Your response slipped past me.
No problem, I almost missed your last one too.
It meets his prediction if you go into the process trying to find what you are looking for in the same way if I went into the same process trying to find what I was looking for. In other words we both can see the same evidence and come up with two entirely different conclusions. The proof is in the evidence and there it is lacking.
I think you are losing focus here and going beyond the scope of the question. I am only talking about the evidence itself, not the interpretation of the evidence.
You are agreeing that the evidence was found where Darwin predicted it would be found, right? In Africa, not North America or China, not Russia or the Middle East.
Is that fact affected in any way by different perspectives on what the evidence means?
From everything Ive read and seen theyve only found a relatively few fossils, so few that up until recently Ive been told the entire total of all transitional fossils could be placed in a single coffin. I dont know if thats true but it sure gives us something else to think about.
Again, this is side-stepping the issue. It wouldn' t matter if we had only a single fossil with the predicted characteristics. It would still be confirmation that a species had once existed with a mixture of ape-like and human-like characteristics.
As it is we have many more than a single fossil. In many cases we have more than a single fossil of various species of hominids. Lucy, for example, is not the only fossil we have of
A. Afarensis. There are half a dozen others as well.
You don't have to rely on rumours about how many transitional hominid fossils there are. That info is readily available with a quick browser search.
Of course there is fossil evidence to that confirms similarities between apes and humans. All that does is confirm what I can see with my own eyes. That wouldnt be much of a prediction. As for how cats and humans got involved with this discussion Im confused.
Just making the contrast. As you say, we can see with our own eyes that humans and apes share many more morphological similarities than humans and cats. (And, of course, we now know that the same is true of our DNA.)
Motivation is important because it tells us what preconceived thoughts led us to our conclusions. You have to admit how we see the world taints how we see evidence.
More to the point in this conversation is how our preconceived thoughts lead to predictions.
They have everything to do with what he expected to see. I gave the football game analogy before because it is so true. A single play occurs, 100,000 witnessed it and half thought one thing occurred while the other half thought the complete opposite. Motivation has everything to do with what they saw and it does so in this field too.
In the case of the football game, we can determine who saw correctly by replaying the videotape. Tell me, would the motivations of either group influence what was recorded on the tape?
In the case of Darwin's predictions, we examine the evidence that turns up, evidence that was not available at the time he made the prediction. For the sake of argument, let's agree he had motivations which led to making the predictions he did. (Although he also had other reasons too.) What impact would that have on the physical existence of the evidence? Did Darwin's motivations put hominid fossils in Africa? Did Darwin's motivations determine the cranial capacity of
H. ergaster or the length of
H. habilis' arms?
Remember, at this point I am talking about the evidence itself, not how it is interpreted.
The observations are without a doubt accurate, at least from the standpoint of these people reporting what they actually saw. But as Ive said many times, what we see is filtered by our preconceived ideas and will manifest itself accordingly.
Are you suggesting that someone who does not believe in evolution would get a different measurement of these characteristics? Please focus on the evidence itself, not interpretation of the evidence. You often say YECs and TEs have the same evidence. This sounds as if you are no longer agreeing that the evidence is the same for both.
Of course, but the thing is that really wasnt much of a prediction. Most of us here could have done likewise.
So most of us have as much common sense as Darwin.
The important thing is that if the evidence was much different, it would show not only that Darwin's predictions were wrong, but that the theoretical basis of his predictions was wrong. It would falsify his theory of human evolution.
So what can we infer about his theory when his predictions are accurate?
Given that the Bible itself tells us that all early humans originated in the Middle East, its certainly not hard to predict the location of the oldest fossils would be near there.
It is still quite a leap from the Middle East to Africa, especially as the bible seems to indicate Mesopotamia, not the Negev, as the point of human origin.
It doesnt take looking at fossils to understand humans are physically closely related to apes. Most of us would surmise that without a single fossil to help us out.
As Darwin did. He had no fossil to help him out.
What specific evidence is it that youre addressing?
The evidence of hominid fossils in Africa, as per Darwin's predictions of 1871.
What does the evidence found in Africa since 1871 imply about Darwin's predictions?
Note, I am not asking about Darwin's theory. I am asking only about his predictions as outlined earlier in this thread.
I could certainly go with the idea they have some logic and a lot of conjecture. If you think about it they have to have some logic, otherwise it would be almost impossible to dupe so many people with so little evidence. You ask; what then? I cant place any stock in a theory based on some logic and a lot of conjecture and speculation; something that in so many ways contradicts the very Word of God.
As I said, I am trying to figure out where the conjecture comes in. We have established (I think) that it does not come in the evidence. You have said logical conclusions are not conjecture. Now what I am looking at is whether Darwin's predictions were conjecture or logical conclusion or both. But first, let's establish the relationship between the predictions and the evidence found.
Does the evidence show that Darwin's predictions were incorrect or that they were accurate?
Again, note that Darwin could be right in his predictions but still incorrect in his theory, so you are not committing yourself to the theory if you agree his predictions were accurate.
