Human Evolution

[anyathesword]

Actually, you'ld only be saying that a specific interpretation of a specific book that claims to be representative of a god is wrong.

Which does not invalidate other interpretations of the book nore does it invalidate the god it claims to represent.

You need to let go of your dogmatic presuppositions. They are making it impossible for you to learn new things.



Then conversation with you is futile.
I'll also add that any attempt at education for you is equally futile.

Whenever a person says that the evidence doesn't matter, the conversation is over and all credibility is lost.

Where's your intellectual integrity?



With all due respect, you have the right to have whatever view you want.
You don't, however, have the right to your own facts.

It's fine if you, like above, plainly admit that facts and evidence don't interest you and that you'll follow your religion in fundamentalist ways no matter what the evidence suggests. But just be honest about that.



Sorry, but with all due respect again, people like you have no place in science. And the reason for that was given by you: "it's not about evidence". Science IS all about evidence.

Again, it's fine that evidence doesn't matter to you. You just want to hold your beliefs and again, that's fine (i guess). But please, don't expect such unscientific mentalities to be welcome in scientific contexts.
Keep them at your church where they belong.

Ok first of all jumping into this conversation out of the blue to put your own input about me after the conversation I had with the others about the frog/salamander fossil is really out of place.

If you can't go back and see the result of our normal discussion of the EVIDENCE, that doesn't matter to me at ALL, then you could see that I DO learn and realize that the EVIDENCE isn't always INTERPRETED correctly by Evolutionists.

My point was made, the attacks blossomed. Coincidence? No I do not think so.

I don't go to Church but thanks for your input.

If you can't see my discussion in scienctific terms than it's best you go to another thread.

I give people my reasons for believing what I believe, they ask, I answer. If it is a crime than I think the Authorities will be able to take care of it.

This is the last comment I make about 'me being attacked'.

If the attacking continues, then your side loses drastically in this debate. Point closed.

 

[selfinflikted]

Guys, you've all tried. Kudos for that. Really.

But anyone else reading this thread can clearly see what's going on. Anya has not scored any points for creationism or creationists in this thread.

It was an entertaining thread, though.

 

[anyathesword]

ANY species.

The flood story makes several predictions that MUST check out. If they don't, the story is FALSE, debunked, disproven, falsified.

One of these predictions is a universal genetic bottleneck in all of life. A genetic bottleneck happens when a population is reduced to a bare minimum. This greatly reduces the genetic variation in that population and this shows in the genetic record.

For example...
In all non-african humans, we can find such a bottleneck. When estimating when this bottleneck appeared, it correlates withing acceptable margins of error with the fossil record that shows the migration out of africa of homo sapiens. Africans, which are homo sapiens that weren't part of this migration, do not show this bottleneck.

This is because most homo sapiens didn't migrate. They stayed in africa and retained their big pool of genetic variation. A small tribe moved out and went on to populate the rest of the world. All caucasians, asians etc are descended from that group and thus exhibit traces of that limited pool of genetic variation.

This is why there is LESS genetic variation between a random Caucasian and a random Asian person then there is between a random African and his unrelated African neighbor.

Going further still, we can find a genetic bottleneck amongst ALL homo sapiens. Analysis shows that the population of humans at some point was on the brink of extinction, with an estimated low population count of only a few thousand individuals. The estimations of when this took place correlates with big volcanic eruptions elsewhere on the continent.

So now that you know what a genetic bottleneck is...
Noah's boat predicts that ALL species (ow, sorry... "kinds" lol) that were present on that boat should exhibit the BIGGEST genetic bottleneck EVER witnessed. I'ld even add that biologically seeing, a population that falls below some 200 individuals has very very high chances of going extinct. But let's let that even slide for the moment.

The fact remains that NO organism exhibits any such severe bottleneck. At all. The only way the flood could have happened is if ALL land animals (at least - throwing you another bone here) had such a severe bottleneck and ALL of these bottlenecks should date back to the exact same period some 4000 years ago.

This universal bottleneck does...not...exist.

Therefor, the story is false. False. FALSE.

I understand what you are saying, it seems very unlikely. I need to do more research on Noah's ark..

 

[Dizredux]

Of course there is alot of things and détails I could be wrong about..but not creationism and the Flood.

Is it possible that your interpretation Genesis could be wrong in some way?

I think that, for me, any attempt to learn must be predicated by the idea that the idea I have might be wrong in some way. I do not think Genesis is literal history but I have to keep in mind that I could be wrong. If I don't think this way, I could miss or reject important information.

In my thoughts, if you are not open to the idea that you could be wrong, you cease to learn.

I love best learning things that change my mind. In many ways, I live for that.

Dizredux

 

[Nithavela]

I understand what you are saying, it seems very unlikely. I need to do more research on Noah's ark..

You of course mean that you visit your creationist websites until you find one that handwaves it away or moves the goalposts or flat out lies.

Matter of fact, here, let me give you the lies you so eagerly lap up, to save you some time.

Noah and Genetics - creation.com

 

[anyathesword]

Is it possible that your interpretation Genesis could be wrong in some way?

I think that, for me, any attempt to learn must be predicated by the idea that the idea I have might be wrong in some way. I do not think Genesis is literal history but I have to keep in mind that I could be wrong. If I don't think this way, I could miss or reject important information.

In my thoughts, if you are not open to the idea that you could be wrong, you cease to learn.

I love best learning things that change my mind. In many ways, I live for that.

Dizredux

Age of the earth...absolutly, how species and kinds became so diverse, absolutly, how we Evolved from single cells...absolutly not.

 

[DogmaHunter]

If you can't see my discussion in scienctific terms than it's best you go to another thread.

I'm sorry. But whenever religious beliefs are invoked, the realm of science is left.

I can't look at any argument where gods are invoked and see them through scientific goggles. The whole god thing kind of makes it unscientific by definition.

I give people my reasons for believing what I believe, they ask, I answer. If it is a crime than I think the Authorities will be able to take care of it.

It's not a crime. In fact, I think I stated pretty literally that you are entitled to your views and that's fine. What is not fine is pretending certain things are science while they aren't or the other way round.

You have a faith-based worldview and reject scientific knowledge to uphold that worldview. Again, that's fine, just don't pretend that that is not what you do. Because it clearly is.

This is the last comment I make about 'me being attacked'.

Sorry you feel that way. My intention is not to attack anyone about anything. I might attack things you say or points you make, but that's just an attack on what you said - not on your person.

You're on a public forum making public statements. Seems fair game to me to challenge those statements.

If the attacking continues, then your side loses drastically in this debate. Point closed.

"my side"? I'm not responsible for what other people tell you.

 

[Aman777]

Originally Posted by DogmaHunter

ANY species.

The flood story makes several predictions that MUST check out. If they don't, the story is FALSE, debunked, disproven, falsified.

One of these predictions is a universal genetic bottleneck in all of life. A genetic bottleneck happens when a population is reduced to a bare minimum. This greatly reduces the genetic variation in that population and this shows in the genetic record.

For example...
In all non-african humans, we can find such a bottleneck. When estimating when this bottleneck appeared, it correlates withing acceptable margins of error with the fossil record that shows the migration out of africa of homo sapiens. Africans, which are homo sapiens that weren't part of this migration, do not show this bottleneck.

This is because most homo sapiens didn't migrate. They stayed in africa and retained their big pool of genetic variation. A small tribe moved out and went on to populate the rest of the world. All caucasians, asians etc are descended from that group and thus exhibit traces of that limited pool of genetic variation.

This is why there is LESS genetic variation between a random Caucasian and a random Asian person then there is between a random African and his unrelated African neighbor.

Going further still, we can find a genetic bottleneck amongst ALL homo sapiens. Analysis shows that the population of humans at some point was on the brink of extinction, with an estimated low population count of only a few thousand individuals. The estimations of when this took place correlates with big volcanic eruptions elsewhere on the continent.

So now that you know what a genetic bottleneck is...
Noah's boat predicts that ALL species (ow, sorry... "kinds" lol) that were present on that boat should exhibit the BIGGEST genetic bottleneck EVER witnessed. I'ld even add that biologically seeing, a population that falls below some 200 individuals has very very high chances of going extinct. But let's let that even slide for the moment.

The fact remains that NO organism exhibits any such severe bottleneck. At all. The only way the flood could have happened is if ALL land animals (at least - throwing you another bone here) had such a severe bottleneck and ALL of these bottlenecks should date back to the exact same period some 4000 years ago.

This universal bottleneck does...not...exist.

Therefor, the story is false. False. FALSE.
​

Dear DogmaHunter, Wrong, Wrong. It's YOUR understanding which is totally wrong and cannot be supported. Why don't you show us WHERE you get the notion that a universal bottleneck existed some 10k years ago when Noah arrived on this Planet?

Also, your idea that Humans came from Africa is refuted Scripturally. Noah was the FIRST human to set foot on our Planet. You have confused the sons of God (prehistoric people) with Humans. God Bless you.

In Love,
Aman

​

 

[DogmaHunter]

I understand what you are saying, it seems very unlikely. I need to do more research on Noah's ark..

What seems unlikely? The flood?
No, that doesn't just seem unlikely... rather, the flood claim is demonstrably wrong. It doesn't just "seem" to be so. It IS so. Demonstrably so.

Might I give you a suggestion...
Instead of researching "noah's ark"... try researching the opposition.
Let's face it, the only source for "research" of noah's ark is the bible. Because there is nothing in nature that you can investigate that points to this event. Which is exactly what one would expect if it didn't happen.

I'll give you another prediction of the flood that shows how wrong it is...
It predicts a global layer of flood deposits / sediments in the geological column.

This layer does not exist.

I'll add a cross prediction: dating this none-existing flood deposits layer should correlate with the estimated date of the non-existing universal bottleneck in all of life.

Honestly, I can go on for a REALLY long time with such examples. Each and every one of which refutes the flood story all by themselves. Let alone if we combine them all.

I could go on with:
- the lack of enough water to flood the ENTIRE planet
- the fact that living trees older then this flood exist (try submerging a tree for a month and see if it survives)
- the fact that all plant life didn't go extinct (try submerging land plants for a month and see if they survive)
- the fact that oceans still have fish in them (try mixing fresh water with salt water and see if ocean fish survive)
- the fact that temperatures would freeze them to death
- the fact that a wooden boat of that size would break in half and sink
- the fact that plenty of cultures around the world that predated this period simply continued to thrive without interruption whatsoever
- the fact that the Egyptian pyramids and temples don't show signs of being submerged
- the fact that these buildings still stand (a GLOBAL flood that covers ALL land would submerge those things by several miles, which would make them collapse under the enormous pressure)
- .....


The flood story is impossible and contradicted by all possible data you can come up with.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Dear DogmaHunter, Wrong, Wrong. It's YOUR understanding which is totally wrong and cannot be supported. Why don't you show us WHERE you get the notion that a universal bottleneck existed some 10k years ago when Noah arrived on this Planet?
​

It's called genetics.

Also, your idea that Humans came from Africa is refuted Scripturally. Noah was the FIRST human to set foot on our Planet. You have confused the sons of God (prehistoric people) with Humans. God Bless you.

In Love,
Aman

Scripture (books, texts) do not trump evidence.
The defend your religious views, you are cornered into assuming that geneticists don't know what they are talking about, that we don't understand anything about biology, geology, chemistry, climatology, paleontology, physics,...

All of these contradict the epic of gilgamesh.... Errrrr... sorry, contradict noah's flood.
​

I have given you black on white how we know that it is wrong. Your response? Basically nothing else then "geneticists don't understand genetics".

Great.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Probably if he cautions evolutionist not to jump to conclusions and to be careful on the interpretation of the fossil because of its missing legs and hips.

You realize that many artists have drawn full pictures of animals and part humans from fossil fragments, missing bones, and their imaginations?

Am I right or not?

You are not. When material is not preserved, extrapolations are based on similar organisms, not plucked from imagination as you seem to think. If you found the skull of a new type elephant, would you not find it reasonable to base a full body reconstruction on other elephants? Do you really think that such an inference would really be no better than pure imagination?

You mentioned that you would like the Cambrian "explosion" explained. Could you be more specific? I assume you're thinking that it is a problem because complex life just suddenly appeared? If so, you are incorrect. T[FONT=&quot]he Cambrian event took millions of years and happened after life had been around for billions of years and multicellular life for over a hundred million years. [/FONT]So not a problem.

You also mentioned an interest in hearing about more transitional fossils. Therapsids are a good example that I assume you're familiar with.[FONT=&quot] The therapsid fossil record shows a sequence of reptiles gaining mammalian traits over time. Jaw articulation and middle ear ossicles being good examples, though other features like the loss of lumbar ribs that allowed for the mammalian locomotory style (vertical flexion of the spine vs. lateral flexion seen in reptiles) are important too.

[/FONT] But on to the jaw articulation. We see the articular-quadrate complex that forms the reptilian jaw joint reduce in size, lose function as a jaw joint and move toward the middle ear to become the mammalian middle ear ossicles while the dentary enlarges progressively and contacts the squamosal to form the characteristically mammalian jaw articulation. Embriological evidence corroborates this; the quadrate and articular of reptiles and the middle ear ossicles of mammals form from the same embryonic precursors.


So, it’s possible that this sequence is not a sequence at all but in fact a collection of unrelated taxa that just coincidentally happen to form a pattern of reptiles gaining increasingly mammalian morphologies over time in exactly the way evolution predicts and that just happens to be corroborated by independent lines of evidence. That’s not the most parsimonious assumption though, given the number of coincidences required.

 

[Papias]

Dogh wrote:

I could go on with:
- the lack of enough water to flood the ENTIRE planet
- the fact that living trees older then this flood exist (try submerging a tree for a month and see if it survives)
- the fact that all plant life didn't go extinct (try submerging land plants for a month and see if they survive)
- the fact that oceans still have fish in them (try mixing fresh water with salt water and see if ocean fish survive)
- the fact that temperatures would freeze them to death
- the fact that a wooden boat of that size would break in half and sink
- the fact that plenty of cultures around the world that predated this period simply continued to thrive without interruption whatsoever
- the fact that the Egyptian pyramids and temples don't show signs of being submerged
- the fact that these buildings still stand (a GLOBAL flood that covers ALL land would submerge those things by several miles, which would make them collapse under the enormous pressure)
- .....


The flood story is impossible and contradicted by all possible data you can come up with.

Yes. The idea of a global flood is testable because there are tons of places where it would leave obvious and clear evidence, and in every one the evidence is the opposite.

A place to learn some of this evidence is here: Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition

Anya, don't the atheists try to paint this as a reason to doubt God or disbelieve the message of scripture. The flood is clearly an allegorical story to teach a lesson (that God is supreme), and is not actual history, any more than Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan is actual history.

We Christians can accept the reality of the flood being an allegorical story, just as we can accept that the Good Samaritan is an allegorical story. Jesus even said himself that he spoke in parables.

Papias

 

[Mr Strawberry]

Age of the earth...absolutly, how species and kinds became so diverse, absolutly, how we Evolved from single cells...absolutly not.

You were a single cell yourself once.

 

[PsychoSarah]

You were a single cell yourself once.

True that, when the egg became first fertilized.

 

[Jro]

Dear DogmaHunter, Wrong, Wrong. It's YOUR understanding which is totally wrong and cannot be supported. Why don't you show us WHERE you get the notion that a universal bottleneck existed some 10k years ago when Noah arrived on this Planet?​

That's part and parcel of the flood myth - if you only preserve two individuals from each species, you're going to destroy genetic variation. If you destroy genetic variation, well…

 

[PsychoSarah]

That's part and parcel of the flood myth - if you only preserve two individuals from each species, you're going to destroy genetic variation. If you destroy genetic variation, well…

Precisely. Which is why even when people argue that there were more humans than Adam and Eve, there is still horrific and impossible amounts of inbreeding in the biblical stories. It is a bit disturbing, actually, how many people are married to blood relatives; I know it didn't have as much taboo as it does today, but it still seems a bit excessive.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I find it SO baffling that people insist on taking the flood story literally. I honestly can't wrap my head around the sheer ignorance about the natural world this requires.

Even only pointing at the fact that there are animals in australia that are found NOWHERE ELSE (not even in the fossil record) while the same goes for other animals in south america that are also found NOWHERE ELSE...

Did all the kangaroo's (well... all "4" of them, LOL) simply hop from the middle east to australia? Without a SINGLE ONE settling or dying on the way there? And when they arrive in south asia, how did they cross the waters into australia? Did they have mini-arks?

For education's sake...

 

[lasthero]

You realize that many artists have drawn full pictures of animals and part humans from fossil fragments, missing bones, and their imaginations?

Scientists find things and artists draw pictures of what they think it might have looked like. It's not that big of deal, nor does it erase the fact that we have a specimen here with the features of a salamander and a frog, which is precisely what we would expect to find if salamanders and frogs shared a common ancestor.

Chew on this.

Turtles are unique among reptiles - they have no teeth and they have shells. They're the only reptiles that have these. So, if they evolved from other reptile species, we would, at an early point in their history, expect to see turtles with teeth and underdeveloped shells. The theory predicts this. Guess what we find?

Transitional fossils and the origin of turtles

That link should work.

So, back to you - if a frog with a tail isn't good evidence for evolution, how about a turtle with teeth?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Yeah, so the creationist argument that we should see turtles with incomplete shells and we don't, well, actually we do, to varying degrees even.

 

[Aman777]

It's called genetics.

Dear DogmaHunter, That doesn't work with Humans since the last time this happened was some 60k years ago.

Wiki:>>[5] Research on many genes finds different coalescence points from 2 million years ago to 60,000 years ago when different genes are considered, thus disproving the existence of more recent extreme bottlenecks (i.e., a single breeding pair).[3][6]

Scripture (books, texts) do not trump evidence.
The defend your religious views, you are cornered into assuming that geneticists don't know what they are talking about, that we don't understand anything about biology, geology, chemistry, climatology, paleontology, physics,...

Geneticists cannot distinguish between the sons of God (prehistoric people) and Humans. Humans arrived on this Planet some 10k years ago, and NO population bottlenecks in Humans have been observed that close to modern times. You're at least 50k years off. This refutes YOUR idea that there was a Human population bottleneck, Scientifically, when Noah arrived.

All of these contradict the epic of gilgamesh.... Errrrr... sorry, contradict noah's flood.

[/indent]I have given you black on white how we know that it is wrong. Your response? Basically nothing else then "geneticists don't understand genetics".

Great.

I see. Now, you can tell what my response will be BEFORE I post it. Are you also a mind reader? If so, don't give up your day job, since my reply is NOT to slam genetics, but the timeline of your "supposed" idea that there was a Human population bottleneck when Noah arrived. God Bless you.

In Love,
Aman