Early Man

[RufusAtticus]

Webboffin,

The reason I asked was because genetic similarities are much more powerful in detecting relationships. That's because instead of looking a secondary characteristics of heredity, you are looking directly at the heritable material. A bunch of A's, T's, G's, and C's might be less intuitive but they are definately more powerful. That is why I am curious why you find a less powerful method more convincing.

 

[webboffin]

I was not meaning genetic relationships I was talking about anatomical classifications. I accept that man is a primate through anatomical classification but not neccesarily agreeing with ape evolution of man. There still are large gaps that for a century have not been filled. I won't accept man evolved from ape with evidence yet given.

 

[David Gould]

Originally posted by webboffin
I was not meaning genetic relationships I was talking about anatomical classifications. I accept that man is a primate through anatomical classification but not neccesarily agreeing with ape evolution of man. There still are large gaps that for a century have not been filled. I won't accept man evolved from ape with evidence yet given.

Do you accept that other animals evolved from common ancestors - for example, lions and tigers and domestic cats? What about bats and rats?

I am just curious to know what you do accept.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Webboffin,

Micaiah was asking about some of the evidence for human evolution in another thread. I'll repost my respose to him below. Sorry if it mostly covers fossil evidence, but that was what he asked for.

Here is a site that catalogs fossil hominid finds: Fossil Hominids.

Hominid Species

Hominid Fossils

Comparason of Skulls

More Skulls

The Journal of Human Evolution

A Theistic Viewpoint

The Chromosome Challenge

 

[webboffin]

Sure they are all human? Take me a bit to go through the data.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Take all the time you want.

 

[russell]

anyone agree when i say that evolution is a religion? lets not for get the evidence that is found everyday that supports the bible in every sence. The bible has stronger manuscript support then anyother classic literature writtin. It also has many many fine men of faith...Lichon, Washington, Pasteur, Josephus, the eye whitness account of the apsotles ect ect

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Originally posted by russell
anyone agree when i say that evolution is a religion?

Nope. It's a scientific theory.

lets not for get the evidence that is found everyday that supports the bible in every sence.

Examples?

There are certainly many pieces of evidence that do, in fact, falsify certain interpretations of the Bible, so I wouldn't say the Bible is necessarily well supported.

 

[Jerry Smith]

Originally posted by webboffin
Sure they are all human? Take me a bit to go through the data.

No, one of them is a chimpanzee skull. One is a modern human skull. The rest are all "in-betweens"...

 

[Taffsadar]

That site the nodding dog linked to is sick! Just check the child part...

 

[dnich163]

Theories can be proven and authenticated.

Evolution is happening to us just now, but as part of creation.

David

 

[lucaspa]

Yesterday at 04:23 PM dnich163 said this in Post #111

Theories can be proven and authenticated.

Evolution is happening to us just now, but as part of creation.

David

Strictly speaking, David, theories cannot be proven.  The reason lies at the heart of the hypothetico-deductive method and the deductive logic used in it. 

The problem is that no matter how many times we test ("authenticate") a theory, there are still an infinite number of tests yet to be done, and it is theoretically ( ) possible for the theory to fail one of them.  IOW, no matter how many rocks we drop to "authenticate" gravity, there are still an infinite number of rocks yet to drop, and it is possible that one of them could fall up.

When scientists say "proven", that is shorthand for us saying "we have falsified all the alternative hypotheses that we can think of".

"the experimental results may square with the hypothesis, or they may be inconsistent with it. ... but no matter how often the hypothesis is confirmed -- no matter how many apples fall downward instead of upwards --the hypothesis embodying the Newtonian gravitational scheme cannot be said to have been *proved to be true*.  Any hypothesis is still sub judice and may conceivably be supplanted by a different hypothesis later on. ...To my mind the great strength of Karl Popper's conception of the scientific process is that it is realistic -- it gives a pretty fair picture of what actually goes on in real-life laboratories."  "The Threat and the Glory", by P.B. Medawar (Nobel Prize winner in medicine), HarperCollins, New York, 1990 (original publication 1959). pp 96-101.

 

[lucaspa]

3rd February 2003 at 10:53 AM webboffin said this in Post #71

I myself do not support a 6000 year old Earth. It is not scientific theory that the Earth is older it is a scientific fact that most people accept beyond a doubt whether people think God exists or not.

That the earth is older than 6,000 years is a scientific theory.  It is supported by so much data and the alternative is falsified by so much data that we (provisionally) accept it as fact. But it is not a "scientific fact".  It is a theory.

The same reasoning applies to evolution.  It is supported by so much data and the alternatives are falsified so we (provisionally) accept it as fact.

 

[lucaspa]

2nd February 2003 at 11:21 PM webboffin said this in Post #64

Good now we are finally getting somewhere at last. Carrying on from post #63. Is evolution so rapid that a primate could evolve distinctly to a human (what I believe as scientifically guessed) in 2 million years which is a very short amount of time? And what sort of neuro-genetic similarities do apes have that they can relate to humans, such as behaviour; language skills, religion; socialising and technical skills? What is the future expected evolutional path for humans going by past fossil evidences?

To take your questions in order.

Evolution can be rapid enough to go from the common ancestor of chimps and humans to humans in 2 million years.  However, by 2 million years ago you already have the genus Australopithecus which is quite a ways along the transition of primate to H. sapiens.  The genetic and fossil evidence say that the last common ancestor of humans and the other great apes was 6-8 million years ago.

Apes have quite a bit of intelligence, culture, morality, etc.  The adaptations that separate us from the other great apes seem to be:  bipedality, a larger brain with increased intelligence, better language skills, and the ability to make tools to make tools.

If you want to research the similarities of apes and humans, these are some sources. All should be in your public library.

8.  MD Hauser, Games primates play.  Discover 19: 48-57, Sept. 1998. Discusses behavior among primates.  Humans not so unique.
9.  E Linden, Can animals think? Time 154: 57-60, Sept 6, 1999.
10. MD Hauser, Morals, apes, and us. Discover  21: 50-55, Feb. 2000.Summarizes some studies in monkeys to determine if they have "moral" behavior.
12. DS Woodruff and NG Jablonski and G Chaplin, Chimp cultural diversity. Science 285: 836-837, Aug. 6, 1999.  Social tolerance evolved among hominids.
12a. A Whiten C Boesch, The cultures of chimpanzees. Scientific American 284: 60-67, Jan. 2001. Another "unique" feature of humans turns out not to be unique.

Now, one adaptation we have is increased language ability. One of the mutations that result in that has been found:
31. Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language.  Wolfgang Enard, Molly Przeworski, Simon E. Fisher, Cecilia S. L. Lai, Victor Wiebe, Takashi Kitano, Anthony P. Monaco, Svante Pääbo  Nature 418, 869 - 872 (22 Aug 2002) 

Future evolutionary paths can't be predicted because they depend on the environment, and that is too complex and chaotic to be predicted.  If humans followed the pattern of other species, there would be allopatric speciation of humans as the separate populations adapted to isolated environments.  The beginning of that can be seen in genetic adaptations of Himalayan and Andean highlanders to living at high altitudes and the !Kung to living in the Kalahari desert.  Reproductive isolation has happened somewhat with the !Kung.

However, modern transportation could and probably will stop that by having different populations interbreed and thus having gene flow.  Also, our technology lessens the influence of the environment because we change our environment by technology. 

Bottom line: no predictions.




 

 

[lucaspa]

3rd February 2003 at 10:31 AM webboffin said this in Post #69

Okay, let's consider what you posted as being likely in the course of the evolution of man and probably therefore for life on Earth, why is it that some creatures that are around today didn't continue evolving over the millions of years also? Why do only some creatures evolve and then seemingly stop and others creatures continued? A crocodile; a chicken; cockroaches these have remained unchanged at least since early primates were around.

That's a missrepresentation.  Crocodiles are similar to crocodiles millions of years ago, but they are not unchanged. Same for all your other examples.

One key is the environment.  If the environmental niche -- how the animal earns a living and the environment around it -- is fairly constant there will be little change.  After all, the population is already well-adapted to that environment, so any changes will be detrimental.  This is called stabilizing selection. It is not generally recognized, but natural selection comes in 3 types.  Directional selection is what everyone usually thinks of, but stabilizing selection is there also.

When a new environment opens up, then change is rapid. The new environment can arise either because the environment changes, or because an adaptation opens up  a new way of making a living for a population. For hominids, bipedality opened up a whole new environment  by changing the locomotion.  It also opened up a new food source -- meat - first thru scavenging and then thru hunting.  The new food source then allowed new adaptations to the brain because the concentrated source of protein and energy allowed a larger brain.

Where did all the species begin and what is their one common ancestor?

That's the job of tracing back the individual family trees. And that can get very difficult because the fossil record is gappy and it's difficult to find the exact transitional sequences.  For humans, the transitions lead us back to H. habilis and probably A. afarensis.  But the very similar species A. africanus could be our ancestor instead of A. afarensis.  For land animals, the common ancestor is Acanthostega or species within the same genus or a closely related genus. 


Do mutations in DNA always produce positive results?

No. But most of them are neutral to survival, only about 2.6 mutations in every thousand actually being harmful. 

Even at 50/50 (unlikely) as most mutations are failures so this would of slowed evolution because of trial and error.

Turns out that isn't true.  Most mutations are neutral.  That means a huge reserve of variability in a population ready to be tapped by selection when the environment changes.  
And in a very short space of time apes evolved to humans yet nothing else in evolution can compare in it's history in advancement at a fundimental DNA level that humans cannot reproduce with the very close relative we came from.

Not even close to true.  The study G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster  Evolution 34:730-737, 1980 go new species of fruit flies in 5 years on new diets and temperatures. Couldn't interbreed.  The DNA difference in the coding regions was 3% while the difference between chimps and humans in the coding regions is less than 2%. So bigger genetic changes in only 5 years instead of 6 million years.

And finally how does DNA know what is good if it just esentially protein matter.

DNA doesn't.  It's selection that picks the "good" DNA from the "bad" DNA.

 

[lucaspa]

3rd February 2003 at 10:46 AM Hector Medina said this in Post #70

I have a solution.
They either found a human or a ape and its no more than 6000 yrs old.

That's not a "solution", it's your wishful thinking.

 

[lucaspa]

3rd February 2003 at 04:47 PM Noddingdog said this in Post #74

Ok, here we go. Back to Page 3, Post 30.
Tossed out by the scientific community eh? Funny, Pasteur and Newton didn't have too much of a problem with it, nor did the leading scientists in Darwin's time. In fact, the leading scientists were opposed to Darwin's theory but the Church was strangely for.
Post 33
Shame that the new approach has not found one "missing link" that is completely justified, agreed and unquestionable in over 100 years of searching. *sigh* Surely there should be thousands of transitional skeletons? Are there? Nope. Oh well. Never mind, let's ignore that and carry on teaching evolution anyway.

Newton died before the data falsifying evolution became known.  Pasteur falsified one of the key concepts of creationism -- that contemporary organisms sprang from non-living matter.

Yes, science falsified creationism.  YEC was falsified by 1830.  Special creation held on until the 1850s but was having problems then.  The Historical Sketch in the 3rd and later editions of Origins lists some of the scientists who were proposing transmutation of species.  By 1890 there wasn't a scientist in the US that didn't accept evolution and reject creationism.

There have been thousands of "justified" missing links in hundreds of lineages.  In the hominid lineage, some of the fossils acknowledged to be in-between species (and thus missing links) are:

OH24-- between A. afarensis and H. habilis
OH13, OH14 -- between H. habilis and H. erectus
Broken Hill -- between H. erectus and H. sapiens
Omo-1 and Omo-2 -- between H. erectus and H. sapiens
Shkul fossils -- almost but not quite modern humans.

I haven't even listed all the examples in the hominid lineage. For instance, the entire species A. afarensis, H. habilis, and H. erectus are missing links between apes and humans.

The transitional individuals are there, Nodding, it's just that the professional creationists have lied to you about them.

 

[lucaspa]

3rd February 2003 at 05:52 PM webboffin said this in Post #77

C) What is life species common ancestor?

You say that man is still a primate in a definate sense. Are you suggesting that theory is now fact? 

The common ancestor was a single-celled organism, now extinct.  Which single-celled organism we don't know because they don't fossilize well and it's difficult to tell one fossilized single-celled organism from another.

Genetic studies have tried to trace the genes back to the common ancestor but have run into a problem.  Bacteria and archaea and even single celled eukaryotes have a process called "lateral gene transfer".  This is where genes are transferred between one species and another.  Thus, in single-celled organisms, not all the genes are inherited but some are transferred in from species in different genera, families, orders, classes, phyla, and even kingdoms. The molecular mechanisms of this lateral gene transfer are well studied since they continue to happen in modern organisms, but LTG means that it is impossible to trace the common ancestor through phylogenetic studies. 

 

[lucaspa]

4th February 2003 at 05:55 AM Noddingdog said this in Post #82
Jerry Smith,
Geological evidence does support a literal interpretation of the Bible and Genesis.

Geological evidence falsifies a literal interpretation of the Bible and Genesis. This was realized by 1800. 

"By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the interpretation of the geological strata had changed radically.  Virtually no established geologist thought that the thick sequences of stratified sedimentary rocks so evident in quarries, cliffs, and mountains had anything to do with the flood. Neptunists attributed stratification to deposition of sediments from a shrinking primeval ocean.  Others suspected that rock strata represented deposits laid down in successive interchanges of land and sea, possibly over long periods of time before the advent of human beings."  Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood: A Case History of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence, pg 98.

There goes a literal Flood.

The evidence collected supports strongly Creation rather than evolution, and I am sure that many PE teachers would like to have us believe that this is not so and so continue deceiving the world.

Physical Education (PE) teachers?  Why? What do they care?

Evolution and "Creation" are not opposite concepts.  You keep ignoring that, Nodding. When are you ever going to address the following:
"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works."  James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, The Religious Aspects of Evolution, 2d ed. 1890, pg 68. 

From the outside, evolution appears to be correct, but when a deeper approach is taken, it's true flaws and fallacies are exposed.

Are you talking about the scientific theory here or are you equating evolution with atheism?

 

[lucaspa]

4th February 2003 at 06:20 AM bigat said this in Post #84

Science will do whatever it takes to deny that there is a God.  Science wants to be the "god".  Science wants the control.  They can have it.  Time will tell.  

Science is agnostic.  Are you aware that there is a Society of Ordained Scientists?  Look it up on the web.  Over 3,000 members.

Are you aware that over 40% of all scientists are theists, and that this proportion hasn't changed in over 80 years?

See the web page for the American Scientific Affiliate, a society of scientists who are conservative Christians.

Actually, it is creationism that makes it difficult for scientists to declare that they are Christians. 

Science and God:  A Warming Trend in Science, vol. 277, 15 August 1997 pp 890-893.
" 'Creationism is an incredible pain in the neck, neither honest nor useful, and the people who advocate it have no idea how much damage they are doing to the credibility of belief,' says physicist Houghton, who has written articles on the value of prayer.
"Because creationists often fail in attempts to force their doctrine upon schools, their most damaging effect may be to make belief in higher purpose appear antirational.  'In my field, biology, because of the creationists the standard assumption is that anyone who has faith has gone soft in the head.  When scientists like me admit they are believers, the reaction from colleagues is 'How did this guy get tenure?' " says Francis Collins, a geneticist and director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health.
" Christian de Duve, a molecular biologist at the University of Louvain in Belgium, who won a Nobel Prize in 1974, says, 'Many of my scientist friends are violently atheist, but there is no sense in which atheism is enforced or established by science.  Disbelief is just one of many possible personal views.' "