Longevity, Tooth Wear, and Genesis

[Gene2memE]

Thank you for the lecture.

Fact remains, ancients did not get cavities, we do.

Really. That's a fact?

Better tell that "fact" to the University of Zurich. In 2013, anatomists and paleopathologist researchers there conducted a systematic review of more than 3,000 Egyptian mummies, most between 3,500 to 2,000 years old, and found that ancient Egyptians suffered from periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities. 18 percent of all mummies surveyed exhibited dental diseases.

Similarly, the University of Western Ontario looked at a 2100 year old mummy with CT scan and found that he had numerous abscesses and cavities. Better tell them as well.

There is evidence of dental cavities all the way back to Solvenia 6,500 years ago, where they used beeswax to fill dental cavities.

The truth of the matter is that the evidence shows that dental problems were common in our ancestors and dentistry is at least as old as writing as a human activity. Probably older.

The Indus valley civilisations had developed dentistry (tooth drills, picks, pliers and scrapers) all the way back to 7000 BC. The Sumerians definitely had highly developed dental practices by around 4000 BC, as did the Mayans, Inca and Aztecs. So did the Egyptians - one of the earliest pieces of papyrus known is a 5000 year old medical text, in which 11 of the 48 remedies are for dental problems - filling teeth, reducing toothache, oral antiseptic and fixing loose teeth.

 

[Catherineanne]

Really. That's a fact?

Yep.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Many of your fellow Christians believe in evolution. And no, we are not gullible. If anything, those who fall for creation-science propaganda are the gullible ones.

Yes, and that's who I was referring too...the gullible ones that believe in creation, you know...like the Bible teaches it.

Now, maybe you think you are smarter, and wiser than all these scientists, but I sure am not about to fall for that.

If those cuts make you feel better, fine but honestly, they sure are getting old, and don't have near the demeaning affect you think they do. That reminds me, I'm getting hungry, and could go for some more Cold cuts and Bologna.

 

[Kenny'sID]

18 percent of all mummies surveyed exhibited dental diseases.

That's because they didn't listen to their Mummy's and brush after every meal.

Clearly it's past my bedtime.

 

[Steve Petersen]

The topic is NOT cavities but the wear on teeth in the course of life or evolution. Stay on topic.

 

[Gene2memE]

Yep.

Funny that you chose to support it with neither argument or evidence then.

Dental caries have been observed in all archaic homospaiens, related homonids and earlier primate ancestors. There is, quite literally, millions of years of evidential support.

I can freely download paleontology studies on dental caries in Homo erectus, Australopithecus, Homo heidelbergis, homo antecessor, Paranthropus robustus, as well as on pre-Neolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic homo sapiens sapiens. To the extent that we can determine differences in cavity rates between the sexes in ancient man.

Yet, you make an outrageous claim, with the only support a glib 'Yep.

Applying Hitchens' Razor - what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence - let me make an equally valid rejoinder: Nope.

 

[AV1611VET]

Deu_34:7 And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

Amen!

 

[Chris B]

But you think you can go through life and have no consequences for any wrongs done.

No. Not in the slightest. I got that speeding ticket, remember?
What do you think is going on in the minds of atheists? Some strange fantasies you have.

"In Christianity we can repent of our wrongs and believe God removed them from us in forgiveness.[/QUOTE]
Yes, you can believe that. Only works if it's true, which is one point on which we differ.
And repentance is a darn sight more that saying "I repent".
(Anyone using it that way is actually trying to perform invocational magic: "just say these special words...")

But the world, not being controlled by a divine book-keeper, demonstrates again and again that it is not always fair and just, and that sometimes risks and bad behaviour pay off, and sometimes undeserved ill-fortune occurs. About what you'd expect, really.
I know two individuals for certain who behave terribly, but always manage to leave the disaster and mess in their wake, to smash into other people, as they go on serene and untroubled.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Really. That's a fact?

Better tell that "fact" to the University of Zurich. In 2013, anatomists and paleopathologist researchers there conducted a systematic review of more than 3,000 Egyptian mummies, most between 3,500 to 2,000 years old, and found that ancient Egyptians suffered from periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities. 18 percent of all mummies surveyed exhibited dental diseases.

Similarly, the University of Western Ontario looked at a 2100 year old mummy with CT scan and found that he had numerous abscesses and cavities. Better tell them as well.

There is evidence of dental cavities all the way back to Solvenia 6,500 years ago, where they used beeswax to fill dental cavities.

The truth of the matter is that the evidence shows that dental problems were common in our ancestors and dentistry is at least as old as writing as a human activity. Probably older.

The Indus valley civilisations had developed dentistry (tooth drills, picks, pliers and scrapers) all the way back to 7000 BC. The Sumerians definitely had highly developed dental practices by around 4000 BC, as did the Mayans, Inca and Aztecs. So did the Egyptians - one of the earliest pieces of papyrus known is a 5000 year old medical text, in which 11 of the 48 remedies are for dental problems - filling teeth, reducing toothache, oral antiseptic and fixing loose teeth.

We are talking precivilization. We know that disease is a part of civilization.
What studies do you have that goes back MORE then 14,000 years?

 

[ewq1938]

No. Not in the slightest. I got that speeding ticket, remember?

Not talking about traffic infractions but moral sins.

What do you think is going on in the minds of atheists? Some strange fantasies you have.

Everything you have said so far was already expected. The mind of an Atheist is easy to know.

Psa 53:1 To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

Yes, you can believe that. Only works if it's true, which is one point on which we differ.
And repentance is a darn sight more that saying "I repent".
(Anyone using it that way is actually trying to perform invocational magic: "just say these special words...")

But the world, not being controlled by a divine book-keeper, demonstrates again and again that it is not always fair and just, and that sometimes risks and bad behaviour pay off, and sometimes undeserved ill-fortune occurs.

They don't pay off though. Someone is remembering these bad things and the person will eventually pay just like getting the ticket in your example.

About what you'd expect, really.

From the mind of an Atheist who thinks one can commit evil and get away with it.

I know two individuals for certain who behave terribly, but always manage to leave the disaster and mess in their wake, to smash into other people, as they go on serene and untroubled.

That's temporary. A day comes when they will have to face those evils.

 

[Gene2memE]

Near Eastern Late Archaic Humans, Anne 1995
Early hominid dental pathology: interproximal caries in 1.5 million-year-old Paranthropus robustus from Swartkrans, Grine, Gwinnet, Oaks 1990
Lead poisoning and dental caries in the Broken Hill hominid, Bartsiokas, Day 1993
Earliest evidence of dental caries manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic Oxilia et al, 2015
Dental Caries in the Qafzeh 3 Middle Paleolithic Modern Human, Trinkaus, Pinilla 2009
Relative dental development of Upper Pleistocene hominids compared to human population variability, Tompkins, 1996
Dental caries prevalence by sex in prehistory: magnitude and meaning, Lukacs, Thompson 2009
Caries Through Time: An Anthropological Overview, Lanfranco, Eggers 2012
Sequencing ancient calcified dental plaque shows changes in oral microbiota with dietary shifts of the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions, Alder et al

 

[PsychoSarah]

Thank you for the lecture.

Fact remains, ancients did not get cavities, we do.

No, we find fossilized remains with cavities a lot. Here, I'll post some pictures for you. Not all are human, but all are hominids.
http://www.natureasia.com/en/nmiddleeast/figures/632/fossil_jaw_PNAS.jpg
http://www.crystalinks.com/fossilteeth514.jpg I assure you, the second one from the right is indeed a fossilized tooth, it just decayed horribly.
http://www.ancient-origins.net/site...public/Human-fossil-remains.jpg?itok=0rSHn6kK
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam/nh...mo-naledi-skull-and-jaw-fragments-753x345.jpg look closely, some of the molars have cavities
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/photos/000/580/58041.adapt.768.1.jpg teeth extremely grinded down
http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/477662/530wm/C0136559-Australopithecus_africanus_jaw_bone-SPL.jpg

If ancient humans not getting cavities was a "fact", there would have to be some evidence for that, right? Like, say, a period of time in which there are no fossils with teeth that aren't intact from something other than blunt force or wear as a fossil (and we can tell how teeth are damaged. Especially when it is from grinding up food or from grinding teeth against each other, because that type of wear comes over the course of time, and the pressure actually changes the shape of the base of the tooth to form these sort of shelf like protrusions. I know this because I come from a family of grinders. I managed to avoid that issue until the stress of university activated the familial bad habit, although I apparently clench my teeth rather than grind them, which produces the "shelves" but not the wear and tear on the tops). If there is any structure of fossil remains we know the best, it would have to be teeth, which are also one of the if not the most common structures to end up fossilized.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Deu_34:7 And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

That doesn't mean his teeth had no wear. Heck, he could have possibly replaced those he lost with fakes. Losing a few teeth doesn't exactly stop us from living.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Losing a few teeth doesn't exactly stop us from living.

I'm glad someone touched on that...losing all our teeth doesn't come close to stopping us from living.

 

[ewq1938]

That doesn't mean his teeth had no wear.

It shows he aged better than we do so it could imply his teeth were in great shape since he as a person was still strong and his eyes were not dim meaning his eye sight was good when most have eye sight and physical issues at 120. Most never even live that long and those that do look like they are already dead.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I'm glad someone touched on that...losing all our teeth doesn't come close to stopping us from living.

Alternative idea to the one that assumes the people of the past had such significantly more durable teeth than the people of today that tooth decay did not exist: consider the possibility that they had more sets than the 2 associated with modern humans. I'm not saying they would be like sharks (we'd see that in the fossils), but if they had 4 sets instead of 2, that would wreak our methods of dating a fossil's age at death based on the wear on the teeth. Furthermore, it's biologically sound; it's not unheard of for modern people to occasionally have a second adult tooth grow in and push out the first adult tooth as if it was a baby tooth, though I haven't heard of anyone having a full third set.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdontia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075995/
apparently, supplementary hyperdontia, where the extra teeth have a normal shape, is actually pretty common, occurring in between 1-4% of the human population. A source with more information http://emedicalhub.com/supernumerary-teeth-hyperdontia/

If the people of the past had more than one set of adult teeth, it'd take a lucky fossil find to see an adult skull with an adult tooth growing in, and if this was found, it'd probably be thought of as an ancient case of hyperdontia rather than being the norm for the population that person was a part of.

 

[PsychoSarah]

It shows he aged better than we do so it could imply his teeth were in great shape since he as a person was still strong and his eyes were not dim meaning his eye sight was good when most have eye sight and physical issues at 120. Most never even live that long and those that do look like they are already dead.

Tooth wear and decay relates more to what we eat and other lifestyle choices than to "aging well". Further alternative: the "baby teeth" that are the first set of teeth we have and often lose before they acquire a huge amount of damage, could have been lost later in life in early human generations. Considering the record for the longest one of these teeth has remained in a person's mouth without some weird cosmetic effort to do it was for over 80 years, that seems plausible to me. http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/oldest-milk-tooth

Seriously, that and my other alternative explanation of them having more than 2 sets of teeth make far more biological sense than having teeth so astronomically tough compared to our own, especially given the added potential that conditions such as hyperdontia or keeping baby teeth for unusually long periods of time could be holdbacks from traits that used to be more common and more useful. Biological materials can only be so durable, so unless you think god purposely forced these teeth of the people of the past to be tougher with miracles, it makes far more sense for either baby teeth to have stayed in use for longer, or for more sets of teeth than 2 to be the norm.

Now allow me to blankly stare at a wall for a bit as I contemplate the fact that I, an evolution supporter, can defend a creationist idea better than most of the creationists on here seem to be able to do, while retaining the fact that I don't view my own explanation as likely, just more plausible than the others offered.

 

[ewq1938]

Now allow me to blankly stare at a wall for a bit as I contemplate the fact that I, an evolution supporter, can defend a creationist idea better than most of the creationists on here seem to be able to do, while retaining the fact that I don't view my own explanation as likely, just more plausible than the others offered.

Might as well contemplate your inflated ego too.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Might as well contemplate your inflated ego too.

In terms of pride, mine's lower than is good for me. I actually provided a biological reason for my explanations, and some evidence for them to make my idea plausible. Fossilized human teeth are demonstrably not so much thicker than modern humans to fit the assertion people are making that tooth decay just didn't happen because the people of the past were biological dental tanks. My proposals have a lot of flaws, but they aren't 100% baseless assertions made on demand for convenience to a preexisting belief. They are a flawed but rational explanation that aids a belief I don't even have.

As far as sins I am prone to, in order: Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Greed, Pride, and Lust (order subject to slight change as I develop as a person). I'm on here, hoping to at least practice hiding my anger in socially acceptable ways, because people don't react well others being outwardly annoyed. Too bad this doesn't do anything for my vocal tone, or facial expressions, but being on here has improved my tact a bit. I think to be prone to hubris, one has to think better of themselves than they actually are, and I hate myself with a passion. I attribute my arguments being decent to going attending university for about 3 years working towards a degree in Biomedical Sciences, not by being better than other people. In terms of evolution supporting arguments, I'm actually about lower-middle compared to the other evolution supporters on here. Probably because I am excessively impatient, and I haven't been debating people for nearly as long as some of the other members. Or, maybe they are legitimately smarter than me, I have no idea.

As an autistic person, I think I have contemplated myself enough as it is. But hey, feel free to view my self-evaluation as dishonest if you want. Lust is last because I have haphephobia (fear of physical contact with others). Envy and Greed are pretty interchangeable for me, because they are both forms of coveting material possessions.

I think it is pretty egotistical to assume a personality trait because of a facetious comment to begin with, but this wouldn't be the first time my humor hasn't been communicated well. Gosh darn it, I always forget the emoticons, the most important part of textual communication with nonobvious emotional inflections.

 

[Steve Petersen]

Alternative idea to the one that assumes the people of the past had such significantly more durable teeth than the people of today that tooth decay did not exist: consider the possibility that they had more sets than the 2 associated with modern humans. I'm not saying they would be like sharks (we'd see that in the fossils), but if they had 4 sets instead of 2, that would wreak our methods of dating a fossil's age at death based on the wear on the teeth. Furthermore, it's biologically sound; it's not unheard of for modern people to occasionally have a second adult tooth grow in and push out the first adult tooth as if it was a baby tooth, though I haven't heard of anyone having a full third set.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdontia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075995/
apparently, supplementary hyperdontia, where the extra teeth have a normal shape, is actually pretty common, occurring in between 1-4% of the human population. A source with more information http://emedicalhub.com/supernumerary-teeth-hyperdontia/

If the people of the past had more than one set of adult teeth, it'd take a lucky fossil find to see an adult skull with an adult tooth growing in, and if this was found, it'd probably be thought of as an ancient case of hyperdontia rather than being the norm for the population that person was a part of.

Speculation. Where is the evidence?