quite a reputation for being careless with the truth. So not surprising. Have you seen his "The Banana; the atheist's nightmare?"

His argument is that the banana is designed for the human hand. And it was so designed. But humans did it. The banana Ray is talking about is a highly-modified human-designed variety, quite unlike wild bananas.

Ray is the king of bad (or no) research.

He's pulled that one down, but here's a site that recorded it:
'Behold, The Atheists' Nightmare!'

Edit: Notice Ray has the usual creationist confusion between orthodox Christians and atheists.

 

[VladTheEmailer]

He's got quite a reputation for being careless with the truth. So not surprising. Have you seen his "The Banana; the atheist's nightmare?"

His argument is that the banana is designed for the human hand. And it was so designed. But humans did it. The banana Ray is talking about is a highly-modified human-designed variety, quite unlike wild bananas.

Ray is the king of bad (or no) research.

He's pulled that one down, but here's a site that recorded it:
'Behold, The Atheists' Nightmare!'

Edit: Notice Ray has the usual creationist confusion between orthodox Christians and atheists.

I've seen a lot of his work and have enjoyed a few videos debunking him. I kind of view him as a crazy uncle type of guy.

Hovind on the other hand, drives me crazy.

 

[The Barbarian]

I've seen a lot of his work and have enjoyed a few videos debunking him. I kind of view him as a crazy uncle type of guy.

Hovind on the other hand, drives me crazy.

Your assessment seems right to me. Comfort seems to be a brick short of a load, but not malicious. Hovind is a convicted felon. He's done some bad things in his life.

 

[VladTheEmailer]

Your assessment seems right to me. Comfort seems to be a brick short of a load, but not malicious. Hovind is a convicted felon. He's done some bad things in his life.

Nobody in this part of the forum seems to care what these people are doing to the younger generations. The feel that if they are saved, why care about anyone else.

Too me, this is the very ugly side of Christianity. I was raised in an Assemblies of God and have met Atheists the were Saints compared to members of my congregation.

 

[stevevw]

This article is the most stunning admission for the lack of fossil evidence for human evolution that I've ever read. The author presents his own alternative, the aquatic ape theory, which he admits cannot possibly be demonstrated by fossil evidence.

It seems really desperate that he would even present an alternative to the mainstream view, while admitting that it cannot be supported by the evidence, just to maintain his belief in human evolution.

Acclaimed fossils might not depict human evolution



Those who believe in special creation aren't ignorant or stupid. They just look at the evidence without a presupposition of naturalism and reductionism, and as a result, it comes up lacking.

I know there are a lot of dispute about whether a fossil is a variation of a species or a new species.

An interesting find a few years ago in Dmanisi Georgia where a group of skulls named Homo erectus ergaster georgicus (basically Homo Erectus) was found together which varied across a number of previously named species such as Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis.

This caused controversy as it groups several species into the one and showed scientists were perhaps hasty to make new species. Though there was no fossils found of the bodies these skulls
Beautiful Skull Spurs Debate on Human History

The question is we have found genetic evidence that homo sapiens trace back to Neanderthals and Denisovans and I think there a couple other unidentified species DNA found in todays humans as well. So it seems there has been some divergence from difference species of hominids.

 

[The Barbarian]

I know there are a lot of dispute about whether a fossil is a variation of a species or a new species.

As Darwin pointed out, if evolution is true, we should see all sorts of intermediate stages of speciation, and it should be very difficult to say with certainty where the boundaries between species might be. And now, with so many fossil hominins, it is truly hard to separate one species from another. In fact, sometimes there's differing opinions where one genus separates from another.

It's another reason scientists overwhelmingly accept the evidence for common descent.

 

[stevevw]

As Darwin pointed out, if evolution is true, we should see all sorts of intermediate stages of speciation, and it should be very difficult to say with certainty where the boundaries between species might be. And now, with so many fossil hominins, it is truly hard to separate one species from another. In fact, sometimes there's differing opinions where one genus separates from another.

It's another reason scientists overwhelmingly accept the evidence for common descent.

Yes but that doesn't mean they can get the fossil record wrong and that the fossils they thought were another species were really variations of the same species. That can have an impact on how we see evolution.

 

[Job 33:6]

Yes but that doesn't mean they can get the fossil record wrong and that the fossils they thought were another species were really variations of the same species. That can have an impact on how we see evolution.

I remember there being conflict over whether Torosaurus was triceratops or its own species. To be fair though, I don't think this really changed much in our understanding of evolution. Did you have another example in mind?

 

[The Barbarian]

As Darwin pointed out, if evolution is true, we should see all sorts of intermediate stages of speciation, and it should be very difficult to say with certainty where the boundaries between species might be. And now, with so many fossil hominins, it is truly hard to separate one species from another. In fact, sometimes there's differing opinions where one genus separates from another.

It's another reason scientists overwhelmingly accept the evidence for common descent.

Yes but that doesn't mean they can get the fossil record wrong and that the fossils they thought were another species were really variations of the same species. That can have an impact on how we see evolution.

That's exactly what it means. Darwin's point was that it will be often very difficult to determine where one species ends and a new one begins. Precisely because evolution is a gradual process. If evolution were not true, there would be nice, precise demarcations of species.

And yes, that makes things more difficult. But God is not obligated to make creation easy for us to understand completely.

 

[GenemZ]

This article is the most stunning admission for the lack of fossil evidence for human evolution that I've ever read. The author presents his own alternative, the aquatic ape theory, which he admits cannot possibly be demonstrated by fossil evidence.

It seems really desperate that he would even present an alternative to the mainstream view, while admitting that it cannot be supported by the evidence, just to maintain his belief in human evolution.

Acclaimed fossils might not depict human evolution



Those who believe in special creation aren't ignorant or stupid. They just look at the evidence without a presupposition of naturalism and reductionism, and as a result, it comes up lacking.

This is what happens when marijuana use becomes too prevalent. Not joking. Certain doctors research discovered that marijuana is a great brainwashing tool.

 

[sfs]

This is what happens when marijuana use becomes too prevalent.

You mean people coming up with crackpot theories like the one the OP links to? I don't think we can blame that on marijuana.

 

[GenemZ]

You mean people coming up with crackpot theories like the one the OP links to? I don't think we can blame that on marijuana.

Marijuana acts as a powerful brainwashing tool. Research on brain function had discovered this factor back in the 70's.. Of course, it became suppressed information.

Its one reason that explains why the socialists in power want it legalized wherever they can.