Distortiions due to evoltionists assumsions?

lucaspa · Sep 9, 2003

pudmuddle said:
200-some of which are actually one bone or two-and you seem to think we know all there is to know about them?

I only listed those for which there is 50% or more of the skeleton present. Single bones take the figure much higher.

Which is a point I've been trying to make all along.

Scientists do not agree on how the evolutionary tree has grown-and the fact that they are forced to reach some sort of consesis does not mean they have all been convinced.

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1. No person or group of persons can force scientists to reach a consensus. Only the data can do that, which means that the evidence is simply too strong to argue against any more. The consensus is that 99% have been convinced. You will always have 1 or 2, even in science, who will deny data for emotional reasons.

2. That you don't agree on the exact shape of a tree says nothing about agreeing there is a tree.

But, we-"the average joe" are supposed to believe that the consensus reached is the correct one? Forgive me if I remain skeptical.

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Since the consensus is not political or based on opinions, but on the data -- facts -- yes, you should believe it is the correct one. After all, remember that these stubborn people have been arguing it strenuously until the evidence is so overwhelming they can't anymore. Here is how one multiregionalist commented on the mtDNA and genomic DNA in humans: "one self-described 'dedicated multiregionalist,' Vince Sarich of the University of California, Berkeley, admitted: 'I have undergone a conversion -- a sort of epiphany. There are no old Y chromosomes lineages. There are no old mtDNA lineages. Period. It was a total replacement.' " He was "forced" to change his mind not thru politics, or funding, or verbal persuasion. The data made it impossible for him to support the multiregional hypothesis anymore.

A properly sharped obsidian knife is sharper than steel. Surgeons have used them in delicate procedures because they can be sharpened to a much finer edge. If I stab you with an obsidian tipped spear or a modern broadhead, one would be just as lethal as the other. I'm betting the obsidian would peice deeper with less force applyed.
How do you know that no neandrathals used metal. Do you think they have all been found?

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Please document this. Remember, I have worked with departments of general surgery or othopaedic surgery for 20 years, and I have never heard this. Besides, guess what? The neandertals did not use obsidian. They used flint.

And I specifically said mammoth, with it's much tougher hide! Nice attempt to change the rules.

There have been enough sites unearthed to confidently state that neandertals did not smelt metal. Nor did their sapiens neighbors, for that matter. That technology, when it appeared much later, rapidly became widespread and there is no missing it. So now you have to postulate that one small tribe of neandertals knew how to use metal but didn't tell anyone. That goes against your hypothesis that neandertals are one group of the people who built the Tower of Babel, all of whom knew about working metal (you need metal tools to quarry and work the stone blocks used for the Tower; you can't use wood because it is not strong enough for such a structure). So this skill suddenly became completely lost just because each group got their own language? Within each group would be people with this knowledge, and the whole group would use the metal tools.

So? Remember my veiw is that they were men who lived very long lives.
They would have existed before and after the flood.

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They can't do both. Remember, Noah and his family are the only people to survive the Flood. Right? If they weren't on a boat, they drown.

Maybe Noah had a couple baby mommoths on the ark and they didn't go extinct until men hunted them to exinction. After all, they were basically a walking grocery store, if not an easy kill.

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See? Noah and the ark. You contradicted yourself within the same paragraph. This hypothesis brings up whole new problems of biogeography that also falsify Flood geology. Sorry, the Noah study is falsified by mountains of evidence. You can't appeal to a falsified theory to bail you out of falsification of another theory.

But mammoths were an easy kill. Drive them off a cliff pretty easily. So, since mammoths are a walking grocery store, what's to prevent Noah or his first descendents from killing all the mammoths in existence when there are less than 10? Nothing. And you just provided the best motivation possible. So, even within your falsified theory, your hypothesis about neandertals is falsified.

Because mankind rarely can pass a generation without war. I doubt it was any different in the past.

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But neandertals were not "mankind". Since they were a separate species, you don't "war" with them.

Also, wars are more a modern phenomenon when you have more organized nation-states. Most hunter-gatherer tribes don't war, or if there is conflict, it is highly stylized. Think of the Shawnee and tribes in Ohio and the tribes in Alabama. They sent small parties of men into Kentucky as a means of proving their manhood but never "warred" as you are using the term. They coexisted in their own territories with skirmishing that served social ends. The same applies to most hunter-gatherers.

pudmuddle · Sep 9, 2003

lucaspa said:
I only listed those for which there is 50% or more of the skeleton present. Single bones take the figure much higher.
1. No person or group of persons can force scientists to reach a consensus. Only the data can do that, which means that the evidence is simply too strong to argue against any more. The consensus is that 99% have been convinced. You will always have 1 or 2, even in science, who will deny data for emotional reasons.

2. That you don't agree on the exact shape of a tree says nothing about agreeing there is a tree.

Since the consensus is not political or based on opinions, but on the data -- facts -- yes, you should believe it is the correct one. After all, remember that these stubborn people have been arguing it strenuously until the evidence is so overwhelming they can't anymore. Here is how one multiregionalist commented on the mtDNA and genomic DNA in humans: "one self-described 'dedicated multiregionalist,' Vince Sarich of the University of California, Berkeley, admitted: 'I have undergone a conversion -- a sort of epiphany. There are no old Y chromosomes lineages. There are no old mtDNA lineages. Period. It was a total replacement.' " He was "forced" to change his mind not thru politics, or funding, or verbal persuasion. The data made it impossible for him to support the multiregional hypothesis anymore.
Please document this. Remember, I have worked with departments of general surgery or othopaedic surgery for 20 years, and I have never heard this. Besides, guess what? The neandertals did not use obsidian. They used flint.

two seconds on google provided this link:

http://www.oahp.wa.gov/surgery.htm
This is not the original article I read, but that book is back at the library, and I don't remember who the author was.
I guess you haven't heard everything yet.
I doubt they only used one type of stone. Common sense says they used whatever they could find that would provide workable flakes and a good edge. But I will research it a bit farther.

lucaspa said:
And I specifically said mammoth, with it's much tougher hide! Nice attempt to change the rules.

What rules are those? Hide is hide. A sharper edge penetrates easier through any hide.

lucaspa said:
There have been enough sites unearthed to confidently state that neandertals did not smelt metal. Nor did their sapiens neighbors, for that matter. That technology, when it appeared much later, rapidly became widespread and there is no missing it. So now you have to postulate that one small tribe of neandertals knew how to use metal but didn't tell anyone. That goes against your hypothesis that neandertals are one group of the people who built the Tower of Babel, all of whom knew about working metal (you need metal tools to quarry and work the stone blocks used for the Tower; you can't use wood because it is not strong enough for such a structure). So this skill suddenly became completely lost just because each group got their own language? Within each group would be people with this knowledge, and the whole group would use the metal tools.

Any skill can be lost within one generation. But that is beside the point. Hunters gatherer societys do not have the time or inclination to mine. They move with the animals and seasons. We could talk about native Americans who used stone up until time of contact. Why? They were not unintellegent, but they had the skills to use other materials and had no need of metal. Sadly, those skills were also nearly lost in a very short period of time.
Remember the scattering over the whole earth? This indicates small tribes, not organized communitys that would settle down to farm and industrialize.

lucaspa said:
They can't do both. Remember, Noah and his family are the only people to survive the Flood. Right? If they weren't on a boat, they drown.

See? Noah and the ark. You contradicted yourself within the same paragraph. This hypothesis brings up whole new problems of biogeography that also falsify Flood geology. Sorry, the Noah study is falsified by mountains of evidence. You can't appeal to a falsified theory to bail you out of falsification of another theory.

Noah and his family are the neandrathals, get it? And those who were his descendents, at least until the changed enviroment shortened lifespans and caused adaptations. You say the flood is falsified. Others say different. In fact, my Bible says different.

lucaspa said:
But mammoths were an easy kill. Drive them off a cliff pretty easily. So, since mammoths are a walking grocery store, what's to prevent Noah or his first descendents from killing all the mammoths in existence when there are less than 10? Nothing. And you just provided the best motivation possible. So, even within your falsified theory, your hypothesis about neandertals is falsified.
But neandertals were not "mankind". Since they were a separate species, you don't "war" with them.

Also, wars are more a modern phenomenon when you have more organized nation-states. Most hunter-gatherer tribes don't war, or if there is conflict, it is highly stylized. Think of the Shawnee and tribes in Ohio and the tribes in Alabama. They sent small parties of men into Kentucky as a means of proving their manhood but never "warred" as you are using the term. They coexisted in their own territories with skirmishing that served social ends. The same applies to most hunter-gatherers.

The natives tribes warred pretty constantly. No, it was not the organized type of war we think of, but war nonetheless. Another species or not, it's irrelivant. They were close enough to sapians to cause conflict. Unless of course, they were just another earlier form of sapiens...in which case we look to the old Testament for our answers.

Vance · Sep 9, 2003

My oh my.

Noah was a Neandertal. This one I have never heard before.

Who were Erectus, then, since they were also around at the same time as H. sapiens? We know they were not apes, yet they were not "us" either.

pudmuddle · Sep 9, 2003

Vance said:
My oh my.

Noah was a Neandertal. This one I have never heard before.

Who were Erectus, then, since they were also around at the same time as H. sapiens? We know they were not apes, yet they were not "us" either.

Go back to the beginning of the thread. The theory is the devolving of mankind since the days when we lived to be 900 years old.
You're just looking at it backwards. If you have a apelike anscester, that it is less apelike in facial appearence than the "neandrathal" it would be later in time, as men became more like us.

Vance · Sep 9, 2003

So, was Noah H. sapiens when he was 20 and H. neandethalensis when he was old?

And *were* other humans somehow Erectus? I am still not getting it.

And, what about all the other hominids? We have a whole string of them now, none of them apes. Who were they? This all sounds very odd to me.

pudmuddle · Sep 11, 2003

Vance said:
So, was Noah H. sapiens when he was 20 and H. neandethalensis when he was old?

And *were* other humans somehow Erectus? I am still not getting it.

And, what about all the other hominids? We have a whole string of them now, none of them apes. Who were they? This all sounds very odd to me.

I believe I already answered this here;

Go back to the beginning of the thread. The theory is the devolving of mankind since the days when we lived to be 900 years old.
You're just looking at it backwards. If you have a apelike anscester, that it is less apelike in facial appearence than the "neandrathal" it would be later in time, as men became more like us.

Neandrathal, erectus, etc--are just fancy names for humanoids that were more than likely human in every way----though not the same as us in physical appearance.

On the question of whether mammoths were extinct after the flood:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4144.asp

Vance · Sep 11, 2003

Pudmuddle:

"If you have a apelike anscester, that it is less apelike in facial appearence than the "neandrathal" it would be later in time, as men became more like us."

Does this mean that these hominids were evolving to look more like modern humans all the time?

How long did it take to get from ape-like humans to modern-looking humans?

And I thought that your theory was that Neandertals were just VERY old humans. If this is the case, what did they look like when they were young? Like modern humans?

What about some of the very early hominids like australapithicus, etc. Were they Human as well? We know they were not apes (in a dozen or so different ways), so under your theory, they must have been humans, just shaped differently.

pudmuddle · Sep 11, 2003

Vance said:
Pudmuddle:

"If you have a apelike anscester, that it is less apelike in facial appearence than the "neandrathal" it would be later in time, as men became more like us."

Does this mean that these hominids were evolving to look more like modern humans all the time?

How long did it take to get from ape-like humans to modern-looking humans?

And I thought that your theory was that Neandertals were just VERY old humans. If this is the case, what did they look like when they were young? Like modern humans?

What about some of the very early hominids like australapithicus, etc. Were they Human as well? We know they were not apes (in a dozen or so different ways), so under your theory, they must have been humans, just shaped differently.

Devolving, not evolving.
Don't know how long it took, I wasn't there.
No, No, the neandrathals were people who lived a very long time, but at no point did I say they were "normal" humans, (meaning like us) even when they were young. Think about how much better their immune systems had to be, just for starters.
Hmmm...no comment on those...yet.

lucaspa · Sep 12, 2003

pudmuddle said:
two seconds on google provided this link:

http://www.oahp.wa.gov/surgery.htm
This is not the original article I read, but that book is back at the library, and I don't remember who the author was.
I guess you haven't heard everything yet.

And apparently the technique did not catch on. Because it is not widely used. I wonder why? Perhaps the steel does have a better edge?

What you have is one account. I found two, count 'em, two papers on PubMed using obsidian scalpels.
1: Disa JJ, Vossoughi J, Goldberg NH. A comparison of obsidian and surgical steel scalpel wound healing in rats.Plast Reconstr Surg. 1993 Oct;92(5):884-7. PMID: 8415970 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]2: Scott MJ, Scott MJ Jr. Obsidian surgical blades: modern use of a Stone Age implement.J Dermatol Surg Oncol. 1982 Dec;8(12):1050-2. No abstract available. PMID: 7153402 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

They are 11 years apart and the most recent is 10 years old. No wonder I never heard about it. They don't work well

I doubt they only used one type of stone.

Is obsidian available in the neandertal range? Has anyone come across obsidian tools associated with neandertals? I think you will find the answer to both questions is: NO

What rules are those? Hide is hide. A sharper edge penetrates easier through any hide.

Hide is not hide. Some is thicker than others. What will easily pierce the relatively thin human skin won't pierce the thicker mammoth skin. Now, Amerindians used obsidian knives and spearpoints. They gave them up readily once the Europeans introduced metals. Why? The obsidian would be a LOT cheaper for them. If the obsidian were just as effective, why give them up?

Any skill can be lost within one generation. But that is beside the point. Hunters gatherer societys do not have the time or inclination to mine. They move with the animals and seasons. We could talk about native Americans who used stone up until time of contact. Why? They were not unintellegent, but they had the skills to use other materials and had no need of metal. Sadly, those skills were also nearly lost in a very short period of time.

Skills lost or never developed? I notice that the Native Americans all used a mine for pipestone in Minnesota. So, they do mine. And the neandertals and many of the Amerindians were not mobile. The Iroquois and Shawnee, for instance, had extensive towns. Why not the neandertal? Why go back to hunter-gatherer if you know how to mine and smelt metal?

Remember the scattering over the whole earth? This indicates small tribes, not organized communitys that would settle down to farm and industrialize.

But it is exactly the Amerindian tribes that did settle down to farm. And you are saying the Mesopotamian small group settled down to farm and eventually to industrialize. Sauce for the goose.

Noah and his family are the neandrathals, get it? And those who were his descendents, at least until the changed enviroment shortened lifespans and caused adaptations. You say the flood is falsified. Others say different. In fact, my Bible says different.

The Flood is falsified no matter what is said. Ideas are independent of the people who advocate them. That there is small group today that refuses to admit that the Flood is falsified is irrelevant. It tells us about their psychology but not about the Flood. It is data that falsifies the Flood, and that data was so apparent by 1831 that the Flood was invoked only for the most superficial gravels and morraines. In 1831 Reverend Adam Sedgwick, President of the Royal Geological Society, announced that even these features were not due to a Flood. There never was a world-wide Flood.

Noah are neandertals? LOL!! You just ignored all the mtDNA and the fossil evidence that neandertals are a different species. You also ignore that the neandertal features got more neandertal as they moved toward the recent. The last neandertal skeletons are the most neandertal in features! That falsifies your adaptations moving toward sapiens. Instead, we have a set of transitional fossils from H. erectus moving toward more and more sapiens features as we move to the recent.

When you make hypotheses, you have to test them against the data. This hypothesis doesn't withstand testing.

lucaspa · Sep 12, 2003

pudmuddle said:
Go back to the beginning of the thread. The theory is the devolving of mankind since the days when we lived to be 900 years old.
You're just looking at it backwards. If you have a apelike anscester, that it is less apelike in facial appearence than the "neandrathal" it would be later in time, as men became more like us.

That doesn't work. Remember, Cro-magnons (H. sapiens like us) were in Europe 40,000 years ago. There were neandertals there at that time. In the next 10,000 years neandertals went extinct but the fossils at 30,000 years ago show even more neandertal features -- exaggerated brow ridges, sloping forehead, hyoid bone, etc. So, we have Cro-Magnons, less apelike in facial appearance than neandertals, but before the neandertals got more apelike.

Doesn't fit your hypothesis, does it? In fact, falsifies it.

Vance · Sep 12, 2003

I think what would be needed would be a scientific explanation of the theory of devolution. As we know, everything on this planet which was not the direct and immediate result of a supernatural event follows very specific natural laws. So, what would be the scientific theory behind devolution? How does it happen exactly? We have a very well thought out and tested theory of evolution, and you say this is not only false, but ridiculously false. So, if a natural process of devolution is actually true, it should be that much easier to explain how it happens in scientific terms.

If not, it is just a speculative guess based on nothing more than the *need* for something like it to be true due to your reading of Scripture.

Plan 9 · Sep 12, 2003

Vance said:
I think what would be needed would be a scientific explanation of the theory of devolution. As we know, everything on this planet which was not the direct and immediate result of a supernatural event follows very specific natural laws. So, what would be the scientific theory behind devolution? How does it happen exactly? We have a very well thought out and tested theory of evolution, and you say this is not only false, but ridiculously false. So, if a natural process of devolution is actually true, it should be that much easier to explain how it happens in scientific terms.

If not, it is just a speculative guess based on nothing more than the *need* for something like it to be true due to your reading of Scripture.

This lurker has emerged from the shadows to agree. Outside of the novel Docter Jekyll and Mister Hyde what is "devolution"?

Come to think of it, DJaMH is about atavism, in any case.

lucaspa · Sep 12, 2003

Vance said:
I think what would be needed would be a scientific explanation of the theory of devolution. As we know, everything on this planet which was not the direct and immediate result of a supernatural event follows very specific natural laws. So, what would be the scientific theory behind devolution? How does it happen exactly? ... So, if a natural process of devolution is actually true, it should be that much easier to explain how it happens in scientific terms.

If not, it is just a speculative guess based on nothing more than the *need* for something like it to be true due to your reading of Scripture.

Nice catch. Let me add my vote for getting information about a theory on devolution. Since Cuozzo thinks this has happened in the human lineage, Pudmuddle, I'm sure he has a detailed mechanism worked out. What is it?

pudmuddle · Sep 14, 2003

lucaspa said:
Nice catch. Let me add my vote for getting information about a theory on devolution. Since Cuozzo thinks this has happened in the human lineage, Pudmuddle, I'm sure he has a detailed mechanism worked out. What is it?

"19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that[9] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Romans 8

I'm not going to go through Cuozzo's book chapter by chapter. I will include this quote as the basis for the devolving theory.:

"Apparently the physical cause of the deterioration of man and nature is a consequence of man's rebellion and the curse by God producing the subsequent increase of disorder in the cosmos. (Gen. 3)"

BTW, since you choose to think Genesis is a fun fairy tale with a moral, what did God mean when he cursed the earth? Was the earth ever really perfect to begin with, seeing as none of this is to be taken literally?

Of course, we have the law of thermodynamics, which in a sense is just a more complicated veiw of Muphy's law. We are not getting better and better, we are decreasing. Everything now degenerates.

A few more scriptures:
"Nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." Gen 6:3

Later on in David's time: Psalm 90 "As for the days of our life they contain seventy years, or if due to strenth, eighty years."

Or as the Moody Blues use to sing, "22,000 days, it's not a lot, it's all we got, 22,000 days." Which only works out to 60 years or so, but, what do pop singers know?

Of course, we are living longer now, due to modern medical technology. But old?
Another paragraph from Cuozzo's book:
" The oldest person in the world could have been Adam if he hadn't sinned. However, he was 930 years old when he died, just 39 years younger than Methuselah, who reached 969. Methuselah, therefore, has the record of having the oldest recorded life on earth. Beginning with Adam first, Jared was the sixth generation, and he reached 962, becoming the second oldest person to be recorded in history. Noah's life extended to 950 years, making him the third oldest person recorded. The remainder of the eary patriarchs ranged from 905 (Enosh) 912( Seth), 910 (Kenan) to a young 895 (Mahalel) and a younger still Lamech at 777."

Now, taking these scriptures as literal truth, one has to wonder about how man was different from us. But the answer is likely not just in our bodies, but in the changed environment after the flood. The releases of radon gases from the earth, etc.

The Bible, if read as written, does not accomidate evolution well, at all.
Of course, if you want to read it as a fairy tale, anything goes, and the miracles in the New Testament can have no more basis than the ones in the OT. I believe that God reveals the truth in all of his word, not just the parts that are easiest to believe.

Plan 9 · Sep 15, 2003

This is hardly the scientific explanation we requested.

pudmuddle · Sep 15, 2003

Plan 9 said:
This is hardly the scientific explanation we requested.

This is a Christian forum. I believe that arguments derived from the Bible are allowed.
Also, why do we need a new scientific explaination when adaptation to a changing enviroment is already accepted science?

Plan 9 · Sep 15, 2003

pudmuddle said:
This is a Christian forum. I believe that arguments derived from the Bible are allowed.

Also, why do we need a new scientific explaination when adaptation to a changing enviroment is already accepted science?

We asked for a scientific explanation of a term frequently used here: "devolved", a term which is not in the Bible, just as Neanderthal people are not mentioned by name, nor are the immune systems of anyone, eg:

Devolving, not evolving.
Don't know how long it took, I wasn't there.
No, No, the neandrathals were people who lived a very long time, but at no point did I say they were "normal" humans, (meaning like us) even when they were young. Think about how much better their immune systems had to be, just for starters.
Hmmm...no comment on those...yet.

Vance · Sep 15, 2003

Yes, Plan 9's point is well-taken. All you have done is present an explanation of *why* you think it makes sense to consider this possibility based on the evidence we have before us, and that is a fine start.

But, if it is true, and this devolution did take place, there would be a physical process which *could* be explained in scientific terms. This would be the next step in establishing the theory as viable and worthy of serious consideration.

pudmuddle · Sep 16, 2003

Vance said:
Yes, Plan 9's point is well-taken. All you have done is present an explanation of *why* you think it makes sense to consider this possibility based on the evidence we have before us, and that is a fine start.

But, if it is true, and this devolution did take place, there would be a physical process which *could* be explained in scientific terms. This would be the next step in establishing the theory as viable and worthy of serious consideration.

Again,

Also, why do we need a new scientific explaination when adaptation to a changing enviroment is already accepted science?

Just because some of the adaptations are not beneficial in terms of lifespans, does this theory really require a whole new explaination? It just requires us to look at current evidence from a new perspective.

I'll be gone or busy for the next five days, so try to carry on without me.

Plan 9 · Sep 17, 2003

pudmuddle said:
Again,

Also, why do we need a new scientific explaination when adaptation to a changing enviroment is already accepted science?

Just because some of the adaptations are not beneficial in terms of lifespans, does this theory really require a whole new explaination? It just requires us to look at current evidence from a new perspective.

I'll be gone or busy for the next five days, so try to carry on without me.

Let me rephrase my post, okay?
You brought up several extra-Biblical points, in that you used scientific terms (and one quasi-scientific term) not found in the Bible to talk about people mentioned in the Bible. Because you did this, I assumed that you had a clear definition for your quasi-scientific term. If you did, I really wanted to know what it meant.
If that was a neologism you coined that has no meaning you can explain to me, then I, personally, would be inclined to conclude that what you were posting was pure speculation and that no scientic explanation is needed.

Distortiions due to evoltionists assumsions?

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