Evolution?

[AV1611VET]

Except archeologists can actually differ between a non-human skeleton and a human with osteolysis. So, you're wrong.

Good for them --- they're trained to spot osteolysis, are they?

And I'm not necessarily talking skeletons --- I'm talking finding a tooth and calling it a city.

 

[LightHorseman]

Fair enough then ... that further pwns Ectezus' point:I'm sure though that you don't find these Homo sapien sapiens like King Tut, then call them Cro-Magnon, do you?

No... however there are a great many identified Homo sap fossils with identified disease traits that no one is claiming are any other species

 

[LightHorseman]

Good for them --- they're trained to spot osteolysis, are they?

And I'm not necessarily talking skeletons --- I'm talking finding a tooth and calling it a city.

You are, of course, aware that the vast bulk of scientific knowledge about ancient hominids comes from far more skeletal remains than mere teeth, aren't you?

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Good for them --- they're trained to spot osteolysis, are they?

AFAIK, they are trained to spot a lot of bone diseases that could possibly make a homo sapiens skeleton look like a non-homo sapiens.

And I'm not necessarily talking skeletons --- I'm talking finding a tooth and calling it a city.

That has never, ever, happened. Lying for Jesus indeed.

 

[Ectezus]

By all means AV, keep repeating yourself without addressing the issue that your bone disease fossil theory doesn't actually match reality.
Way to derail the entire thread once again by the way.

- Ectezus

 

[AV1611VET]

No... however there are a great many identified Homo sap fossils with identified disease traits that no one is claiming are any other species

Good --- neat-o --- let's hear it for these orthopedically-trained geologists!

What I'm talking about then, is if they find someone with an ailment that they cannot identify.

What they're doing, in my opinion, and for example, is assuming it's some kind of subhuman colony of mutants, instead of turning them over to qualified doctors to see if it's some kind of diseased community of quarantined people.

I'll bet the first call they make when they find something they've never seen before is to Nutional Geographic.

It's called the Publish or Perish Principle.

I could be wrong, though.

 

[AV1611VET]

You are, of course, aware that the vast bulk of scientific knowledge about ancient hominids comes from far more skeletal remains than mere teeth, aren't you?

Did I not mention a tool shed full?

 

[LightHorseman]

Good --- neat-o --- let's hear it for these orthopedically-trained geologists!

Way to strawman... we aren't discussing geology and geologists, but rather palaeontology and paeleontologists... who most certainly are trained in bone diseases.

What I'm talking about then, is if they find someone with an ailment that they cannot identify.

So... you want to claim... without any actual supporting evidence... that the several thousand identified non homo sap hominid fossils out there, are ALL the result of misidentified diseases?

Care to explain why the freaks and mutants all come from lower(older) strata than the healthy homo sap fossils?

 

[LightHorseman]

Good --- neat-o --- let's hear it for these orthopedically-trained geologists!

What I'm talking about then, is if they find someone with an ailment that they cannot identify.

What they're doing, in my opinion, and for example, is assuming it's some kind of subhuman colony of mutants, instead of turning them over to qualified doctors to see if it's some kind of diseased community of quarantined people.

I'll bet the first call they make when they find something they've never seen before is to Nutional Geographic.

It's called the Publish or Perish Principle.

I could be wrong, though.

Guess what? You're wrong.

The publish or perish principle doesn't refer to popular magazines like national geographic, but rather highly specific, highly regulated peer reviewed journals... journals that don't care about sensation, but due scientific method.

You know... the ones that no Creationist "article" has ever met the standards of?

 

[AV1611VET]

That has never, ever, happened.

Oh, really?

Didn't someone find a pig's tooth and claim it was Neanderthal Man or something and danced his way into Nutional Geographic or one of those propaganda magazines --- then later it was discovered to be an oops-sorry moment?

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Good --- neat-o --- let's hear it for these orthopedically-trained geologists!

What I'm talking about then, is if they find someone with an ailment that they cannot identify.

What they're doing, in my opinion, and for example, is assuming it's some kind of subhuman colony of mutants, instead of turning them over to qualified doctors to see if it's some kind of diseased community of quarantined people.

I'll bet the first call they make when they find something they've never seen before is to Nutional Geographic.

It's called the Publish or Perish Principle.

I could be wrong, though.

You don't see that publish or perish actually is an excellent argument against your case, don't you? The first man to discover that all those supposed Neanderthals, homo erectus etc. really are nothing but plain old humans with assorted bone diseases won't leave the front pages for the next year.

 

[LightHorseman]

Oh, really?

Didn't someone find a pig's tooth and claim it was Neanderthal Man or something and danced his way into Nutional Geographic or one of those propaganda magazines --- then later it was discovered to be an oops-sorry moment?

Are Nebraska Man and Piltdown man the only fossils creationsts are allowed to know about?

 

[AV1611VET]

Care to explain why the freaks and mutants all come from lower(older) strata than the healthy homo sap fossils?

If it's lower strata that worries you guys, that's easy:

And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.

Now, I'm not saying everyone found in "lower strata" got there by divine judgement, but I'm putting this verse forward as an example that uniformitarianism doesn't explain what you guys find.

 

[AV1611VET]

Guess what? You're wrong.

The publish or perish principle doesn't refer to popular magazines like national geographic, but rather highly specific, highly regulated peer reviewed journals... journals that don't care about sensation, but due scientific method.

You know... the ones that no Creationist "article" has ever met the standards of?

Then how did Neanderthal Man manage to march right past this "highly specific, highly regulated" peer review?

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Oh, really?

Didn't someone find a pig's tooth and claim it was Neanderthal Man or something and danced his way into Nutional Geographic or one of those propaganda magazines --- then later it was discovered to be an oops-sorry moment?

Oh, what's this? Did you just shift your goalposts from "finding a tooth and calling it a city" to "finding a tooth and calling it a Neanderthal"? I guess you did! Not that it will help your case, anyway:

The imaginative drawing of Nebraska Man to which creationists invariably refer was the work of an illustrator collaborating with the scientist Grafton Elliot Smith, and was done for a British popular magazine, not for a scientific publication. Few if any other scientists claimed Nebraska Man was a human ancestor. A few, including Osborn and his colleagues, identified it only as an advanced primate of some kind. Osborn, in fact, specifically avoided making any extravagant claims about Hesperopithecus being an ape-man or human ancestor:

"I have not stated that Hesperopithecus was either an Ape-man or in the direct line of human ancestry, because I consider it quite possible that we may discover anthropoid apes (Simiidae) with teeth closely imitating those of man (Hominidae), ..." "Until we secure more of the dentition, or parts of the skull or of the skeleton, we cannot be certain whether Hesperopithecus is a member of the Simiidae or of the Hominidae."

Most other scientists were skeptical even of the more modest claim that the Hesperopithecus tooth belonged to a primate. It is simply not true that Nebraska Man was widely accepted as an ape-man, or even as an ape, by scientists, and its effect upon the scientific thinking of the time was negligible. For example, in his two-volume book Human Origins published during what was supposedly the heyday of Nebraska Man (1924), George MacCurdy dismissed Nebraska Man in a single footnote:

"In 1920 [sic], Osborn described two molars from the Pliocene of Nebraska; he attributed these to an anthropoid primate to which he has given the name Hesperopithecus. The teeth are not well preserved, so that the validity of Osborn's determination has not yet been generally accepted."

Emphasis mine, further information here.

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Then how did Neanderthal Man manage to march right past this "highly specific, highly regulated" peer review?

It managed to march past because it was never submitted to peer review.

Edit: I looked again, and both Science and Nature printed retractions after the misidentification became clear, which means it was indeed submitted to peer review. My mistake.

 

[LightHorseman]

If it's lower strata that worries you guys, that's easy:Now, I'm not saying everyone found in "lower strata" got there by divine judgement, but I'm putting this verse forward as an example that uniformitarianism doesn't explain what you guys find.

Well then, if thats not an explanation, you'd better come up with one that doesn't rely on all the freaks and mutants being swallowed up by the earth in divine anger, while no normal homo sap was.

I'm still waiting for any sort of evidence whatsoever that any of the noted forms of non sap hominid suffered any sort of medical condition that would lead to their dimorphism...?

 

[LightHorseman]

Then how did Neanderthal Man manage to march right past this "highly specific, highly regulated" peer review?

Do you mean NeBRASKA man?

It is my understanding that Nebraska man was not the subject of a journal article, nor ever particularly widely accepted as a hominid fossil by the scientific community

 

[LightHorseman]

Do you mean NeBRASKA man?

It is my understanding that Nebraska man was not the subject of a journal article, nor ever particularly widely accepted as a hominid fossil by the scientific community

Mr Goodbytes kinda nailed that one

 

[Cabal]

Natural Selection, Evolution... I keep thinking, why do we never find the transitions between one form to the next. Take man... Why dont we find the transition bones of the narrowing of the hips and ribs? The slow change in skulls?

We do. I'm guessing your objection to the answers given so far will involve what your definition of "slow change" and "transition" is.

Natural selection, if a modern man was born of an neanderthal, would they not be considered a freak? Of course they would, and are not freaks out casted, of course they are... and the human baby or even child cannot survive on its own, so the freak would die, would it not?

This would have to have specifically occured for each and every time we find a primate skeleton in the fossil record (which, for the record, is very often!). This seems hugely unlikely.

Also, this is somewhat of a moot point, because you seem to think that descent is verified mostly through morphology. It isn't.

Are we changing? Is there an evidence of change? I know we are mixing the races - white with black, with yellow, with brown, with red... But are we changing, is natural selection at work? For I still see beautiful marrying ugly, skinny with fat, tall with tiny, weak with strong, smart with dumb... Where is the natural selection?

Selective pressures will always continue to exist, however our technology and intelligence and general sentient awareness of them means we'll always react differently to natural selection than an animal would. However, given how ubiquitous humans are on the face of this planet, we aren't spread out enough for anything like speciation to happen.

I'm not against evolution if I could see it, but I don't see it... For me to believe in evolution, I would have to see the slow progression from one form to the next. The transitions in skull, hips, ribs, etc... All I see are big jumps, and freaks would be rejected, would they not?

Again, I don't see how you can discount every single primate fossil as being a freak. If there is no connection between them, you then have to accept that every single community independently rejected these freaks and that without fail every single nonfreak member of the community would never show up dead in the ground (for whatever reason).