Why won’t creationists participate in open and honest debate?

mark kennedy said:

There is some talk about clearly archaic traits but they are short on the specifics.

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What specifics do you need that wasn't listed in either of those references?

The did provide a single pictorical comparison but it didn't show me much:

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This doesn't show me much either. Seems you're coming up lacking.

Who is this Homo habilis who has the cranial capacity of 800cc? I'm not going to accept something like this since most of these estimates are based on fragmentary evidence to begin with.

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Who are you kidding? If it runs counter to your religious beliefs, you wouldn't accept anything for any reason. That's why you've been using the wrong terms for years. I gave you the correct definitions and all the documentation to subsantiate them to consensus and you've ignored it all for no other reason than because you can't argue against it.

Who would not accept Homo erectus as human?

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I've read several posts on Talk.Origins and other discussion boards as well as this one where the primary complaint is the giant 'ape' brow, the complete lack of any forehead, and an average brain size only 3/4 that of modern humans.

Turkana Boy is anatomically human in every way meaningfull except for the size of the cranium and some other aspects I won't go into right now. I would be very suspecious of anyone who classified Turkana Boy or Homo erectus as anything other then human.

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Oh I agree. But Homo habilis and Australopithecus afarensis are both anatomically human in every meaningful way too, at least from the waist down if not from the neck down.

Of course, if you accept this H. erectus as human, then why wouldn't you accept this A. africanus as human too?

Because A. Africanus has a cranial capacity of around 400cc and Homo Erectus is more like 1000cc.

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Except for the ones with brains smaller than 800cc. Would you then ignore every other anthropomorphic feature and cast them back into the non-human ape pile if you see a H. erectus cranial capacity that didn't "measure up"? What about children? Or microcephalics? Do you also bar them from humanity until or unless they get what only you consider an acceptible brain size?

I would accept Homo habilis as a chimpanzee ancestor, KNM-WT 17000 as a gorilla ancestor and Turkana Boy as a human ancestor. Does that clarify anything because that was one of the easiest pop quizes I've had on here in a long time.

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And yet you still failed it. Even your own resource lists this specimen as Paranthropus aetheopithecus, a hominine also known as a "robust" Australopithecine and more advanced than any gorilla! H. habilis was also way more advanced than any chimpanzee and even had an average brain size larger than the largest chimp brain. So both of your assertions here as wrong as they can be.

To demonstrate, all nine of the images below are apes. More than that, they are all "great" apes, not just because they are large, (compared to "lesser" apes) but because they also each adhere to a whole cocktail of characters identifying all of them as hominids.


In the lower left, you should recognize Australopithecus afarensis, a species most paleoanthropologists now consider to be human. Compare it to each of the other skulls in that row, all of which are hominines and generally considered human though creationists disagree on which ones really are. Now compare our afarensis to the "pongid" apes in the row above. Are any of the skulls in the black row more similar to the gorilla's skull (top left) than the "fully" human skull on the opposite corner? In fact, the Homo erectus skull, which you accept as human is actually more similar to the gorilla skull (and the chimpanzee skull) than the skull of Homo habilis.

Now once again, -since you're still selectively ignoring my questions- what would you accept as a means of determine who is and who isn't human?

shernren said:

The President of the United States (roughly) has dominion over the citizens of the United States. But isn't he still a citizen of the United States? He does not stop being a man just because he has dominion over other men.

Not every man of the United States is fit to be the Vice President. The Vice President has to be capable of assisting the President, has to be at least as knowledgeable, authoritative, and charismatic. It may well be that no man in the whole of the United States is fit to be Vice President. But just because the President (hypothetically) has no equal among others in the United States, does he stop being a citizen of the United States, or a man like all other citizens?

The President is uniquely qualified to make decisions concerning the welfare of the whole nation, which no other man has authority to make. But does he then stop being a citizen of the United States, or a man like all other citizens?

In the same way, just because man
- has dominion over animals
- has no equal among other animals
- is uniquely qualified to name other animals

that does not stop him from being biologically an animal himself.

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I would call some variation on Poe's law on this post, but you don't live in the US, there are many questions about the present occupants of the White House that make them poor examples for this purpose.

We hope to do better next time.

MarkT said:

A moose walks on all fours so it would be an animal. The other creatures are not animals. Apes walk on all fours. Apes would be animals.

You can not possibly think that any Creationist would agree with your definition of 'animal'. Ever. If we did, we would be ignorant as you are ignorant. We would not be saying evolution isn't true. We would be lost as you are lost.

Websters has a pretty good definition except it makes an incorrect distinction. It says, 'any living organism except a plant or bacterium (this assumes bacteria are living), typically able to move about, a lower animal as distinguished from man (this implies man is a higher animal but we would not agree he is an animal at all), esp. mammals (mammal as opposed to man comes closest to what we mean by animal).

So let's say we mean the living creatures that can move about on all fours on land, except us.

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Kangaroos.

I_Love_Cheese said:

I would call some variation on Poe's law on this post, but you don't live in the US, there are many questions about the present occupants of the White House that make them poor examples for this purpose.

We hope to do better next time.

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No I don't live in the United States, so I was aware of the danger that my little analogy would be quite far from actually describing the truth. I do hope the point I intended to communicate was communicated sufficiently, though.

MarkT said:

A moose walks on all fours so it would be an animal. The other creatures are not animals.

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No, they only met criteria A, C (which I failed to note) and D, since they didn't meet criteria B, they are not animals.

MarkT said:

Apes walk on all fours. Apes would be animals.

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I_love_cheese already pointed out the Kangaroo and I'd add that Bats fly. Also Australipithicine skeletons indicate they were bipedal, are they animals?

MarkT said:

You can not possibly think that any Creationist would agree with your definition of 'animal'. Ever. If we did, we would be ignorant as you are ignorant. We would not be saying evolution isn't true. We would be lost as you are lost.

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We're ignorant? You're telling me you don't consider a Killer whale to be an animal and you're suggesting we're the ones who are ignorant? I'll tell you what Mark_T, I'll agree to disagree if you can find me two Creationist who agree with your classifications on the animals I listed above not being animals. Otherwise this really is like having a conversation with Bizarro.

Why not us? You just add that little qualifier on the end with no reason.

An organisms taxonomical position is determined soley by physical characteristics and, more specifically, genetic sequence.
An animal is any organism in the kingdom Animalia, and that kingdom includes all heterotrophic eukaryotes lacking cell walls. Since we are heterotrophic eukaryotes, and our cells lack cell walls, we are in the kingdom Animalia, and are therefore animals.

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It has nothing to do with qualifying. Animal is the word that we use to set us apart from the other creatures God created that also move about on land. We named the animals. The animals didn't name us. Animal is a general term. There are wild animals and cattle, which would include goats, sheep and rabbits I suppose. Kangaroos are animals. They go on all fours; they hop like rabbits. Some animals are good for food. Some aren't.

Actually animals have a characteristic behaviour we can look at. So we can name them according to their behaviour. I'm not concerned with the box the animal is in; it's physical manifestation. What we look at is the characteristic behaviour of a creature. Also where it lives and what it eats.

See, what makes man 'man' is not the box. It's what's inside the box. Wisdom and understanding and knowledge. That's what sets us apart from the animals. So man is 'man' functionally. Functionally, the way we work, is what makes us men. That's what being made in the image of God means. Everything has to do with purpose and function.

So we give animals names because we can.

MarkT said:

It has nothing to do with qualifying. Animal is the word that we use to set us apart from the other creatures God created that also move about on land.

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Nope. That word would be human, or more specific homo sapiens.

We named the animals. The animals didn't name us.

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So?

Animal is a general term.

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Yup, and it includes us.

There are wild animals and cattle, which would include goats, sheep and rabbits I suppose. Kangaroos are animals. They go on all fours;

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Kangaroos do no habitually go on all fours.

they hop like rabbits.

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So what?

Some animals are good for food. Some aren't.

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Relevance?

Actually animals have a characteristic behaviour we can look at. So we can name them according to their behaviour. I'm not concerned with the box the animal is in; it's physical manifestation. What we look at is the characteristic behaviour of a creature. Also where it lives and what it eats.

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Euh, no. We name them according to their physical characteristics. Lions and wolves both hunt in groups, but we name them differently. Guess why.

See, what makes man 'man' is not the box. It's what's inside the box. Wisdom and understanding and knowledge. That's what sets us apart from the animals. So man is 'man' functionally. Functionally, the way we work, is what makes us men. That's what being made in the image of God means. Everything has to do with purpose and function.

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Functionally, we work exactly the same as all other animals. Functionally, we are animals. Just as ducks are birds, but not all birds are ducks, humans are animals. Just not all animals are human.

So we give animals names because we can.

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Which is completely irrelevant to the fact that we are animals ourselves.

MarkT said:

It has nothing to do with qualifying. Animal is the word that we use to set us apart from the other creatures God created that also move about on land.

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And yet your "definition" of animal includes cows, but excludes moose, Killer whales, trout, grasshoppers, sea anomones and jellyfish. So apparently we're not set apart from anything other than domesticated mammals since only they are "animals."

I wonder if your definition of what Fungi are begins and ends with "food."

MarkT said:

It has nothing to do with qualifying.

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Correct. It is to do with catagorically quantifying so that we can have meaningful discussions. Since the consensus is that an animal is anything in the Animalia kingdom, that is what we use as standard.

MarkT said:

Animal is the word that we use to set us apart from the other creatures God created that also move about on land.

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No. For one thing, you arrogantly assume all are Christians, which is trivially false. The etymology of animal comes from the latin anima, 'vital breath' or 'soul', so if you are arguing from that angle then only humans are animals

MarkT said:

We named the animals. The animals didn't name us. Animal is a general term.

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Indeed. We, the English-speaking humans, define what we mean by the term 'animal'. Since we are discussing this in a scientific context, it is to the scientific consensus we look. And, lo and behold, an animal is anything in the kingdom Animalia.

MarkT said:

There are wild animals and cattle, which would include goats, sheep and rabbits I suppose. Kangaroos are animals. They go on all fours; they hop like rabbits. Some animals are good for food. Some aren't.

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Irrelevant drivel.

MarkT said:

Actually animals have a characteristic behaviour we can look at. So we can name them according to their behaviour. I'm not concerned with the box the animal is in; it's physical manifestation. What we look at is the characteristic behaviour of a creature. Also where it lives and what it eats.

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More irrelevant drivel.

MarkT said:

See, what makes man 'man' is not the box. It's what's inside the box. Wisdom and understanding and knowledge. That's what sets us apart from the animals.

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The majority of animals, particularily the more neurologically developed species, show the abilities to understand and learn from their changing environment, to adapt stratagies based on predictions from past events, etc. This is intelligence.

MarkT said:

So man is 'man' functionally. Functionally, the way we work, is what makes us men.

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Non-sensicle ramblings.

MarkT said:

That's what being made in the image of God means. Everything has to do with purpose and function.

So we give animals names because we can.

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Your conclusion is both a tautology and a non sequitur. If we couldn't give taxonomical names, then we wouldn't. Since we do, it follows that we are able to. A=A all over again. Anyway, what does that have to do with humans not being animals?

MarkT said:

A moose walks on all fours so it would be an animal. The other creatures are not animals. Apes walk on all fours. Apes would be animals.

You can not possibly think that any Creationist would agree with your definition of 'animal'. Ever. If we did, we would be ignorant as you are ignorant. We would not be saying evolution isn't true. We would be lost as you are lost.

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OK, so let me get this straight. I am lost because I believe that "the other creatures are not animals?" Bizarro world is correct! Are you a member of the Flat-Earth Society too? It makes about as much sense (or possibly more).

If you are so sure what you say is correct and that no creationists would agree with us, why even post here? You obviously aren't going to accomplish anything. Neither are we, except to show to the rational people who come in here a prime example of how not to think!

MarkT said:

Websters has a pretty good definition except it makes an incorrect distinction. It says, 'any living organism except a plant or bacterium (this assumes bacteria are living), typically able to move about, a lower animal as distinguished from man (this implies man is a higher animal but we would not agree he is an animal at all), esp. mammals (mammal as opposed to man comes closest to what we mean by animal).

So let's say we mean the living creatures that can move about on all fours on land, except us.

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So, just to be clear about this, who decided that? You did. Can we agree that you came to that conclusion completely arbitrarily, and God had nothing to do with it? I know, I know: we can't.

Im pretty sure I remember MarkT saying that insects were part of the bird kind. I remember it was something silly like that because I laughed a lot about it.

MarkT said:

It has nothing to do with qualifying. Animal is the word that we use to set us apart from the other creatures God created that also move about on land.

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In that case you should be able to define what an animal is. Try and come up with a definition of an animal that describes all of them collectively without also describing us by default. Just go ahead and try it.

Edx said:

Im pretty sure I remember MarkT saying that insects were apart of the bird kind. I remember it was something silly like that because I laughed a lot about it.

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I wish I had book marked that post. It was one of those classic moments when you reeliase just far how out there some people really are

Euh, no. We name them according to their physical characteristics. Lions and wolves both hunt in groups, but we name them differently. Guess why.

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Yes. They have a different appearance. One is dog like. The other is cat like. If you look at their behaviour, they act like dogs and cats. You wouldn't see a lion wagging its tail or barking. They're different animals.

Functionally, we work exactly the same as all other animals. Functionally, we are animals. Just as ducks are birds, but not all birds are ducks, humans are animals. Just not all animals are human.

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How many animals drive a car to work? No. Functionally we're set apart from the other creatures God created. The fact is we named the animals. The animals didn't name us.

And yet your "definition" of animal includes cows, but excludes moose, Killer whales, trout, grasshoppers, sea anomones and jellyfish. So apparently we're not set apart from anything other than domesticated mammals since only they are "animals."

I wonder if your definition of what Fungi are begins and ends with "food."

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By 'for us' I was refering to the need to find a help mate 'for man'. Every animal was named but no suitable helpmate was found. So every animal was considered 'for us' and fits 'B'.

The moose is a wild animal. Cows, sheep, goats, horses, camels, oxen, etc. are kinds of cattle.

A mushroom would be a plant if I'm not mistaken.

MarkT said:

A mushroom would be a plant if I'm not mistaken.

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Yes, Mark, you are mistaken. Come back after you've read your eighth grade biology book, or don't expect any respect for your second-century mythology book.

MarkT said:

A mushroom would be a plant if I'm not mistaken.

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You are mistaken. They are a fungus.

You need to read up on your taxonomy a little.

Correct. It is to do with catagorically quantifying so that we can have meaningful discussions. Since the consensus is that an animal is anything in the Animalia kingdom, that is what we use as standard.

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Nope. It doesn't have to do with categorically quantifying anything. I can't argue man is not an animal and use your definition. It's just logical. I can't accept he is and argue he is not. I have to be consistent. It follows that we can not use both definitions. It's like insisting that I'm a Libra and that I have to follow your way of thinking from your definition. Sorry but, 'man is an animal', belongs to your belief system not mine.

MarkT said:

A mushroom would be a plant if I'm not mistaken.

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Oh mark your just a fun guy aren't you?

You are mistaken. They are a fungus.

You need to read up on your taxonomy a little.

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Meaning what? Are you saying a mushroom is an animal?

MarkT said:

Meaning what? Are you saying a mushroom is an animal?

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lol
no.

A mushroom is neither an animal or a plant.