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Human evolution

Palmer Study Course On Intelligent Design: Human Exceptionalism 6, Part 1

From the course unit: Darwin claimed that bipedality would have been the first indication of apes evolving into humans. But after searching for evidence of increasing bipedality, the best scientists can do is claim that hominids were facultatively (optionally) bipedal. All apes today are facultatively bipedal. Is that a convincing argument that humans and apes are closely related? What other fossil evidence shows us the distinct difference between apes and humans? Read More ›

Mystery: Modern humans lived in a cave in France 10,000 years earlier than thought — then vanished

At Nature: A study published on 9 February in Science Advances argues that distinctive stone tools and a lone child’s tooth were left by Homo sapiens during a short stay, some 54,000 years ago — and not by Neanderthals, who lived in the rock shelter for thousands of years before and after that time. Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: Has the human sense of smell declined in recent millennia?

To be sure that our sense of smell has declined, we would first need to see whether concerted efforts to improve it were successful. Richard Feynman tried it. Read More ›

Politics has invaded the world of human fossil analysis

At Areo: "Perhaps the most well-known example of the politicization of ancient DNA studies is the long legal battle for control of the remains of Kennewick Man, which were found in Washington State in 1996. Based on skull shape—the best evidence available at the time—scientists initially inferred that his most probable ancestry was European. Local Native American groups sued to have his remains reburied without further analysis under a 1990 US federal law..." Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: The deadly dream of Human+ Look at the price tag…

Miller: In premises 1 through 5, human personhood is taken as a contingent property tied to the process of evolution. If these premises are sound, then the definition of “human person” can freely evolve with each new phase in the transhumanist program of self-enhancement. Read More ›

William Lane Craig’s non-historical Adam — and marriage and divorce

Jason Lisle at the Biblical Science Institute offers an eight part series on the topic; this is from the wrap-up, where he addresses Craig's suggestion that Jesus did not take Genesis literally re Adam and Eve. Read More ›

Why is it claimed that the Neanderthals were “not fully human”?

In a Smithsonian Magazine yearender offering seven new things we are thought to have learned about human evolution in 2021, we read: Modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa and eventually made it to every corner of the world. That is not news. However, we are still understanding how and when the earliest human migrations occurred. We also know that our ancestors interacted with other species of humans at the time, including Neanderthals, based on genetic evidence of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans alive today—an average of 1.9 percent in Europeans. Remains of some of the earliest humans in Europe were described this year by multiple teams, except they were not fully human. All three of the earliest Homo sapiens Read More ›

Owen Strachan offers some thoughts on Craig’s book on the historical Adam

Strachan: Every time the “figure of Adam” is “deployed” by NT authors, they are referring to the historical Adam. If you use this admittedly simple reading key, you will save yourself a great deal of confusion and the real possibility of one day investing in one of those “Faith Deconstruction Seminars” that former evangelical personalities now offer for the low, low price of $299. Read More ›

Computer engineers look at design tradeoffs in the human body

Sam Haug: When designing a human being or any incredibly complex system, there are some design trade-offs. You can design a human being to be able to resist the effects of eating hemlock, for example, but the cost for doing that may be large. Read More ›