4th Century St.Augustine Exposes Ape-To-Man Hoax.

[Shemjaza]

Your base assertion that because ancient pagan religions saw some kind of relationship between humans and other apes, then evolution is automatically associated with pagan religion is logically unsound. It is as valid as saying that since ancient Egyptians who worshiped a god who died and lived again, then all Christians are really worshiping Osiris or Horus.

Actually its the other way around. Most atheists think Darwin was a scientist...he was not. Most atheist believe Darwin was the one to (supposedly) discover the ape to man link. But it all came from ancient pagan beliefs.

He suggested natural selection and inheritance as a mechanism for change and diversification of species. His great successes as a scientist laid the foundations of all modern biology.

As to the ape to man link... there is the pattern genetic relatedness in humans and other living apes and fossils of extinct ape and hominid species which clearly demonstrate their relatedness.

No scientific theory is ever "proven", but the evidence for evolution in general and of humans descent from basal apes in particular is true beyond all reasonable doubt.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

No it wouldn’t prove anything other than some ancient spokesman had guessed correctly about great ape ancestry without actually understanding why it was accurate. Nor would they have accurate details about that ancestry. It took humans until the mid 1700s to even catalog known life ( Linnaean system) let alone figure out the relationship

Aristotle started cataloging known life in his Historia Animalium back in the fourth century BC, as his protege Theophrastus did for plants. Linnaeus was merely proposing a new system to do so.

No, Darwin wasn't first, even in modern times. Nor did Darwin read a lot of pagan literature. He was too busy doing science.

Darwin was an educated man of the 19th century, meaning he read a lot of Greco-Roman writers during his education. Further, Darwin was given a translation of Aristotle by his friend William Ogle, to which he replied that "Linnaeus and Cuvier are only schoolboys to Aristotle". I am sorry, but Darwin extensively read the pagan classics, as any educated man of his time had, and he is on record praising Aristotle - hence it being an appropriate gift to give him.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Augustine is not talking about a specific pagan tradition, but against the idea of multiple creations of man, as opposed to all descending from Adam. The first part of City of God is a rebuttal of Pagan conceptions, but the latter part is a review of Christian ones and some controversies, like this or variations in the ages of the Patriarchs.

Regardless, this has the flavour of Empedocles, who thought that primordial life randomly tried out different configurations until settling on the modern one - which is evolution-esque, though Aristotle was dismissive of it. Empedocles had no real method beyond 'rightness' for which configurations succeeded, and did not conceive it as via descent. More as a mixture of different parts and such, which perhaps makes him a pseudo-anticipator of Abiogenesis. Augustine is unlikely to have read him though, but probably read Aristotle's critique of it.

 

[now faith]

No it wouldn’t prove anything other than some ancient spokesman had guessed correctly about great ape ancestry without actually understanding why it was accurate. Nor would they have accurate details about that ancestry. It took humans until the mid 1700s to even catalog known life ( Linnaean system) let alone figure out the relationship

Yeah that's right, our Ape ancestors....
I wonder why all apes did not become men?
Evolutionary discrimination that's what it is !
It's not fair some are still apes while others enjoy the lavish lifestyle of human!

 

[mark kennedy]

M
all species in Genus Homo are great apes . Of course H habilis was an ape, so are you. Did you forget that the classification has been changed for decades? You also forgot that we don’t ask creationists if they agree or not as this classification change was based on verifiable evidence not on Bronze Age theology

Mutations just provide the raw material that natural selection acts on

So now you think man is a knuckle draging, tree dwelling ape? Here's the facts since your an instant expert, withoutvstudy, simply because you defend Darwinism. The human brain is nearly tripple the size of that of chimpanzees that would represent a giant leap in adaptive evolution without precursors. Mutations are the worst possible explanation possible since existing genes never respond to mutationsvwell and at least 60 human brain related genes produced de novo. A regulatory gene 115 nucleotides long accepts 11 perfect sustitutions whe it accepts only 2 over nearly 400 million years. And there is a long list of reasons mutations are the worst possible explanation. Mutations are copy errors generally occuring during the S-phase of the transcription process. Not only is it rare for a mutation to result in a benifical effect, the odds of one related to an adaptive trait on and evolutionary scale are vanushingly small.

What's nore inportant is the is avout what Augustine wrote, not what pedantic rhetoric you've learned to mimick.

 

[Shemjaza]

Yeah that's right, our Ape ancestors....
I wonder why all apes did not become men?
Evolutionary discrimination that's what it is !
It's not fair some are still apes while others enjoy the lavish lifestyle of human!

Not all cats became lions, and not all dogs became huskies. Different strokes for different folks... or different niches for different species to be more specific.

 

[Theo Barnsley]

So now you think man is a knuckle draging, tree dwelling ape? Here's the facts since your an instant expert, withoutvstudy, simply because you defend Darwinism. The human brain is nearly tripple the size of that of chimpanzees that would represent a giant leap in adaptive evolution without precursors. Mutations are the worst possible explanation possible since existing genes never respond to mutationsvwell and at least 60 human brain related genes produced de novo. A regulatory gene 115 nucleotides long accepts 11 perfect sustitutions whe it accepts only 2 over nearly 400 million years. And there is a long list of reasons mutations are the worst possible explanation. Mutations are copy errors generally occuring during the S-phase of the transcription process. Not only is it rare for a mutation to result in a benifical effect, the odds of one related to an adaptive trait on and evolutionary scale are vanushingly small.

What's nore inportant is the is avout what Augustine wrote, not what pedantic rhetoric you've learned to mimick.

Did you copy & paste what you wrote from a creationist web site by any chance? Do you even have the faintest idea what you are babbling about?

And what does what Augustine wrote have to do with evolution, since he clearly had not the faintest idea about evolution & natural selection, & was expressing nothing more than an opinion?

 

[Theo Barnsley]

Darwin was not a scientist. He was a failed theologian who lived off his rich daddy's inheritance. They call this an armchair philosopher. Darwin was never trained in science nor did he have the discipline to grasp scientific method. He read Greek and Roman literature that was retrieved by the crusaders.

Your ignorance is outstanding, & you are slandering somebody who cannot defend themselves. Wether Darwin was trained in science or not, the fact is he used rigorous scientific method in his research, which makes him a scientist.

The fact that his theory has withstood the test of time shows that his theory was based on a scientific understanding of what he observed. There were many things that Charles Darwin could not have know when he proposed his theory, & yet subsequent discoveries have confirmed what his theory predicted.

 

[USincognito]

4th Century St.Augustine Exposes Ape-To-Man Hoax

I'm not seeing anything in this quote that addresses the fact that we have fossil, genetic, etc. evidence showing the humans and our fellow apes evolved from common ancestor.

Charles Darwin would be the natural historian who would entertain the false theory which placed man in the same pedigree as the moneys and apes.

And he was right. Since then we have found unassailable evidence showing that all modern apes (including humans) share common ancestry. Further, we know that all Hominids (including humans) share common ancestry with other primates.

Also interesting is how there is a Hindu legend of the vanara who are said to be ape men. So we do find an ape man myth in ancient history.
View attachment 250630

The Vanara are more like anthropomorphic monkeys than ape-men and that is an artistic portrayal of them since they aren't actually physically described in the Ramayana.

 

[USincognito]

I do think Augustine may indeed be speaking about the Hindu legend but I'm not 100% certain.

While Alexandria once had foreign volumes in it's library, most of that would have been destroyed or lost by the time Augustine was born. It's extremely unlikely that he was aware of Hindu sacred texts.

The myth he debunked was our own modern myth borrowed from pagan legend.

You are using the words "myth" and "debunked" incorrectly.

I can actually do this with all doctrines of evolution...

Evolution doesn't have "doctrines". It has evidence and if you want to "debunk" evolution, then you need to actually address the evidence.

Only about 5% of the theory is found exclusively in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Absolute poppycock. Darwin spent 20 years as a naturalist observing nature and reading the reading the writings of other scientists before coming up with the entirety of the theory of evolution. It has since incorporated genetics, but the basic theory remains the same.

 

[USincognito]

Darwin was not a scientist.

Funny, he spent his entire adult life as one. Perhaps you don't know what a scientist is.

He was a failed theologian who lived off his rich daddy's inheritance.

And yet he was a brilliant scientist who put forth one of the most supported theories in science.

He read Greek and Roman literature that was retrieved by the crusaders.

Your bizarre fantasies have no relation to reality.

 

[USincognito]

Did you copy & past what you wrote from a creationist web site by any chance? Do you even have the faintest idea what you are writing about? And what does what Augustine wrote have to do with evolution, since he clearly had not the faintest idea about evolution & natural selection, & was expressing nothing more than an opinion?

He's been repeating the same shtick for 15 years now. Just ignore him whenever has talks about the HAR1 region and 60 nucleotides and 340 million years (he's a YEC who doesn't even "believe" in millions of years anyway).

 

[USincognito]

Darwin was an educated man of the 19th century, meaning he read a lot of Greco-Roman writers during his education. Further, Darwin was given a translation of Aristotle by his friend William Ogle, to which he replied that "Linnaeus and Cuvier are only schoolboys to Aristotle". I am sorry, but Darwin extensively read the pagan classics, as any educated man of his time had, and he is on record praising Aristotle - hence it being an appropriate gift to give him.

None of which was quoted in, or germane to, either Origin or Descent.

 

[USincognito]

Yeah that's right, our Ape ancestors....

I'm guessing you're not familiar with the fossil or genetic evidence.

I wonder why all apes did not become men?

Because evolution has no goal and certainly not the goal of evolving into humans. All lineages are on a one way street determined by the mutations they inherit and which pop up in their populations.

Evolutionary discrimination that's what it is !
It's not fair some are still apes while others enjoy the lavish lifestyle of human!

You might actually want to learn a little something about evolution before posting insipid attempts at mockery. Most of our fellow apes lead very leisurely lives and for the most part are pretty safe from harm other than that imposed by humans hunting them for bush meat or destroying their habitats.

 

[Strathos]

If Darwin were alive today, his knowledge of biology would actually be woefully outdated.

 

[Gene2memE]

Darwin was not a scientist.

Darwin was a field researcher, a lab researcher, a designer and conductor of experiments and a published, peer reviewed scientist with a career in print of better than 40 years.

He worked across the fields of naturalism/natural history (what we'd now call biology), geology, botany, zoology, anatomy and geography.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society (for his work in the 'natural sciences) and a member of the Linnean Society (a society for botanists).

He was the winner of the Society's Copley Medal (for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science"), the winner of the Wollaston Medal (which is the the highest award granted for geological science by the Geological Society of London) and a winner of the Royal Medal, for the advancement of "natural knowledge" (i.e. doing science).

Darwin published 17 major books on the sciences and multiple other articles and monographs, across a range of topics in evolutionary biology, geology, zoology, and even psychology.

Darwin spent two decades working and publishing as a well respected geologist and biologist before On the Origin of Species ever came to print. He earned the Royal Society Medal five years before he published his thinking on evolution.

If he wasn't a scientist, then I am Mickey Mouse.

 

[Gene2memE]

If Darwin were alive today, his knowledge of biology would actually be woefully outdated.

He'd also be 210 years old...

 

[Theo Barnsley]

If Darwin were alive today, his knowledge of biology would actually be woefully outdated.

And your point is supposed to be what?

My guess is that, even though YOU ARE alive today, your knowledge of biology is probably far less than Darwins knowledge was, even though Charles Darwin new nothing about DNA & all the fossils that have been discovered since that has proved his theory beyond doubt.

 

[USincognito]

If Darwin were alive today, his knowledge of biology would actually be woefully outdated.

He'd also be 210 years old...

And your point is supposed to be what?

The point was that when Creationists harp about Darwin they are acting as if the study of evolution ended with him. The don't seem to grasp the 150 years of observation and evidence that has happened since Origin was published. There was a lot that Darwin got right, but there was a lot he didn't know.
What Darwin Never Knew — NOVA | PBS

My guess is that, even though YOU ARE alive today, your knowledge of biology is probably far less than Darwins knowledge was, even though Charles Darwin new nothing about DNA & all the fossils that have been discovered since that has proved his theory beyond doubt.

You would be wrong. Strathos is very well acquainted with the evidence for evolution. Just a piece of advice. Some of your conduct here is in violation of the rules you agreed to when you signed up to join. Try dialing the aggression down a bit..

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

None of which was quoted in, or germane to, either Origin or Descent.

It is germane to the OP and thread though, in that the OP claims Darwin to be heir of an ancient tradition. He is, as he is a biologist - a discipline founded by Aristotle, who Darwin both read and admired. Further, those that claim Darwin ignorant of ancient authors is doing him a profound disservice, and he himself would likely be highly insulted by such claims of his lack of education. Classical writers were the cornerstone of education in Darwin's day, after all.